I have seen this reported in a couple of places in the last two days, and every time it makes my skin crawl. The reporters are all happy to make a joke out of it, and the LUG is too, so maybe I should not get upset. Still, I am proud to be a geek, but I do not consider myself a nerd. The quote that gets me in this article is "The idea is to trade their computer skills to sorority girls in exchange for a makeover and, possibly, a date."
I can see a number of problems with this.
Just because I use Linux does not mean I can't get a date.
Using Linux might make me a geek, but it does not make me a nerd.
Why does the reporter assume the LUG members have the ulterior motive of getting laid?
OK, I'll admit that most men have the ulterior motive of trying to get laid. Still, the tone of every report I have read is, "Look what the nerds will go through in an attempt to get laid." They are propagating a stereotype and no one seems to care.
"How will you top this, Mr. Thompson? Are you gonna shoot the Pope?"
Let's see, according to the article, he included "several graphic images of oral and genital sex between adult males." Maybe he should include several graphic images of oral and genital sex between adult females. I am sure he would get far fewer objections.
"What you're missing is this: Reading The Fucking Article."
Very interesting. I received an obvious phishing attempt in email yesterday pretending to be from eBay. It took me to a site that looked just like the front page of ebay.com with my email already in the login name. Naturally I did not log in, because the URL was not eBay. Still I wonder how many people did give out their account password and if this is the source of the "account take over" that seems to be the source of this information. It amazes me that such obvious attempts are successful, but I know that they are.
It is not 'If this passes.' It is already the law. From the article:
The core wage and hour law, the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, has been on the books since 1938. The New Deal statute, which mandated that a broad swath of the workforce receive 90 minutes' pay for every hour worked beyond 40 in a week, had two goals. One was to reward laborers who put in long hours. But another was to expand employment by making it cheaper for companies to hire additional workers than pay existing ones time and a half. This penalty, Thierman argues, is ineffective today, given the enormous costs of health care and other benefits for each employee. The result, he says, is that businesses prefer to require long hours, and they either pay overtime or not--and hope they don't get caught.
This would not really hit small business that much. The white collar staff in a small business still has"the exercise of discretion and independent judgment." Small businesses need that kind of independent thinking to remain productive. This mainly hits code mills and other high volume "service" industries. These companies are already outsourcing as much business as is profitable.
I've seen lots of companies where unpaid overtime is considered mandatory. I've watched people put in 80 hours a week for months at a time. When I was a consultant, it was expected that you worked all your waking hours. Often times I was also expected to get up at 2:00 AM to be on conference calls to India. Unfortunately that industry is justified in saying that I was expected to use "the exercise of discretion and independent judgment." It is one of the reasons I am not in that industry now, I want to have a life that is separate from my job.
"Problem #1 with arresting someone for wearing a "suspicious" breadboard: Terrorists wouldn't do that."
I am old enough to remember the '70's when the airports all had signs saying that even joking about having a bomb or hijacking a plane could get you arrested. If it had been a real bomb and gone off, everyone saying it is stupid to assume it is a bomb would be saying it was stupid to take a chance that the bomb was a fake. Corollary to Problem #1: The best way to hide a bomb is out in the open where no one would really believe you would be stupid enough to hide a bomb.
"Whittaker has some unfair advantages, as he previously developed a lunar rover for NASA that 'can find concentrations of hydrogen, possibly water and other volatile chemicals on the moon that could be mined to produce fuel, water and air that are essential for supporting lunar outposts.' "
Why is this unfair? Here is the summarized requirements from the Google Lunar X-Prize home page:
COMPETITION GUIDELINES: To win the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a team must successfully land a privately funded craft on the lunar surface and survive long enough to complete the mission goals of roaming about the lunar surface for at least 500 meters and sending a defined data package, called a "Mooncast", back to Earth.
PRIZES: The total purse of the Google Lunar X PRIZE is $30 million (USD).
