If your company is not paying for necessary training and/or other business expenses (and I think they should be), then you should familiarize yourself with your tax laws. They may allow deduction of "non-reimbursed business expenses" and such from your taxes. Sounds like you may have already coughed up some dough, so ask a tax adviser about this.
IANATA
Also, my guess is that security policy alone was not what sunk your 125 year old company. Bad management can do wonders towards destroying a legacy.
I've got to agree with you there, bad security policy is just a specific case of bad policy in general. And misplaced priorities regarding security were only a part of the misplaced priorities of the company in question. Kind of like how a symptom is to a disease.
I have been a corporate security professional for over 10 years, and the only people that I ever get whines from like the parent are typically engineers or IT people who either believe that a) they are God's gift to computers and/or b) the rules don't apply to them. I may seem a bit pissy here, but it just burns me to read posts like this from people who clearly have never tried to think about security from the perspective of the business protecting its assets.
I'm definitely gonna sound pissy here. I'm an engineer and a developer, and I kinda get annoyed with "security" "professionals" who consider "security" to be the product of their companies. I've worked at companies that hired major tight-ass "security" guys like you. Guys that take "security" actions without even trying to think clearly about the big picture of the nature of the company's product or service. For instance, disabling all the dial-in and dial-out modem lines without asking why we had them -- we developed hardware and software for modem communications!
Do you know why the engineers and developers think they are 'God's gift to computers'? Turns out they are, if you consider the hardware and software you use.
"[C]ompanies do not exist for the convience of the employees. It is the other way around."
Actually, in the case of public corporations, the understanding is the company exists to serve the financial interest of the owners. Companies pay employees for labor. But thanks for playing.
What ever happened to the 125-year-old company that I worked at with the new draconian security policy, you ask? Gone within 6 months of the new owernership/security regime. Some parts were sold off to competitors with an interest in building products instead of corporate policies. Some just vanished. But a business that survived 2 depressions, multiple recessions, and three years of McKinleynomics is now just a memory.
The fourth ammendment is generally read to concern one's privacy with regard to government intrusion. In this context, the intruder is a private corporation, and thus the 4th ammendment wouldn't explicitly apply.
If true, then the government can sidestep 4th Amendment protections by farming out the snooping to private companies . . .
If the bulldozer idea doesn't take off then perhaps we could secretly get parking spaces reduced by an inch or two each time they are painted. Over time it will become impractical to use anything bigger than a hatchback to get the shopping or drop the kids at school.
I like the idea, but sadly, it won't work here. Where I live, the jackasses in the giant suvs with "W" stickers just take as many parking spaces as they need. That is, when they're not driving around yelling unintelligible epithets at bicyclists.
To add one more problem to the list: Aircraft using buoyancy don't scale down well. It's hard to get started in the buoyant craft business on a small scale. When I was a kid, I so desperately wanted to build a scale zeppelin that I could fly. I was crushed to discover that it took roughly 1 cubic meter of helium to lift 1 kg (at 1 g).
BTW when Zeppelins were in use, it usually took 4 or 5 days to cross the Atlantic in one.
Actually, the German transatlantic airships of the 30s could make the Atlantic crossing in 60 hours. The Hindenberg once made it to New York and back to Berlin in 5 days. And that includes the turnaround time for unloading and boarding, re-stocking and refueling, etc.
Current airship-type designs basically have a light, rigid frame inside to support their envelope.
Aren't most modern airships 'blimps', and therefore frameless? All the flying billboard airships are blimps, built by Goodyear Airships (and its successors) and American Blimp Company. The added weight of a frame is only practical with very large craft. Do you have any examples of modern rigid airships?
I think it would look something like "floating" where the dust particles collide with each other an are sent off in new directions. This would simulate the floating phenomenon in areas where the concentration of dust is sufficiently great.
Your point about the 1000 m/s dust made me wonder what the escape velocity is on the moon. I did a little googling, and that number appears to be around 2400 m/s. So I guess the good news is there's an upper limit to the speed of the dust you'll get pummelled with on the moon from meteorite-ejected debris.
They're gigantic, amoral, know only enough to get into trouble, and don't think much about consequences.
