Judging from the fact that they didn't even *name* the graduate student whose work was so important to them that they just had to take it apart and use it, I'd say they probably didn't compensate him at all.
I've known a number of PhD's and while some of them were very cool and worked with the other people in the building, there have been more than a few who thought that their work was the most important thing in the world and that it didn't matter what they did to get where they were going.
I'll let you guess what my opinion of the second of those groups is.
Re:Changes over time?
on
MacGyver Physics
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Actually it's a matter of ethics. If you can't expect someone to do something properly on the small scale, how can you trust them to do the right thing on a large scale?
Them destroying the ongoing work of another person just to save themselves a little bit of work shows a supreme lack of not only ethics but of decency.
Science is more than just a result on a data sheet. It's also the path you take to get there (if you decide it is proper to go there at all).
Re:They used a student's experiment
on
MacGyver Physics
·
· Score: 1
I posted something similar above.
All I can say to suppliment my previous statement is that if the scientists don't have the ethics to not destroy someone else's work in order to further themselves, how can we trust them to be ethical with the really big stuff?
The old Ian Malcom quote from Jurassic Park comes to mind - "Your scientists were so busy seeing whether or not they could, they never stopped to think if they *should*."
Re:Changes over time?
on
MacGyver Physics
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The thing about their story that got me was the fact that they decided they absolutely had to do this *right now* at 2am just to satisfy their own curiosity and were so self-absorbed that they killed the work a grad student had done in that particular lab in order to cannibalize his experiments so they didn't have to build everything themselves.
I'm sorry. That's not the mark of great scientists. That's the mark of self-important assholes despite the outcome.
As an alumni, I'm rather disgusted that my alma mater is rolling over on this. The students do indeed pay every quarter for legal services (and at $8 per quarter, it's well worth it) and the univeristy should be questioning the charges instead of giving them the student, no questions asked.
As for protecting the student directory information, they actually have all of that available online (which is nice if you're looking for someone that you used to go to school with because a lot of us keep at least our email contact info updated).
I know you only cut and pasted. The editors are indeed to blame, but so is the submitter. One of the sites linked in the article appears to be his and it makes the same bloody error, so in effect, the person who submitted the story didn't read any of the freaking real news stories either.
In a greatly ironic and humorous twist of fate, apparently either the editors knew what he was talking about and didn't do any actual editing or slashcode automates a whole lot (and does it well) because all of the related stories are about Ohio University:P
I don't know how they get Univeristy of Ohio out of this. I've never heard *anyone* call it "Univeristy of Ohio" before (I went there and grew up in the general area).
The funny thing is that we can blame this one not only on the editors but also on the story submitter who apparently didn't read the actual news stories himself (and calls it "Univerity of Ohio" in his own site which, by the way, he uses as one of the links in his story).:P
I believe you misunderstood him. What he was saying is that, compared to the profit they were making per machine before, they have lost money even though they're still making a profit (say, for example, making only $1 on each unit instead of $2). However, they make up for the smaller profits per unit by the sheer number of sales.
By the way, Huffy (bicycle maker) went bankrupt because they kept trying to meet walmart's demands for constantly lower product cost.
My list of use for alkaline batteries is roughly remotes, my mini maglites (I keep one in the house, one in the car, and one in my messenger bag), my ColdHeat soldering iron, and my digital camera.
Like you, pretty much all the rest of my battery powered stuff is rechargable.
Even short stacked, unless they're going heads up or get stuck being the blind, a good poker player will generally wait until they have two decent cards.
I probably have greater than average testosterone if physical signs are any indication. I'll also admit that I used to be hot-headed and felt the need to be in control of everything as a young teenager.
Now I tend to be a lot more laid back and deal with things at the appropriate time. However, it has been learned by some people that it's more a case of an iron fist in a velvet glove if you decide to try and push me in directions that you shouldn't.
I can be downright intimidating (and for good reason) if I want/need to. Heck, I get told far too often that I look like a merc. However, anymore I prefer to be calm and relaxed, only letting the ugly side of myself out in a controlled manner when necessary.
A lot of the change probably has to do with life experience in my case. I've found that being in charge in a lot of the situations I've been thrust into is usually a job for a cool head rather than a hot temper.
Party lines were lines on which multiple houses were on the same phone line.
They were common in rural areas until the mid to late 80's even though most towns and cities had moved away from them long before then (which kind of puts them in the same league as telephone company-owned phones).
I remember the farm my family owns still being on a party line when I was visiting my grandmother there as a kid (and I'm under 30). I was very glad when the phone company changed all of that - the other woman on that line was a pain in the rear and yelled at you whenever you needed to make a call.
I've had that discussion too. Our tagline ended up being "Guns don't kill people. Swords do. (Unless you're James and then you don't need weapons)"
Standard conversations on that topic usually went something like the following: "Guns kill people" "No, people kill other people. Guns are just a tool. I could probably kill every person in this room before any of you could get out." "Yeah, but see you'd need a weapon to kill us and you don't have one" "Um... I hate to break it to you, but I *am* a weapon... and so is everything else in this room" *uncomfortable look*
I always thought it was amusing when some of my profs would ask me what my body count was over the weekend. I'd invariably get really freaked out looks from at least a few people in the room.
