1) post a prominent disclaimer along with a link to an officially maintained source, if any.
2) only provide true read-only mirrors or, for truly-abandoned projects or projects with "political squabbles" that make it hard to know the "real, official" maintainter, true historical mirrors in an explicitly frozen state along with a stayement explaining why the code is old.
3) prominently display an invitation to "official maintainers" to reclaim control of the repository or have the mirror deactivated once they prove who they are.
They can go one step further by pro-actively reaching out to currently affected projects and to projects they later identify as "abandoned on Sourceforge but still alive elsewhere."
They also need to apologize to affected developers and maintainers.
Why should they even bother? 1) They can still make money on web-site ads.
2) It will help boost their reputation and that of their corporate overlords, which will eventually translate into revenue.
I'm waiting for the first case where someone posts something online, gets attention from the school over something much less serious than suicide, drops social media, gets depressed, then kills themselves, then someone brings up the fact that if the school hasn't been such a nanny the fist time around the person would probably have tipped his hand online and his friends and family who saw the online messages he would have left would've been able to intervene.
It sounds like their mistake was not telling the shareholders "either pony up now to cover all of the legally-required costs of the layoff, or liquidate now and realize the assets will go to those we owe money to, including the employees. The choice is yours."
If France had American-style bankruptcy laws they could've filed for chapter 11 and reorganized, jettisoning the debt owed to former employees or at worst, making them accept stock in the "new" company instead of cash.
For a specific job, the answer is "as much as possible about that specific job."
If you are going to be maintaining existing software, and that software doesn't use templates or certain less-commonly-used parts of the standard libraries, then you don't need to know them for that job. That's not to say you shouldn't recognize a template definition when you see it, just that you don't need to "know" them.
If you are going to be writing new software and your team-mates aren't well-versed in templates and there's no compelling need to use them in future work, you probably don't need to know how to use them.
Sometimes you can get an idea of what is needed based on the job, the company/division/department, and the company/division/department's recent projects, but not always.
As for the general question:
If you are a recent college grad or competing with them, find out what's been taught in major CS programs the last 5 years and make sure you know what other recent grads are expected to know then make sure you know all of that and then some. "All of that" so you can pass the initial interview and "then some" so you can stand out. If you can tailor the "then some" to match the job you are interested in, then you already have a leg up on the competition.
If you are looking for non-entry-level positions, make sure you understand the basic requirements of the jobs you are interested in and make sure you have the skills needed so that you would "hire yourself" if pitted against average and above-average applicants. Make sure you've got all the technical and non-technical basics and make sure you have something that makes you "stand out from the crowd." Yes, a small percentage of your fellow applicants will also have something that makes them "stand out from the crowd" but at least you'll make the initial cut and probably the final cut. If you aren't hired, lather-rinse-repeat for the next job which you are interested in.
"It's necessary to keep the American people safe and secure."
Grammatically, this is written as a statement of fact. Assuming everyone agrees on what the sentence actually means (granted, they don't, but go with me here), it is either true or it is false statement. We may not be able to tell if it's a true or false statement, but it is a true or false statement.
In the real world, it really means "I, President Obama, believe that [this] is necessary to keep the American people safe and secure."
I'll grant Obama is either an expert or is relying on experts and I'll grant that his opinion is an informed one, and I'll grant that for some definition of "safe and secure"* that I don't subscribe to he might actually be correct. However, making a statement as if it was a true-or-false statement doesn't change the fact that he's still just giving us his opinion.
* Any definition of "safe and secure" that I would subscribe to in peacetime includes being able to assume that my private conversations, including who I am communicating with, are not being monitored.
When it comes to the software that makes a car a car, things shouldn't be so simple that even an idiot could do it.
Yes, I'm all for revoking copyright- and DRM from such software, but it should be a little more regulated than "plug and play."
Here is what I would recommend:
1) Use a standard, very simple, well-understood, non-patent/copyright-encumbered interface like a serial port or, if they aren't encumbered, existing car diagnostic ports.
2) Allow "anyone" to upload software that is "signed" by the manufacturer and for which the manufacturer will take full responsibility for. This is so Joe SixPack or any shade-tree mechanic with the hardware to access the diagnostic port can install factory-authorized software updates such without having to go to the dealer (think "your car has been recalled due to faulty software, here's the patch if you want to install it yourself rather than driving in to the dealership").
3) Any user who chooses to blow a hardware "fuse" can install any software he wants to without permission from the auto-maker, BUT prior to driving the vehicle on the public road he must register his car as an "experimental vehicle" and he assumes complete responsibility for it from that point on. Not only is the warranty void but he inherits the legal liability from the automaker if any mechanical or computer failure causes anyone any injury or death. Why? Because maybe there is a latent bug in the air-bag-sensor computer that, thanks to a different bug in the main computer's factory firmware, is never reached. A few days or weeks after the customer loads his own software into the main computer, the air bag bug rears its ugly head and someone dies because an air bag didn't deploy or deployed when it shouldn't have.