Friends, I don't think there's anything we can do. Kind of like the Twilight Zone with the kid with the gnarly powers. All we can do is try not to provoke them. They own the government. You and me, we can't come up with the kind of cash it takes to buy congresspresons.
Perhaps the good news is that there are multiple sociopathic toddlers. Maybe we can get 'em to fight among themsleves to their mutual deaths. Probably just end up with one really big, really mad kid.
"Condoleezza Rice, said, 'The president acted lawfully in every step that he has taken."
I think what she means is: "Since the president defines what is legal, then what the president does, is, by definition, legal." Very much in keeping with the administration's claims of "Presidential Infalibility".
TFA's definition of personal computer ("something small and light enough for someone to pick up and carry around") isn't really the commonly accepted one, either. "Personal" usually means "one computer for one user (at a time)." I'm not really sure what they're thinking of. If they mean schleppable, my C=64 could be easilly carried around. And any TV could be its monitor. If they mean pocket-sized, TI and HP both had programmable calculators in that era. My BASIC programmable TI-66 fit in a coat pocket. I programmed a little gas milage program into it that I used in my car. 15 years later, my PDA finally acquired that functionality.
Do I ever. My problem was I never got the proofreader program typed in correctly. This was a source of much frustration. Some of the programs were kinda neat, too. But when they sucked, you realized that you had just transcribed 5 full magazine pages of encoded binary image, tracked down the typos, and reassembled it to get . . . CRAP! I still had a few copies of RUN up until a few years ago. I keep thinking "I gotta get that C=64 out and play with it."
Remember Summer Games? Summer Games II, Winter games? Pitfall II? H.E.R.O?
Pitfall II was great. But I really loved the SIDPlayer series of programs. I never got around to modding my C=64 with a second SID chip, but I did have great fun with my friends with that program. We'd have sing-a-long parties with the C=64 plugged into the "big" 27" TV and all of us rocking out with "Africa" and "The Ghetto". Good times.
So why do cinemas in the US have a problem showing material appropriate for everyone from 18-[dead] year olds?
NC-17 is an "official" MPAA rating that replaced the "X" rating that was synonymous with "porn" in the US. Supposedly, it would allow erotic "Art Films" so be shown in places (Boston, Kansas, AMC Theaters) that wouldn't go for porn. As I recall, that was the way it was promoted when NC-17 rating was created. In practice, towns, theaters, etc., just viewed NC-17 as another name for "X" and nothing changed. Except of course there are far fewer XXX cinemas in the US than there were when I was younger, probably due to videotapes (and now discs and the net).
I guess it made a little difference, you can go to an art house to see an NC-17 film in most places. You don't need to visit the seamy side of town. But most chains ban NC-17 as a euphemism for "X". I also recall something about the "X" rating not being trademarked by the MPAA, and so it was used specifically for porn marketing.
Why is a password that a user has committed to memory that never changes worse than a password that changes every three months that a user has to write down?
This isn't the real problem (at least in this story). The problem, stated in TFA in a roundabout way, is the unchangable backdoor passwords present in many systems. When you become aware of this problem, your only choice (if you don't have the source and you don't like the backdoor) is to use something else.
This issue isn't limited to computers. Plenty of embedded systems have this "feature". In many places it's harmless . . .
I am a contractor now, having shunned full time work myself. Why? because it is my experience that companies are in it for themselves regardless of the impact the have for their employees.
That's funny, because as an IT decisionmaker at a company, I have shunned contractors. Why? because it is my experience that contractors are in it for themselves regardless of the impact the have for the company that's giving them money.
I've noticed that a lot of companies are thay way: they just can't stand it when their employees treat them the same as they treat their employees. Apparently it is shocking and annoying to them when an employee acts as if he is on an equal footing to his employer.
GSM is a psychoacoustic(sp?) audio compression model
I believe the GSM compression is just a linear-predictive coding model. It's band-limited (low pass), but that really doesn't qualify as a psycho-acoustic model like music CODECs are. Here's a link to a summary of audio CODECs for telephony: http://www.broadcom.com/products/software/mobmm_au diocodecs.php
Dogs have wider recognizable audio spectrum, focus on other frequencies than humans, and generally catch different features of the voice than humans . . . GSM is just a random noise.
