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But if you arrive at the same result with your software, and have not consulted the patent, are you OK then?
No. A patent is a (time limited) monopoly granted to the "inventor", with all that implies. Ignorance of the existance of a patent is no excuse, legally speaking.
WN: Some critics have called you the purveyor of the most sweeping curtailment of freedom since the McCarthy era. Is that an exaggeration?
Dinh: I think it is very easy to employ sweeping rhetoric and personal denunciations. I think it is much harder to back it up with facts and concrete examples. [...]
And it is much harder still to back up any sort of reasonable discussion up with facts and concrete examples when the people defending the act in question also have discretion over the facts and concrete examples that are released for public review.
But please show me the same courtesy as I've shown the original poster by responding to my comments in a rational manner without resorting to snide remarks just because you don't like what my I have to say.
I apologize if you took offense to my use of the word 'rant'. Please consider it used as a somewhat colloquial generic identifier akin to 'missive', rather than the bad-breathed-bum-under-the-bridge shouting at god identifier you appear to have taken it as.
I believe everything else I said falls under the 'rational manner' standard you're looking for.
And it isn't so much about not liking what you say as pointing out arguments that defend their conclusions by assuming them.
And, finally, why you would be surprised that the editor of a publication called Windows Sources would "push for exclusive coverage of Windows NT for business users" is a mystery to me - would it make more sense to you to devote large chunks of coverage to other OSes in a magazine that's devoted purely to Windows? I guess you'll be demanding that Apple magazines now cover Linux too.
No, that isn't the point, and it this is bordering on strawman argumentation.
Of course you would expect such behavior from someone in that place. That, in fact, is exactly the point. Given such an investment in the past, looking at that in light of current behavior is simply sensible.
This is no different than considering a politician's background then looking at what they're currently peddling.
I'll leave it as to others to think about this in context with the rest of your ZD rant, and only say this. Suppose you're covering the local farming industry, and in order to survive as a company, you have to keep the Big Local Farmer happy. That's fine, but if people doubt your integrity when covering that particular farmer, I don't believe you have any legitimate complaint.
That, of course, is the issue, and what elevates this post (in my mind, at least) above an ad. You don't seem to want someone who can build you a particular widget, you seem to want a partner that will assume some of the risk of launching a venture. And that is a very, very different thing. Craig's List is full of crap from people who have a great idea... "all we need is all of that other stuff, and a website, and we'll be rich. Wanna do the website?"
My advice: "unask the question". You really seem to want a partner. You're concerned with managing timing, cost-overruns, etc., and clearly don't have the finances to build a company to keep that in house. So, you need to sell your idea to someone who does have the resources and ability to share the risk. Think of this as low-end VC. How does one get (low end) VC? Go sell it to people.
Like I said, if you want code in exchange for money, sure, we'll give you whatever you want, it will be priced fairly, delivered on time, and be generally well done. You can get this from a lot of places (although I must say we provide nice perks for using us, and we write *excellent* code.). If this is your angle, lots of people can give you what you want, and analysing who is best to provide it is a business decision. Weigh cost vs. expected outcome, based on the history of the vendor. Ask for references. When you pick someone, stay on top of the process while it is going on, and don't be afraid of calling bullshit when you see it. Also, don't call bullshit when something isn't. Make sure that changes don't derail the project.
Of course, I would probably argue that Perl cannot solve "large problems" after creating 100k+ line Perl applications. The problem lies that the reason languages like Perl is good for quick and dirty hacks is just the reason they are not that good for large systems that needs to be maintained over longer periods of time with many developers involved.
You can argue that. Then there are those of us who continue to write 100K+ lines of code for serious applications in perl. For a reason.
Because of your post, I just did a line count. The core of the app I'm writing is about 165K lines. That's not counting the XS written to do a couple of things a little faster, CPAN (which I'm depending on heavily), or the database-level code, of which there is a lot (plpgsql triggers as well as C functions).
The really cool thing about perl is that it can do anything. The reason why people bash it is that it can do anything.