GRAND PRIZE: A $20 million Grand Prize will be awarded to the team that can soft land a craft on the Moon that roams for at least 500 meters and transmits a Mooncast back to Earth. The Grand Prize is $20M until December 31st 2012; thereafter it will drop to $15M until December 31st 2014 at which point the competition will be terminated unless extended by Google and the X PRIZE Foundation
SECOND PRIZE: A $5 million Second Prize will be offered as well, providing an extra incentive for teams to continue to compete, and increasing the possibility that multiple teams will succeed. Second place will be available until December 31st 2014 at which point the competition will be terminated unless extended by Google and the X PRIZE Foundation
BONUSES: An additional $5 million in bonus prizes can be won by successfully completing additional mission tasks such as roving longer distances (> 5,000 meters), imaging man made artifacts (e.g. Apollo hardware), discovering water ice, and/or surviving through a frigid lunar night (approximately 14.5 Earth days). The competing lunar spacecraft will be equipped with high-definition video and still cameras, and will send images and data to Earth, which the public will be able to view on the Google Lunar X PRIZE website.
MOONCAST: The Mooncast consists of digital data that must be collected and transmitted to the Earth composed of the following:
High resolution 360 panoramic photographs taken on the surface of the Moon;
Self portraits of the rover taken on the surface of the Moon;
Near-real time videos showing the craft's journey along the lunar surface;
High Definition (HD) video;
Transmission of a cached set of data, loaded on the craft before launch (e.g. first email from the Moon).
Teams will be required to send a Mooncast detailing their arrival on the lunar surface, and a second Mooncast that provides imagery and video of their journey roaming the lunar surface. All told, the Mooncasts will represent approximately a Gigabyte of stunning content returned to the Earth.
The complete Google Lunar X PRIZE Competition Guidelines are available in English, the official language of the prize, on the Google Lunar X PRIZE homepage.
It sounds to me like Carnegie Mellon University has the right idea. There are quite a few talented rocket scientists out there. Why not utilize them as a resource?
"Imagine the reduction in social strife that will come the day that all the world's currencies are of equal value."
You know I am not in favor of one world government, or even an "American Union," but a single world currency would put an end to unfair monetary policies.
"So in effect, ISBN's are owned by no one except for the distributing and maintaining body."
That is what I thought when I read this, so I went searching the net. I found the ISBN U.S. Agency which is stewarded by Bowker. I do not see how any book store can own the copyright to the ISBN number when they have no control over it.
"OpenGL 3.0 is due to be released in short order, and it's pretty much a complete redesign of the API."
I am not a programmer but I play one on TV.
So help out a N00b. Is Open GL strictly for graphics, or does it cover other system calls like sound and user IO? What I am getting at here is that most of the times when I see a windows game that also runs on Linux, it uses Open GL. Those that do not use Direct X. Is the problem that the Open GL standard does not include sufficient API's to deliver all the standard calls need to write a game? Is it that other standards like ALSA (I am guessing that is a sound API) do not have windows ports? Why oh why is there nothing out there that allows programmers to write some kind of ANSI coded games that will compile on mutiple operating systems without error or modification?
OK I admit I am ignorant in this area, so please don't call me ignorant, I have already done so myself. It just seems to me that if Microsoft can do it with Direct X, the rest of the world should be able to do it better, more cross compliant, and portable.
"I've been thinking about this for a while now, that there needs to be some group for developing such a protocol."
I'm right there with you. It would be cool to be able to play whatever client I want, and seamlessly move from world to world. Let's hope this takes off and other MMOLRPG's adopt the standard as well as allowing the general public to create their own worlds.
I read (skimmed) the article. I was hoping they were going to build a client / server email engine that could replace MS Exchange, but it does not seem so. Does anyone know of a project trying to replace MS Exchange?