(It should be noted that I taught fencing in college) =]
I agree that the current psychological bent of the average workplace is screwed up (and sadly, this seems to be average).
An incident when I was working at a non-profit as an admin comes to mind. I was bringing a new computer to one of the desks in a shared office. I pulled out my pocket knife to open the box, and the woman who was standing nearby went and complained to my boss that she felt threatened that I had a knife.
The really sad part is that he tried to have a talk with me about it *shakes head*
There are times I am amazed that *I* wasn't expelled from school after those sorts of stories started being televised heavily.
It was pretty well known that I had both trained in martial arts for years and had a sizeable collection of swords and other weapons (which sort of goes hand in hand with the martial training).
I generally have the same opinion of Radio Shack now that you do. However, for some odd reason, the one in the town where I currently am actually has all of the fun stuff along a couple of walls.
I was amazed. Then again, it was also the only place in this town that I could find a Cold Heat soldering iron.
The right to bear arms shall not be infringed because the assumption was that normal people would be part of that militia. The existence of a professional military would have eliminated the need for the militia, and along with it, the right to bear arms freely.
I disagree. The professional military is controlled by the federal government. Militias are controlled by the states.
Should, for some reason (say another civil war), the national government decide to turn on some of its states or former states, you'd be very glad that your state still had its own militia to help defend its boarders.
The National Guard units, for example, are militias and exists for the defense of their home state and to aid in emergency situations in that state (unless they are called upon by the federal government to lend assistance in another area, and I believe there are rather strict regulations on how that has to be done)
To use a couple of old, and, in my personal opinion, very true quotes: "An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject. " - Unknown and "Those who would willingly trade essential liberty for temporary security are deserving of neither." - Benjamin Franklin
The ability to defend oneself is an essential liberty.
Slashdot Mirror
Judging from the fact that they didn't even *name* the graduate student whose work was so important to them that they just had to take it apart and use it, I'd say they probably didn't compensate him at all.
I've known a number of PhD's and while some of them were very cool and worked with the other people in the building, there have been more than a few who thought that their work was the most important thing in the world and that it didn't matter what they did to get where they were going.
I'll let you guess what my opinion of the second of those groups is.
Actually it's a matter of ethics. If you can't expect someone to do something properly on the small scale, how can you trust them to do the right thing on a large scale?
Them destroying the ongoing work of another person just to save themselves a little bit of work shows a supreme lack of not only ethics but of decency.
Science is more than just a result on a data sheet. It's also the path you take to get there (if you decide it is proper to go there at all).
I posted something similar above.
All I can say to suppliment my previous statement is that if the scientists don't have the ethics to not destroy someone else's work in order to further themselves, how can we trust them to be ethical with the really big stuff?
The old Ian Malcom quote from Jurassic Park comes to mind - "Your scientists were so busy seeing whether or not they could, they never stopped to think if they *should*."
The thing about their story that got me was the fact that they decided they absolutely had to do this *right now* at 2am just to satisfy their own curiosity and were so self-absorbed that they killed the work a grad student had done in that particular lab in order to cannibalize his experiments so they didn't have to build everything themselves.
I'm sorry. That's not the mark of great scientists. That's the mark of self-important assholes despite the outcome.
As an alumni, I'm rather disgusted that my alma mater is rolling over on this. The students do indeed pay every quarter for legal services (and at $8 per quarter, it's well worth it) and the univeristy should be questioning the charges instead of giving them the student, no questions asked.
As for protecting the student directory information, they actually have all of that available online (which is nice if you're looking for someone that you used to go to school with because a lot of us keep at least our email contact info updated).
I know you only cut and pasted. The editors are indeed to blame, but so is the submitter. One of the sites linked in the article appears to be his and it makes the same bloody error, so in effect, the person who submitted the story didn't read any of the freaking real news stories either.
:P
In a greatly ironic and humorous twist of fate, apparently either the editors knew what he was talking about and didn't do any actual editing or slashcode automates a whole lot (and does it well) because all of the related stories are about Ohio University
I don't know how they get Univeristy of Ohio out of this. I've never heard *anyone* call it "Univeristy of Ohio" before (I went there and grew up in the general area).
:P
The funny thing is that we can blame this one not only on the editors but also on the story submitter who apparently didn't read the actual news stories himself (and calls it "Univerity of Ohio" in his own site which, by the way, he uses as one of the links in his story).
In other news, it's not the Univeristy of Ohio. It's Ohio University.
I believe you misunderstood him. What he was saying is that, compared to the profit they were making per machine before, they have lost money even though they're still making a profit (say, for example, making only $1 on each unit instead of $2). However, they make up for the smaller profits per unit by the sheer number of sales.