I wonder about people who claim perl is unmaintainable in large projects. See,my current favorite gripe is code written by others, that happens to be in Java, and the weird crap that has been done in some cases makes my eyes bleed. Troubleshooting stuff like walking through 9 different classes, guessing the runtime stack to figure out what a "factory" is doing, digging though a few more classes, and finding something that increments a value, wraps it in XML *incorrectly*, and returns it is... entertaining. Then, of course, doing the same thing on the calling method to find that it tries to unpack the XML and use the value in a different calculation that has silly fencepost errors... I'm not making this up. "Enterprise application development environment" means "crap we can't share with the world, because they'd laugh". People attack perl because, say, a line like "$var =~ s/^(?:\w+):\s(.*)/$1/si" looks dense, but when you compare that with implementations in other languages doing the same thing, lord, life is so much better in perl.
I think something that inherently dooms self-desctructing media and related technologies is the psychological factors involved. While it is true that something like this, priced at the same price as rentals, would be effectively superior by eliminating the return process, people are likely to still have a problem with this idea. This is because, given the choice of a three dollar self-destructing disc and a $20 non-self destructing disc, people notice that the marginal cost of production is the same (or perhaps higher for self destructing discs - I'm sure there's a patent fee in there somewhere). Since the marginal cost of production is the same, there is a natural instinct to feel cheated by the cheaper self-desctructing format.
To make the mental process going on here more obvious, imagine a world in which it were economic and possible to make rental cars that, when the rental period was up, gently kicked the passenger out and burnt itself to a cinder. People would likely feel cheated, rightly noting that the costs to the rental company of extending the use of the car for a longer time is zero. Contrast that to a real-world where people must return cars, and it makes intuitive sense that when they have the car, other's can't, so there is a cost associated to the company.
This is a situation where providing additional benefits to an existing situation feels worse, because the innovation that allows the benefit to be provided also makes obvious the fact that additional benefits could be extended, and are intentionally being witheld in order to maximize profit.
You don't need the normal school track to become an MD. My mother just became one, in her spare time. Granted, that spare time was spread over many years, and she's be studying heavily most of her life, because she's interested. She's now a GP.
Guess what? She tinkered with her knowledge, became a midwife, explored a lot of different areas where she could legally do what she was interested in doing. Sounds an awful lot like non-degree compsci people, no?
The normal path isn't required to become a doctor any more than it is to become a software whatever-the-hell this guy wants to be. It is considerably harder in medicine, due to guild behavior, but I'm sure we'll see that develop in compsci over time as well, as it is becoming as vital as medicine to our economy.
I wonder if you're confusing "insulting" with "threatening."
I wonder if you're assuming MDs are divinity when they're not.
They care about the bottom line, and saying "I fucked up" in any situation in which that is NOT dreadfully obvious already is a BAD idea.
I've worked in places like that, but I don't any longer. Companies that behave that way are pissing away the best resource they have - honest, mostly useful employees.
Sure, admission of a screwup isn't good if all you do is screw up, but having a team of people willing to make mistakes, learn from them, and improve is what makes a business great. I had something close to this for a while, and we made great stuff.
I don't mind that companies act this way, really. Gives companies like mine a chance...
Your ridiculous argument hinges on the idea that everyone uses hand scanners, everywhere, and that they are tied into a central system to track everyone.
No, actually, it doesn't.
I don't think it is a stretch to say that over the next 10-15 years, most timeclocks sold will be biometric-based. From the employer's perspective, it is an improved technology, and so will be more appealing. So, people who clock in for work will, over time, be doing so with biometrics with increasing numbers.
This data will be retained for at least some period of time. Managers will want to look for patterns. I don't think anyone will doubt this.
You say don't mention the PATRIOT act. One doesn't have to - the retained data on the comings and goings of people will be there, ready to be supoenaed by law enforcement and divorce lawyers alike.
Also sitting there waiting for access is the plethora of public and private cameras, all happily recording away, that can be had in the same fashion, or easier.
Data doesn't have to be centralized to be used.
And this is before you start thinking about all the other interesting things employers can do with a database of fingerprints. Anyone going to work in a place using these should read the employment contract carefully, looking at exactly what the employer is allowed to do with the data. It wouldn't surprise me in the least, for instance, if the big three credit reporting agencies start adding biometrics to credit profiles. Banks already ask for a thumb print on checks in some circumstances; they'd be more than happy to extend this a step and be able to verify that thumbprint against a credit profile to reduce check fraud.