I do not profess to know anything about schedulers or understand any of the details of the current controversy (if controversy it truly is.) I will say this though, quoting the words of someone intimately involved is not proof. I could just as easily say "George Bush says 'We are winning in Iraq.'" Or I could say "Hillary Clinton says, 'My health plan is right for America.'" Either of these statements may or may not be true, but the George and Hillary are not valid 'experts' on whose word to base an opinion. If you want to prove to me that one scheduler choice is better than the other, get a group of uninterested outside experts to comment.
"The only solutions I can think of involve upstream firewalls/proxies/etc to which I gleefully redirected her to her ISPs tech support number."
That is about all I can think of that really works. The other thing I would do is to not actually block anything, but to maintain copious logs and review them regularly. I think it makes more sense to have an open frank discussion with your child than to simply block access. There will always be a loophole to blocked access, but there is no way around a parent who is genuinely interested in their child's welfare.
"Microsoft was late to the game, late to recognize the usefulness or importance of the Internet, attempted on a number of occasions to try to gain control of the Internet as a platform, and has done little or nothing to advance the Internet on its own"
Amen! The first popular browser was Mosaic which ran in x windows on Unix. One of the first web servers was NCSA's HTTPd which also ran under Unix and for a long time was a direct competitor without Apache. Also, GoogleusesLinux. All of these technologies were developed with the need or use of Microsoft or Windows.
"The American ballots are also ten times as long because we don't use proportional representation and therefore get to vote for more than just a political party."
Political parties are a big part of the problem here in the states. The framers of our constitution did not anticipate the rise of political parties, and George Washington spoke against them in his farewell address. The two major parties here in the US have consolidated power and intentionally impeded the ability additional parties to have any influence in elections or legislation.
One good example of this is the current rule on filibustering which has made the process to a simple administrative chore requiring a 60% vote to break. No longer can one man halt all other activity against the will of even his own party and stand for what he knows is right. Another good example is the change to eligibility requirements and governance of the presidential debates. Where previously the League of Women Voters maintained a fair and open debate process, now the Commission on Presidential Debates, an organization controlled by corporate sponsors, has created minimum eligibility requirements that include a 15% share of the popular vote "as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations." This puts the requirements out of the reach of third party candidates who need the national exposure that the debates would give them to garner that much popular support.
The last reference above has a great comment from Alan Keyes that I feel deserves inclusions here.
Regarding the criteria regarding who should be admitted to the Presidential Debates, Keyes said it wasn't a difficult question and shouldn't require too much imagination. Keyes went on to say that one reasonable criteria would be that any Presidential Candidate who qualifies for ballot position in enough states to have the possibility of winning the 270 votes necessary to be elected president - should be included in the debates.
"What we need is a police officer in every household, whose board and food is paid for by the residents, who are under constant supervision with cameras, hidden microphones, and bugs on every line."
It is banned by the third amendment to the US constitution:
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Since we are fighting a war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq, war on terror, and a domestic war on drugs, they have to pass a law first.
I am not sure it is unethical. Unethical would be for the original privacy policy to include a clause stating they could change the policy at will and without new consent. At least they are giving you an chance to opt out.
They are after all providing a free (as in beer) service. It is their right to put whatever requirements they choose upon your use. It is your right to not use the service. Yeah I agree it is a shitty thing to do, but how many sites have changed their privacy policy since you first started using them?
As I read the article, I could not help but hear a Russian accent in my head. Especially on sentences like "Every year ten new minerals are discovered in the Arctic Circle, and one third of all worldwide mineral discoveries are on the Kolsky Peninsula." It has a distinctly cold war era sound to it. So...
"Seriously, why is this such a surprise to everyone?"
I am a natve US citizen, Caucasian male. I worked for Wipro recently, and they are a very good company. They paid me competitive rates to what I would get from a US company, and had excellent benefits. Their US home office is in Sunnyvale California about two blocks from Google. If it wasn't for the fact that I was ready to get out of a job that had me living in airports and hotels, I would still be there today.