4) A dashboard indicator would show that the fuse had not been blown and it would be illegal to cause the indicator to come on if the fuse had been blown. The absence of this indicator would alert the driver that either he had a faulty indicator light or that he was driving an experimental vehicle.
If it's like most jurisdictions, it's probably a "civil" (i.e. non-criminal) ticket levied against the car owner rather than the presumptive driver.
Other American jurisdictions have run into legal trouble when they try to use cameras to send misdemeanor (criminal charge) tickets to people with things like speeding and running red lights.
The distinction may be moot though, if speeding is merely a civil, not criminal, offense in D.C.
In some states and possibly in D.C., ordinary traffic tickets require a police to witness you "doing the deed," but more serious crimes like DWI, reckless driving, and possibly driving with a revoked license do not. Yes, they require proof beyond a reasonable doubt to result in a conviction (assuming a fair trial *cough*), but that can be achieved legally through non-police witnesses, surveillance cameras (the cops can subpoena the ATM across the street or the toll-road cameras, and D.C. is littered with government-run security cameras), or even a non-coerced admission.
Assuming the cops had good cause to check his license, assuming there is little or no doubt about him driving with an expired license (maybe he foolishly admitted it, or maybe he was caught on camera), and assuming the offense is one that routinely results in arrest (vs. a ticket-and-tow as some jurisdictions do) then it's a good arrest.
Without evidence that a motorist with a revoked license would typically only be ticketed (and towed), or lack of evidence that he was the driver, it's premature to claim that the arrest was done to cover up the other issue. The only legal tie between the two is that the suspicious car - or perhaps the driver's claim that the car was his car - gave the cops probable cause to check his license for validity. Other than that, they are separate and should be treated as such.
Now, does there need to be an independent investigation to determine if these cops used prudent judgment (vs. "looking for trouble" "judgement") - yes. If they were not acting prudently, does the police dept. need to issue an apology and pay damages? Yes.
Memo to self:
If I drive a car without a license and park it, and I see police activity around my car, call a lawyer and have HIM arrange to recover the car.
Memo to self #2: If my license is revoked, call a cab.
That's an argument for a high base pay, good lifetime medical coverage for job-related stress/injuries regardless of when you retire/separate-from-service, and good survivor benefits if you die before separation or from a service-related condition after separation. It is not a good argument for allowing you to retire with full benefits after 20 years.
STOP LETTING PEOPLE RETIRE AT 55 WITH FULL BENEFITS!
The US military and some US civilian jobs such as FBI agents let you retire with full benefits after 20 years of service. The US military allows you to retire at 100% of base pay plus benefits at 40 years of service (typically age 58 for those enlisting straight out of high school).
Treaty or no treaty, any Eurozone country can pull out just by declaring themselves no longer in the Eurozone and declaring that all existing sovereign debt owed by them is hereby converted into the new national currency and if the creditors don't like it tough on them.
Yes, there will be a price to pay. Technically, the other countries could declare war on Greece for breaking the treaty but that's not going to happen. Much more likely, they'll just stop doing business with Greece and its citizens and companies and possibly pass laws making it hard for their citizens and companies to do business with Greece or its citizens and companies.
The question for Greece is: What is your least-painful option?
This is another reason restricting "ex offenders are not allowed to live in this neighborhood because it is too close to a church/school/park/bus-stop/bank/check-cashing-business/bar/adult-entertainment-venue/etc" rules are bad ideas.
I'm not saying it's a bad idea to tell a particular offender who is on parole or probation he can't live in a given area as a condition of release, or that a particular ex-offender has to stay away from his past victims, but it is a terrible idea to have entire neighborhoods "off limits" to all ex-offenders or all ex-offenders of a given class (e.g. ex-gangbangers, etc.).
Blue- and red-pixels adjacent or lined up on top of each other? Unless we are looking at them straight on, those get cross-ways and overlap or no longer line up for those of us wearing thick glasses. Not only can this cause distractions and headaches, but in some cases like a poorly-done bar chart it can actually lead to me reading the bar chart differently than a person with thinner glasses, contacts, or 20/20 vision.
In the case of the BSA, you can easily identify all legitimate plaintiffs - there is usually only 1 per possible violation - and it or they can authorize the BSA to act on its behalf.
Even if every ADA-advocacy-group signed on with Prenda, Prenda could still not speak for individuals who were not members of these groups, and it could not speak for those who were members of the groups unless the individuals had authorized the groups to act as their legal representatives in such cases.