That credit profile example is only one thought I came up with for illustrative purposes, but the more I think about it, I'm pretty sure that will happen soon. I'm sure there will more interesting (ab)uses of this data, as well.
Re:Yes, but measuring webserver market share is ha
on
2003: Year of Apache
·
· Score: 1
Just about every other web server has that too, but they don't make you run a bunch of command line config crap and recompile like Apache does, so it's not as k3wl.
Troll, or clueless, I'm not sure which. Never heard of a DSO? Oh, wait, you sound like one of those types that can only deal with pointy-clicky things, so I doubt you have. Who cares if a product is crap, it comes with a wizard!
As far as "command line config crap", I suppose if turning
is too much for you, then perhaps it is best that you stick with the pointy-clicky stuff. Beats me what you'd actually do with a web server in that case, though.
What other features can we gush about? Oh my god, it serves HTTP too? That's awesome! Can it talk to the filesystem and actually keep a log of the HTTP accesses, though? That would be really amazing.
Christ, what a little snot. If you have anything to say that doesn't include preadolescent sarcasm that doesn't even apply to the conversation at hand, come on back. Until then, why not just go run along and play, hmm?
Re:Yes, but measuring webserver market share is ha
on
2003: Year of Apache
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
But I distrust software monocultures, and I fear Apache's heading that way.
That's one of the nice things about Apache. Running Apache doesn't mean running the same Apache that someone else does. mod_perl, Jakarta, mod_php, mod_whatever are all competing with each other. Apache is essentially a platform, not just a server.
I install it everywhere I can (I probably account for more than 2% of these numbers)!
So YOU'RE the one responsible for all that crap I have to clean up. Bastard! I challenge you to a duel!
Seriously, though, it isn't that I hate tomcat, its that I hate what people do with it. I see more obscenely bizzare setups running under tomcat than any other application server (even IIS). Maybe I'm just cursed. I currently have three clients with tomcat based apps that are so strange they make my ears bleed. (I seem to pick up a lot of clients that spent a lot of money on developers who suddenly go away right around deployment. Profitable, but annoying.) These are classic stupid design choices that make absurd contortions nessessary later on. It isn't that Tomcat requires these designs, but it does seem to somehow attract the people who make them.
If everyone would just accept Mason as the Uber-app, life would be better. One can still do fucked up things in Mason, if you really want to, but it is much easier to un-fuck later on.
I see a lot of people asserting various viewpoints that mostly amount to (Sorry if I shorted yours - I'm going for a simplication here): "Feeding my family is ethically a greater good than supporting an evil employer".
I absolutely agree - let me say that up front. Given a such a choice, I would feed my family first.
Ethics, however, is a deeper topic than either/or in a given situation. While it is true that companies go bad (like SCO), this is somewhat rare, I think. At least, most of the companies I've worked with both as a consultant and as an employee (more than 100, easily) rarely was much more than disingenuous on the edge cases. When they were more than that, I was among many that pitched the argument in the other direction.
Truly nasty companies are easy to spot: they target a market that has a weakness they think they can exploit. SCO (at least publically) thinks it can use legal attacks against Linix; Telemarketers attempt to exploit old people; credit councillor companies prey on those in debt. Most (not all, but most) reasonable companies realize they are part of a chain of commerce. Think about how your company fits into that chain.
I believe evil employers are rare. Should you find yourself in bed with one, leave. Worse, should you be employed by one, leave quickly!
I must say, I'd be very hesitant to hire someone who tolerated, say, Enron or SCO's behavior. I've been the part of some creepy deals, and when they crossed the line, I stopped taking part. I've been involved with startups that wanted to "grow" though non-standard methods, and I have refused to take part. What "the line" is varies for various people, but one bright line is what gets reported in the news. On a personal basis, I've missed out on some things because I wouldn't be dishonest. And that's not only OK, but very important to me. Because that's important to me, someone who facillitated massive fraud would at the very least be subject to a good, hard look. At least until the EEOC comes down with the No White Collar Criminal Left Behind recomendation.