Most of what I did was to put an American face on what is basically an Indian company. Any major development was handed off to my counterparts in India where skilled labor is cheaper. I spent an enormous amount of time acting as an interpreter on conference calls for customers who could not understand English with an Indian accent. I also did a lot of requirements gathering because the language barrier made it a painful process for many of our customers. It really was a good job, and if you have the personality that will let you be a good traveling consultant I highly recommended Wipro.
"Everyone should be at least a little familiar with vi. When the fit hits the shan, sometimes it's all you've got to get out of the doo doo."
Amen brother! I do not even look for an alternate editor. I know vi will be there and it will be on my path. Why waste time looking for some other editor that may or may not be installed.
Slashdot Mirror
I can see a number of problems with this.
OK, I'll admit that most men have the ulterior motive of trying to get laid. Still, the tone of every report I have read is, "Look what the nerds will go through in an attempt to get laid." They are propagating a stereotype and no one seems to care.
Let's see, according to the article, he included "several graphic images of oral and genital sex between adult males." Maybe he should include several graphic images of oral and genital sex between adult females. I am sure he would get far fewer objections.
BTW:The definition of obscenity is "whatever gives a judge an erection."
Very interesting. I received an obvious phishing attempt in email yesterday pretending to be from eBay. It took me to a site that looked just like the front page of ebay.com with my email already in the login name. Naturally I did not log in, because the URL was not eBay. Still I wonder how many people did give out their account password and if this is the source of the "account take over" that seems to be the source of this information. It amazes me that such obvious attempts are successful, but I know that they are.
This would not really hit small business that much. The white collar staff in a small business still has"the exercise of discretion and independent judgment." Small businesses need that kind of independent thinking to remain productive. This mainly hits code mills and other high volume "service" industries. These companies are already outsourcing as much business as is profitable.
I've seen lots of companies where unpaid overtime is considered mandatory. I've watched people put in 80 hours a week for months at a time. When I was a consultant, it was expected that you worked all your waking hours. Often times I was also expected to get up at 2:00 AM to be on conference calls to India. Unfortunately that industry is justified in saying that I was expected to use "the exercise of discretion and independent judgment." It is one of the reasons I am not in that industry now, I want to have a life that is separate from my job.
I am old enough to remember the '70's when the airports all had signs saying that even joking about having a bomb or hijacking a plane could get you arrested. If it had been a real bomb and gone off, everyone saying it is stupid to assume it is a bomb would be saying it was stupid to take a chance that the bomb was a fake. Corollary to Problem #1: The best way to hide a bomb is out in the open where no one would really believe you would be stupid enough to hide a bomb.
Why is this unfair? Here is the summarized requirements from the Google Lunar X-Prize home page:
It sounds to me like Carnegie Mellon University has the right idea. There are quite a few talented rocket scientists out there. Why not utilize them as a resource?
You know I am not in favor of one world government, or even an "American Union," but a single world currency would put an end to unfair monetary policies.
That is what I thought when I read this, so I went searching the net. I found the ISBN U.S. Agency which is stewarded by Bowker. I do not see how any book store can own the copyright to the ISBN number when they have no control over it.
I am not a programmer but I play one on TV.
So help out a N00b. Is Open GL strictly for graphics, or does it cover other system calls like sound and user IO? What I am getting at here is that most of the times when I see a windows game that also runs on Linux, it uses Open GL. Those that do not use Direct X. Is the problem that the Open GL standard does not include sufficient API's to deliver all the standard calls need to write a game? Is it that other standards like ALSA (I am guessing that is a sound API) do not have windows ports? Why oh why is there nothing out there that allows programmers to write some kind of ANSI coded games that will compile on mutiple operating systems without error or modification?
OK I admit I am ignorant in this area, so please don't call me ignorant, I have already done so myself. It just seems to me that if Microsoft can do it with Direct X, the rest of the world should be able to do it better, more cross compliant, and portable.
I'm right there with you. It would be cool to be able to play whatever client I want, and seamlessly move from world to world. Let's hope this takes off and other MMOLRPG's adopt the standard as well as allowing the general public to create their own worlds.