By the way, Huffy (bicycle maker) went bankrupt because they kept trying to meet walmart's demands for constantly lower product cost.
something kind of like this?
DX1 Input System
My list of use for alkaline batteries is roughly remotes, my mini maglites (I keep one in the house, one in the car, and one in my messenger bag), my ColdHeat soldering iron, and my digital camera.
Like you, pretty much all the rest of my battery powered stuff is rechargable.
Nothing like this has ever been seen or experienced by mankind before. It is truly revolutionary.
Not quite true. While it is revolutionary, I'd count the advent of inexpensive, mass produced books via the printing press to be similar.
Even short stacked, unless they're going heads up or get stuck being the blind, a good poker player will generally wait until they have two decent cards.
I probably have greater than average testosterone if physical signs are any indication. I'll also admit that I used to be hot-headed and felt the need to be in control of everything as a young teenager.
Now I tend to be a lot more laid back and deal with things at the appropriate time. However, it has been learned by some people that it's more a case of an iron fist in a velvet glove if you decide to try and push me in directions that you shouldn't.
I can be downright intimidating (and for good reason) if I want/need to. Heck, I get told far too often that I look like a merc. However, anymore I prefer to be calm and relaxed, only letting the ugly side of myself out in a controlled manner when necessary.
A lot of the change probably has to do with life experience in my case. I've found that being in charge in a lot of the situations I've been thrust into is usually a job for a cool head rather than a hot temper.
In addition to trolls and building contractors, it can also explain certain managers, certain HR people, the jerk on the freeway...
The list goes on and on
Party lines were lines on which multiple houses were on the same phone line.
They were common in rural areas until the mid to late 80's even though most towns and cities had moved away from them long before then (which kind of puts them in the same league as telephone company-owned phones).
I remember the farm my family owns still being on a party line when I was visiting my grandmother there as a kid (and I'm under 30). I was very glad when the phone company changed all of that - the other woman on that line was a pain in the rear and yelled at you whenever you needed to make a call.
I can agree with that.
I'm a very level-headed, even-handed person and I have fired clients who started down the abusive path.
I just don't do toxic relationships. They cause a lot more harm than good.
Glad you enjoy St Louis. It's a nice town. I miss it sometimes.
I was also fond of the various stuff in Forest Park (the museums, the zoo, etc), and I have to agree that summer there sucks outside. AC is a must.
Have a soda at Fitz's for me.
The question that comes to my mind is how are they defining "employee" for the 350,000 people in the company figure?
Are they talking just full-time people or contractors? My guess is that they're only counting full-timers.
If they include contractors in the number of people IBM employs, I have no problem believing this "hogwash" figure.
I've had that discussion too. Our tagline ended up being "Guns don't kill people. Swords do. (Unless you're James and then you don't need weapons)"
Standard conversations on that topic usually went something like the following:
"Guns kill people"
"No, people kill other people. Guns are just a tool. I could probably kill every person in this room before any of you could get out."
"Yeah, but see you'd need a weapon to kill us and you don't have one"
"Um... I hate to break it to you, but I *am* a weapon... and so is everything else in this room"
*uncomfortable look*
I always thought it was amusing when some of my profs would ask me what my body count was over the weekend. I'd invariably get really freaked out looks from at least a few people in the room.
(It should be noted that I taught fencing in college) =]
I agree that the current psychological bent of the average workplace is screwed up (and sadly, this seems to be average).
An incident when I was working at a non-profit as an admin comes to mind. I was bringing a new computer to one of the desks in a shared office. I pulled out my pocket knife to open the box, and the woman who was standing nearby went and complained to my boss that she felt threatened that I had a knife.
The really sad part is that he tried to have a talk with me about it *shakes head*
There are times I am amazed that *I* wasn't expelled from school after those sorts of stories started being televised heavily.
It was pretty well known that I had both trained in martial arts for years and had a sizeable collection of swords and other weapons (which sort of goes hand in hand with the martial training).
I generally have the same opinion of Radio Shack now that you do. However, for some odd reason, the one in the town where I currently am actually has all of the fun stuff along a couple of walls.
I was amazed. Then again, it was also the only place in this town that I could find a Cold Heat soldering iron.
The right to bear arms shall not be infringed because the assumption was that normal people would be part of that militia. The existence of a professional military would have eliminated the need for the militia, and along with it, the right to bear arms freely.
I disagree. The professional military is controlled by the federal government. Militias are controlled by the states.
Should, for some reason (say another civil war), the national government decide to turn on some of its states or former states, you'd be very glad that your state still had its own militia to help defend its boarders.
The National Guard units, for example, are militias and exists for the defense of their home state and to aid in emergency situations in that state (unless they are called upon by the federal government to lend assistance in another area, and I believe there are rather strict regulations on how that has to be done)
To use a couple of old, and, in my personal opinion, very true quotes:
"An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject. " - Unknown
and
"Those who would willingly trade essential liberty for temporary security are deserving of neither." - Benjamin Franklin
The ability to defend oneself is an essential liberty.