I suppose I can only say that if you find yourself at an ethically challenged company now, with constraints (family, debt, whatever) that don't give you much room, the single best thing you can do for yourself is to find a local company that can use your skills, think about how you can add value to their company, and go talk to them about your situation, and how you can help their situation. Odds are many will turn you down, but you will find a job with a company that doesn't fuck people over, and still be able to feed your family. And remember, for every company that turns you down, you're learning a lot by thinking seriously about the business they do.
Canadian courts need to recognize that free speech means that things you don't like might be said, and that's OK.
Before anyone gets excited about a USian attacking Canada, the U.S. isn't doing any better, and that bugs me, too.
Full Disclosure: I used to work (volunteer) on a magazine who had issues banned by Canada. Thank Gloria Steinem for keeping Canada free from the filth I spew.
I am not a KDE or an OSX developer. (Well, I do some OSX administration, and port our apps to the platform. But that isn't the same thing.)
I'd say that covering platforms is important, because when someone says, but do you suppot Blah, you can answer that yes, indeed, you do.
Keep in mind that short term tactics are great, but strategy is what frequently offers tactical brilliance a place to shine.
If KDE is everywhere, people will start to use it. That's useful. for KDE. See? Think companies, down the road.
-j, who really can't stand such heavyweight stuff.
A simple method, when sourcing products that are difficult to verify, is to demand a contract that is extremely punitive in the event of failure. This works well when combined with random auditing.
So, in this case, if for some (non-apparent, to me, at least) reason we really, really need paperless voting, the proper framework would look (as an extremely naive first pass) like this -
Potential vendors are made aware that some unknown number of elections, districts, machines, and people would be audited via unknown means.
Potential vendors would be forced to put up a large bond that would be forfeit if a flaw was found that compromised the voting record. (Yes, I mean the whole record - these are infallible counting machines, right? Operator error would be a contractual issue to hash out.)
Any dispute between government purchasers and vendors would be decided via arbitration in full and complete view of the public which is employing the machines, no exceptions.
Anyone who wished to vend would be welcome to.
I will bet you there will be takers. I know I'd be excited to at least have a shot at this.
See, there's this notion you seem to have that I, as a smoker, am somehow a member of the Secret Brotherhood of International Smoking Initiates, or something, and therefore am both responsible for the behaviour of other smokers as well as capable of influencing their behaviour.
Both assumptions are of course completely and utterly silly.
If you disagree that these assumptions are silly, then get back to me with your success rate at convincing all your fellow Canadians to speak English.
I can deal with the problem of assholes not being able to help themselves quit their filthy discusting behaviour, but how about the more sociopathic problem that seems to plague the better part of them, therefore society as a while?
Ever notice what happens when a whiner opens their mouth? The first thing out of it is a bitch session about how someone else is screwing up their life. Once the stop frothing at the mouth about that, they have to start rebutting others. Then, they whine about getting modded down on Slashdot. In other words, whiners are some of the most sociopathic assholes on the planet! Ever have a look at the social habits of whiners? They empty a bar in no time. They don't need to go out because everyone hates them already, but they do anyway, just to make others unhappy.
Fucking assholes! These people don't need a vaccine to deal with their whining problem. They need a simple boot in the ass, or several hundred as the case may be, to teach them a much needed lesson about simple politeness and courtesy! All before getting into the usual controversies about what impact whining has on the economy, or how it kills kittens.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you get paid for this?
No. A patent is a (time limited) monopoly granted to the "inventor", with all that implies. Ignorance of the existance of a patent is no excuse, legally speaking.
Dinh: I think it is very easy to employ sweeping rhetoric and personal denunciations. I think it is much harder to back it up with facts and concrete examples. [...]
And it is much harder still to back up any sort of reasonable discussion up with facts and concrete examples when the people defending the act in question also have discretion over the facts and concrete examples that are released for public review.
I apologize if you took offense to my use of the word 'rant'. Please consider it used as a somewhat colloquial generic identifier akin to 'missive', rather than the bad-breathed-bum-under-the-bridge shouting at god identifier you appear to have taken it as.
I believe everything else I said falls under the 'rational manner' standard you're looking for.
And it isn't so much about not liking what you say as pointing out arguments that defend their conclusions by assuming them.
No, that isn't the point, and it this is bordering on strawman argumentation.