Are you sure about this? If you did your thesis on canine audio perception or something like that, I would gladly defer, but that just doesn't sound right.
For instance, I've dealt with humans of varying hearing acuity. Those humans with a wider frequency range of hearing tend to find it easier to understand speech, whether in person or over the phone. Additionally, those humans with "better" hearing also tended to find it easier to deal with impairments and limitiations in the channel than those whose hearing was more limited.
I know we're talking different species here, but human experience suggests that wider range of hearing implies improved understanding of speech.
Can anyone offer a citation or some expert knowlege on this subject?
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If your company is not paying for necessary training and/or other business expenses (and I think they should be), then you should familiarize yourself with your tax laws. They may allow deduction of "non-reimbursed business expenses" and such from your taxes. Sounds like you may have already coughed up some dough, so ask a tax adviser about this. IANATA
I've got to agree with you there, bad security policy is just a specific case of bad policy in general. And misplaced priorities regarding security were only a part of the misplaced priorities of the company in question. Kind of like how a symptom is to a disease.
I'm definitely gonna sound pissy here. I'm an engineer and a developer, and I kinda get annoyed with "security" "professionals" who consider "security" to be the product of their companies. I've worked at companies that hired major tight-ass "security" guys like you. Guys that take "security" actions without even trying to think clearly about the big picture of the nature of the company's product or service. For instance, disabling all the dial-in and dial-out modem lines without asking why we had them -- we developed hardware and software for modem communications!
Do you know why the engineers and developers think they are 'God's gift to computers'? Turns out they are, if you consider the hardware and software you use.
Actually, in the case of public corporations, the understanding is the company exists to serve the financial interest of the owners. Companies pay employees for labor. But thanks for playing.
What ever happened to the 125-year-old company that I worked at with the new draconian security policy, you ask? Gone within 6 months of the new owernership/security regime. Some parts were sold off to competitors with an interest in building products instead of corporate policies. Some just vanished. But a business that survived 2 depressions, multiple recessions, and three years of McKinleynomics is now just a memory.
Cool. Now I can tell people I have pets.
If true, then the government can sidestep 4th Amendment protections by farming out the snooping to private companies . . .
I like the idea, but sadly, it won't work here. Where I live, the jackasses in the giant suvs with "W" stickers just take as many parking spaces as they need. That is, when they're not driving around yelling unintelligible epithets at bicyclists.
To add one more problem to the list: Aircraft using buoyancy don't scale down well. It's hard to get started in the buoyant craft business on a small scale. When I was a kid, I so desperately wanted to build a scale zeppelin that I could fly. I was crushed to discover that it took roughly 1 cubic meter of helium to lift 1 kg (at 1 g).
Still haven't seen TFA, but the pictures at ohio-airships.com show a craft that appears to be a lifting body.
Other way around: 97 people on board, 35 were killed in the disaster. 62 people survived. One person on the ground was also killed.
Also, the Akron crash occurred in the open ocean. Most of the dead were lost to drowning and hypothermia in the rough seas.
Actually, the German transatlantic airships of the 30s could make the Atlantic crossing in 60 hours. The Hindenberg once made it to New York and back to Berlin in 5 days. And that includes the turnaround time for unloading and boarding, re-stocking and refueling, etc.
Aren't most modern airships 'blimps', and therefore frameless? All the flying billboard airships are blimps, built by Goodyear Airships (and its successors) and American Blimp Company. The added weight of a frame is only practical with very large craft. Do you have any examples of modern rigid airships?
I think it would look something like "floating" where the dust particles collide with each other an are sent off in new directions. This would simulate the floating phenomenon in areas where the concentration of dust is sufficiently great.
Your point about the 1000 m/s dust made me wonder what the escape velocity is on the moon. I did a little googling, and that number appears to be around 2400 m/s. So I guess the good news is there's an upper limit to the speed of the dust you'll get pummelled with on the moon from meteorite-ejected debris.
Friends, I don't think there's anything we can do. Kind of like the Twilight Zone with the kid with the gnarly powers. All we can do is try not to provoke them. They own the government. You and me, we can't come up with the kind of cash it takes to buy congresspresons.