I read (skimmed) the article. I was hoping they were going to build a client / server email engine that could replace MS Exchange, but it does not seem so. Does anyone know of a project trying to replace MS Exchange?
I do not profess to know anything about schedulers or understand any of the details of the current controversy (if controversy it truly is.) I will say this though, quoting the words of someone intimately involved is not proof. I could just as easily say "George Bush says 'We are winning in Iraq.'" Or I could say "Hillary Clinton says, 'My health plan is right for America.'" Either of these statements may or may not be true, but the George and Hillary are not valid 'experts' on whose word to base an opinion. If you want to prove to me that one scheduler choice is better than the other, get a group of uninterested outside experts to comment.
Here is the Google cache if anyone is interested.
Maybe they really don't care and this is just a distraction from something they do care about. Now where did I put my tinfoil hat...
That is about all I can think of that really works. The other thing I would do is to not actually block anything, but to maintain copious logs and review them regularly. I think it makes more sense to have an open frank discussion with your child than to simply block access. There will always be a loophole to blocked access, but there is no way around a parent who is genuinely interested in their child's welfare.
Amen! The first popular browser was Mosaic which ran in x windows on Unix. One of the first web servers was NCSA's HTTPd which also ran under Unix and for a long time was a direct competitor without Apache. Also, Google uses Linux. All of these technologies were developed with the need or use of Microsoft or Windows.
Political parties are a big part of the problem here in the states. The framers of our constitution did not anticipate the rise of political parties, and George Washington spoke against them in his farewell address. The two major parties here in the US have consolidated power and intentionally impeded the ability additional parties to have any influence in elections or legislation.
One good example of this is the current rule on filibustering which has made the process to a simple administrative chore requiring a 60% vote to break. No longer can one man halt all other activity against the will of even his own party and stand for what he knows is right. Another good example is the change to eligibility requirements and governance of the presidential debates. Where previously the League of Women Voters maintained a fair and open debate process, now the Commission on Presidential Debates, an organization controlled by corporate sponsors, has created minimum eligibility requirements that include a 15% share of the popular vote "as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations." This puts the requirements out of the reach of third party candidates who need the national exposure that the debates would give them to garner that much popular support.
The last reference above has a great comment from Alan Keyes that I feel deserves inclusions here.
It is banned by the third amendment to the US constitution:
Since we are fighting a war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq, war on terror, and a domestic war on drugs, they have to pass a law first.
YES!
I am not sure it is unethical. Unethical would be for the original privacy policy to include a clause stating they could change the policy at will and without new consent. At least they are giving you an chance to opt out.
They are after all providing a free (as in beer) service. It is their right to put whatever requirements they choose upon your use. It is your right to not use the service. Yeah I agree it is a shitty thing to do, but how many sites have changed their privacy policy since you first started using them?
In Russia radiation absorbs minerals from you!
I am a natve US citizen, Caucasian male. I worked for Wipro recently, and they are a very good company. They paid me competitive rates to what I would get from a US company, and had excellent benefits. Their US home office is in Sunnyvale California about two blocks from Google. If it wasn't for the fact that I was ready to get out of a job that had me living in airports and hotels, I would still be there today.
Most of what I did was to put an American face on what is basically an Indian company. Any major development was handed off to my counterparts in India where skilled labor is cheaper. I spent an enormous amount of time acting as an interpreter on conference calls for customers who could not understand English with an Indian accent. I also did a lot of requirements gathering because the language barrier made it a painful process for many of our customers. It really was a good job, and if you have the personality that will let you be a good traveling consultant I highly recommended Wipro.
A boot loader with a CLI that can be installed and run from a 720k floppy. You just got to love it!
Amen brother! I do not even look for an alternate editor. I know vi will be there and it will be on my path. Why waste time looking for some other editor that may or may not be installed.
In other words, "How secure are we that we won't get caught, and how much political influence will it cost us if we are."