Of course you would expect such behavior from someone in that place. That, in fact, is exactly the point. Given such an investment in the past, looking at that in light of current behavior is simply sensible.
This is no different than considering a politician's background then looking at what they're currently peddling.
I'll leave it as to others to think about this in context with the rest of your ZD rant, and only say this. Suppose you're covering the local farming industry, and in order to survive as a company, you have to keep the Big Local Farmer happy. That's fine, but if people doubt your integrity when covering that particular farmer, I don't believe you have any legitimate complaint.
I try hard not to be a self-promoting bastard.
That, of course, is the issue, and what elevates this post (in my mind, at least) above an ad. You don't seem to want someone who can build you a particular widget, you seem to want a partner that will assume some of the risk of launching a venture. And that is a very, very different thing. Craig's List is full of crap from people who have a great idea... "all we need is all of that other stuff, and a website, and we'll be rich. Wanna do the website?"
My advice: "unask the question". You really seem to want a partner. You're concerned with managing timing, cost-overruns, etc., and clearly don't have the finances to build a company to keep that in house. So, you need to sell your idea to someone who does have the resources and ability to share the risk. Think of this as low-end VC. How does one get (low end) VC? Go sell it to people.
Like I said, if you want code in exchange for money, sure, we'll give you whatever you want, it will be priced fairly, delivered on time, and be generally well done. You can get this from a lot of places (although I must say we provide nice perks for using us, and we write *excellent* code.). If this is your angle, lots of people can give you what you want, and analysing who is best to provide it is a business decision. Weigh cost vs. expected outcome, based on the history of the vendor. Ask for references. When you pick someone, stay on top of the process while it is going on, and don't be afraid of calling bullshit when you see it. Also, don't call bullshit when something isn't. Make sure that changes don't derail the project.
Simple, right?
There's the problem.
You can argue that. Then there are those of us who continue to write 100K+ lines of code for serious applications in perl. For a reason.
Because of your post, I just did a line count. The core of the app I'm writing is about 165K lines. That's not counting the XS written to do a couple of things a little faster, CPAN (which I'm depending on heavily), or the database-level code, of which there is a lot (plpgsql triggers as well as C functions).
The really cool thing about perl is that it can do anything. The reason why people bash it is that it can do anything.
I wonder about people who claim perl is unmaintainable in large projects. See,my current favorite gripe is code written by others, that happens to be in Java, and the weird crap that has been done in some cases makes my eyes bleed. Troubleshooting stuff like walking through 9 different classes, guessing the runtime stack to figure out what a "factory" is doing, digging though a few more classes, and finding something that increments a value, wraps it in XML *incorrectly*, and returns it is... entertaining. Then, of course, doing the same thing on the calling method to find that it tries to unpack the XML and use the value in a different calculation that has silly fencepost errors... I'm not making this up. "Enterprise application development environment" means "crap we can't share with the world, because they'd laugh". People attack perl because, say, a line like "$var =~ s/^(?:\w+):\s(.*)/$1/si" looks dense, but when you compare that with implementations in other languages doing the same thing, lord, life is so much better in perl.
Wait, on second thought, please don't answer that.
To make the mental process going on here more obvious, imagine a world in which it were economic and possible to make rental cars that, when the rental period was up, gently kicked the passenger out and burnt itself to a cinder. People would likely feel cheated, rightly noting that the costs to the rental company of extending the use of the car for a longer time is zero. Contrast that to a real-world where people must return cars, and it makes intuitive sense that when they have the car, other's can't, so there is a cost associated to the company.
This is a situation where providing additional benefits to an existing situation feels worse, because the innovation that allows the benefit to be provided also makes obvious the fact that additional benefits could be extended, and are intentionally being witheld in order to maximize profit.
Guess what? She tinkered with her knowledge, became a midwife, explored a lot of different areas where she could legally do what she was interested in doing. Sounds an awful lot like non-degree compsci people, no?
The normal path isn't required to become a doctor any more than it is to become a software whatever-the-hell this guy wants to be. It is considerably harder in medicine, due to guild behavior, but I'm sure we'll see that develop in compsci over time as well, as it is becoming as vital as medicine to our economy.
I wonder if you're confusing "insulting" with "threatening."
I wonder if you're assuming MDs are divinity when they're not.