Perhaps the good news is that there are multiple sociopathic toddlers. Maybe we can get 'em to fight among themsleves to their mutual deaths. Probably just end up with one really big, really mad kid.
This is harder than you think: first you have to find French products to not buy, only then you can start not buying them.
An old issue of Discover magazine referred to the lacerations received by one man who tried this as "Hoover's Depression".
I think what she means is: "Since the president defines what is legal, then what the president does, is, by definition, legal." Very much in keeping with the administration's claims of "Presidential Infalibility".
TFA's definition of personal computer ("something small and light enough for someone to pick up and carry around") isn't really the commonly accepted one, either. "Personal" usually means "one computer for one user (at a time)." I'm not really sure what they're thinking of. If they mean schleppable, my C=64 could be easilly carried around. And any TV could be its monitor. If they mean pocket-sized, TI and HP both had programmable calculators in that era. My BASIC programmable TI-66 fit in a coat pocket. I programmed a little gas milage program into it that I used in my car. 15 years later, my PDA finally acquired that functionality.
Do I ever. My problem was I never got the proofreader program typed in correctly. This was a source of much frustration. Some of the programs were kinda neat, too. But when they sucked, you realized that you had just transcribed 5 full magazine pages of encoded binary image, tracked down the typos, and reassembled it to get . . . CRAP! I still had a few copies of RUN up until a few years ago. I keep thinking "I gotta get that C=64 out and play with it."
Pitfall II was great. But I really loved the SIDPlayer series of programs. I never got around to modding my C=64 with a second SID chip, but I did have great fun with my friends with that program. We'd have sing-a-long parties with the C=64 plugged into the "big" 27" TV and all of us rocking out with "Africa" and "The Ghetto". Good times.
I don't know if you intended that to be funny, but you're a riot, dude.
NC-17 is an "official" MPAA rating that replaced the "X" rating that was synonymous with "porn" in the US. Supposedly, it would allow erotic "Art Films" so be shown in places (Boston, Kansas, AMC Theaters) that wouldn't go for porn. As I recall, that was the way it was promoted when NC-17 rating was created. In practice, towns, theaters, etc., just viewed NC-17 as another name for "X" and nothing changed. Except of course there are far fewer XXX cinemas in the US than there were when I was younger, probably due to videotapes (and now discs and the net).
I guess it made a little difference, you can go to an art house to see an NC-17 film in most places. You don't need to visit the seamy side of town. But most chains ban NC-17 as a euphemism for "X". I also recall something about the "X" rating not being trademarked by the MPAA, and so it was used specifically for porn marketing.
This isn't the real problem (at least in this story). The problem, stated in TFA in a roundabout way, is the unchangable backdoor passwords present in many systems. When you become aware of this problem, your only choice (if you don't have the source and you don't like the backdoor) is to use something else.
This issue isn't limited to computers. Plenty of embedded systems have this "feature". In many places it's harmless . . .
This has got to be the single-best one sentence analysis of this issue in the whole discussion.
I've noticed that a lot of companies are thay way: they just can't stand it when their employees treat them the same as they treat their employees. Apparently it is shocking and annoying to them when an employee acts as if he is on an equal footing to his employer.
I believe the GSM compression is just a linear-predictive coding model. It's band-limited (low pass), but that really doesn't qualify as a psycho-acoustic model like music CODECs are. Here's a link to a summary of audio CODECs for telephony: http://www.broadcom.com/products/software/mobmm_au diocodecs.php
Are you sure about this? If you did your thesis on canine audio perception or something like that, I would gladly defer, but that just doesn't sound right.
For instance, I've dealt with humans of varying hearing acuity. Those humans with a wider frequency range of hearing tend to find it easier to understand speech, whether in person or over the phone. Additionally, those humans with "better" hearing also tended to find it easier to deal with impairments and limitiations in the channel than those whose hearing was more limited.
I know we're talking different species here, but human experience suggests that wider range of hearing implies improved understanding of speech.
Can anyone offer a citation or some expert knowlege on this subject?
Ed Foster's Gripe Log is following the Zone Alarm v. 180 story, and he has a much more readable summary at his site: http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2005/12/5/8255 5/7508