I've worked in places like that, but I don't any longer. Companies that behave that way are pissing away the best resource they have - honest, mostly useful employees.
Sure, admission of a screwup isn't good if all you do is screw up, but having a team of people willing to make mistakes, learn from them, and improve is what makes a business great. I had something close to this for a while, and we made great stuff.
I don't mind that companies act this way, really. Gives companies like mine a chance...
Holy crap, a reasonable AC. A clear sign of the apocalypse...
No, actually, it doesn't.
I don't think it is a stretch to say that over the next 10-15 years, most timeclocks sold will be biometric-based. From the employer's perspective, it is an improved technology, and so will be more appealing. So, people who clock in for work will, over time, be doing so with biometrics with increasing numbers.
This data will be retained for at least some period of time. Managers will want to look for patterns. I don't think anyone will doubt this.
You say don't mention the PATRIOT act. One doesn't have to - the retained data on the comings and goings of people will be there, ready to be supoenaed by law enforcement and divorce lawyers alike.
Also sitting there waiting for access is the plethora of public and private cameras, all happily recording away, that can be had in the same fashion, or easier.
Data doesn't have to be centralized to be used.
And this is before you start thinking about all the other interesting things employers can do with a database of fingerprints. Anyone going to work in a place using these should read the employment contract carefully, looking at exactly what the employer is allowed to do with the data. It wouldn't surprise me in the least, for instance, if the big three credit reporting agencies start adding biometrics to credit profiles. Banks already ask for a thumb print on checks in some circumstances; they'd be more than happy to extend this a step and be able to verify that thumbprint against a credit profile to reduce check fraud.
That credit profile example is only one thought I came up with for illustrative purposes, but the more I think about it, I'm pretty sure that will happen soon. I'm sure there will more interesting (ab)uses of this data, as well.
Troll, or clueless, I'm not sure which. Never heard of a DSO? Oh, wait, you sound like one of those types that can only deal with pointy-clicky things, so I doubt you have. Who cares if a product is crap, it comes with a wizard!
As far as "command line config crap", I suppose if turning
# LoadModule php4_module /usr/lib/apache/1.3/libphp4.so
into
LoadModule php4_module /usr/lib/apache/1.3/libphp4.so
is too much for you, then perhaps it is best that you stick with the pointy-clicky stuff. Beats me what you'd actually do with a web server in that case, though.
What other features can we gush about? Oh my god, it serves HTTP too? That's awesome! Can it talk to the filesystem and actually keep a log of the HTTP accesses, though? That would be really amazing.
Christ, what a little snot. If you have anything to say that doesn't include preadolescent sarcasm that doesn't even apply to the conversation at hand, come on back. Until then, why not just go run along and play, hmm?
That's one of the nice things about Apache. Running Apache doesn't mean running the same Apache that someone else does. mod_perl, Jakarta, mod_php, mod_whatever are all competing with each other. Apache is essentially a platform, not just a server.
Yes.
I install it everywhere I can (I probably account for more than 2% of these numbers)!
So YOU'RE the one responsible for all that crap I have to clean up. Bastard! I challenge you to a duel!
Seriously, though, it isn't that I hate tomcat, its that I hate what people do with it. I see more obscenely bizzare setups running under tomcat than any other application server (even IIS). Maybe I'm just cursed. I currently have three clients with tomcat based apps that are so strange they make my ears bleed. (I seem to pick up a lot of clients that spent a lot of money on developers who suddenly go away right around deployment. Profitable, but annoying.) These are classic stupid design choices that make absurd contortions nessessary later on. It isn't that Tomcat requires these designs, but it does seem to somehow attract the people who make them.
If everyone would just accept Mason as the Uber-app, life would be better. One can still do fucked up things in Mason, if you really want to, but it is much easier to un-fuck later on.
And a noisy bunch hitting your reputation.
I absolutely agree - let me say that up front. Given a such a choice, I would feed my family first.
Ethics, however, is a deeper topic than either/or in a given situation. While it is true that companies go bad (like SCO), this is somewhat rare, I think. At least, most of the companies I've worked with both as a consultant and as an employee (more than 100, easily) rarely was much more than disingenuous on the edge cases. When they were more than that, I was among many that pitched the argument in the other direction.
Truly nasty companies are easy to spot: they target a market that has a weakness they think they can exploit. SCO (at least publically) thinks it can use legal attacks against Linix; Telemarketers attempt to exploit old people; credit councillor companies prey on those in debt. Most (not all, but most) reasonable companies realize they are part of a chain of commerce. Think about how your company fits into that chain.
I believe evil employers are rare. Should you find yourself in bed with one, leave. Worse, should you be employed by one, leave quickly!
I must say, I'd be very hesitant to hire someone who tolerated, say, Enron or SCO's behavior. I've been the part of some creepy deals, and when they crossed the line, I stopped taking part. I've been involved with startups that wanted to "grow" though non-standard methods, and I have refused to take part. What "the line" is varies for various people, but one bright line is what gets reported in the news. On a personal basis, I've missed out on some things because I wouldn't be dishonest. And that's not only OK, but very important to me. Because that's important to me, someone who facillitated massive fraud would at the very least be subject to a good, hard look. At least until the EEOC comes down with the No White Collar Criminal Left Behind recomendation.
I suppose I can only say that if you find yourself at an ethically challenged company now, with constraints (family, debt, whatever) that don't give you much room, the single best thing you can do for yourself is to find a local company that can use your skills, think about how you can add value to their company, and go talk to them about your situation, and how you can help their situation. Odds are many will turn you down, but you will find a job with a company that doesn't fuck people over, and still be able to feed your family. And remember, for every company that turns you down, you're learning a lot by thinking seriously about the business they do.
In the name of protecting women from degrading images, they have banned lesbian porn repeatedly.
Canadian courts need to recognize that free speech means that things you don't like might be said, and that's OK.
Before anyone gets excited about a USian attacking Canada, the U.S. isn't doing any better, and that bugs me, too.
Full Disclosure: I used to work (volunteer) on a magazine who had issues banned by Canada. Thank Gloria Steinem for keeping Canada free from the filth I spew.
I'd say that covering platforms is important, because when someone says, but do you suppot Blah, you can answer that yes, indeed, you do.
Keep in mind that short term tactics are great, but strategy is what frequently offers tactical brilliance a place to shine. If KDE is everywhere, people will start to use it. That's useful. for KDE. See? Think companies, down the road.
-j, who really can't stand such heavyweight stuff.
So, in this case, if for some (non-apparent, to me, at least) reason we really, really need paperless voting, the proper framework would look (as an extremely naive first pass) like this -
Potential vendors are made aware that some unknown number of elections, districts, machines, and people would be audited via unknown means.
Potential vendors would be forced to put up a large bond that would be forfeit if a flaw was found that compromised the voting record. (Yes, I mean the whole record - these are infallible counting machines, right? Operator error would be a contractual issue to hash out.)
Any dispute between government purchasers and vendors would be decided via arbitration in full and complete view of the public which is employing the machines, no exceptions.
Anyone who wished to vend would be welcome to.
I will bet you there will be takers. I know I'd be excited to at least have a shot at this.
See, there's this notion you seem to have that I, as a smoker, am somehow a member of the Secret Brotherhood of International Smoking Initiates, or something, and therefore am both responsible for the behaviour of other smokers as well as capable of influencing their behaviour.
Both assumptions are of course completely and utterly silly.
If you disagree that these assumptions are silly, then get back to me with your success rate at convincing all your fellow Canadians to speak English.
Filthy, frightful behaviour, those Quebecians...
Mockery serves a purpose, as does the lameness filter. Wait, at least one of those does, at least...
Ever notice what happens when a whiner opens their mouth? The first thing out of it is a bitch session about how someone else is screwing up their life. Once the stop frothing at the mouth about that, they have to start rebutting others. Then, they whine about getting modded down on Slashdot. In other words, whiners are some of the most sociopathic assholes on the planet! Ever have a look at the social habits of whiners? They empty a bar in no time. They don't need to go out because everyone hates them already, but they do anyway, just to make others unhappy.
Fucking assholes! These people don't need a vaccine to deal with their whining problem. They need a simple boot in the ass, or several hundred as the case may be, to teach them a much needed lesson about simple politeness and courtesy! All before getting into the usual controversies about what impact whining has on the economy, or how it kills kittens.