In short, Prenda is saying "settle with us" without saying "but oh by the way there are millions of potential plaintiffs out there who can sue you over this same issue tomorrow."
If that isn't worthy of sanctions by the state bar associations, it should be.
Unlike a copyright claim that only has one potential plaintiff, EVERY disabled person in America is a potential plaintiff, as well as your state's Attorney General and the US Attorney General.
Plus, once you've been sued, you can no longer claim ignorance if someone else sues you over the same issue later.
The only proper response is to say "thank you for informing us of the problem" and if there is an actual violation, fix it or find some legal work-around (You have excess bathrooms that aren't ADA-compliant? Close them down. Is there a way to apply for a waiver? Apply. Etc. etc.). But do not pay the dane-geld or you will never get rid of the "Dane".
Oh, and yes, these guys should be disbarred for offering to settle a claim when they know good and well they cannot speak for all potential plaintiffs AND they know good and well that if a settlement is reached, it will at least temporarily defeat the purpose and intent of the law.
Many companies own assets that are hard to value or quickly fluctuate in value so any expert appraisal of the "asset value" of a company should be assumed to have non-trivial "error bars."
Also, some "assets" like "goodwill" are very difficult to measure reliably. Let's take the company that makes Blue Bell Ice Cream. It's got 100+ years of "goodwill" stored up in the minds of Texas Ice Cream and once they get their production going again, their ice cream will fly off the shelf in Texas simply because many customers will buy it "as a show of support".
However, the current recall as "spent" a good deal of that "goodwill": If they have a similar recall any time in the next 30 years, or if they do anything that indicates they don't care about their product's quality, they won't have it nearly as easy a time if they have another corporate disaster.
All outbound travelers should have a meaningful way of saying "no, I don't want you to search this thing. Hold it for me until I get back or until the person I designate retrieves it. I will pay reasonable and customary storage charges." The same option should be given for "not allowed on the plane" items like over-sized bottles, etc. where the flyer would not otherwise be arrested (in other words, either arrest and charge the person with a crime or give him the option of not having his "contraband" forfeited/trashed).
All inbound travelers should be able to say "no, I do not give you permission to search it. If it is suspected of being too dangerous to transport (e.g. explosives) you may destroy it at my expense, otherwise you may either ship it back to my home country at my expense or hold it until my departure and I will pay reasonable and customary storage costs."
Slashdot Mirror
All they have to do is:
1) post a prominent disclaimer along with a link to an officially maintained source, if any.
2) only provide true read-only mirrors or, for truly-abandoned projects or projects with "political squabbles" that make it hard to know the "real, official" maintainter, true historical mirrors in an explicitly frozen state along with a stayement explaining why the code is old.
3) prominently display an invitation to "official maintainers" to reclaim control of the repository or have the mirror deactivated once they prove who they are.
They can go one step further by pro-actively reaching out to currently affected projects and to projects they later identify as "abandoned on Sourceforge but still alive elsewhere."
They also need to apologize to affected developers and maintainers.
Why should they even bother?
1) They can still make money on web-site ads.
2) It will help boost their reputation and that of their corporate overlords, which will eventually translate into revenue.
I'm waiting for the first case where someone posts something online, gets attention from the school over something much less serious than suicide, drops social media, gets depressed, then kills themselves, then someone brings up the fact that if the school hasn't been such a nanny the fist time around the person would probably have tipped his hand online and his friends and family who saw the online messages he would have left would've been able to intervene.
"Think of the children only goes so far" - but not as far as respecting their out-of-school life.
It sounds like their mistake was not telling the shareholders "either pony up now to cover all of the legally-required costs of the layoff, or liquidate now and realize the assets will go to those we owe money to, including the employees. The choice is yours."
If France had American-style bankruptcy laws they could've filed for chapter 11 and reorganized, jettisoning the debt owed to former employees or at worst, making them accept stock in the "new" company instead of cash.
Obviously it doesn't run the 32-bit version of Windows 8, but does it at least crawl it?
For a specific job, the answer is "as much as possible about that specific job."
If you are going to be maintaining existing software, and that software doesn't use templates or certain less-commonly-used parts of the standard libraries, then you don't need to know them for that job. That's not to say you shouldn't recognize a template definition when you see it, just that you don't need to "know" them.
If you are going to be writing new software and your team-mates aren't well-versed in templates and there's no compelling need to use them in future work, you probably don't need to know how to use them.
Sometimes you can get an idea of what is needed based on the job, the company/division/department, and the company/division/department's recent projects, but not always.
As for the general question:
If you are a recent college grad or competing with them, find out what's been taught in major CS programs the last 5 years and make sure you know what other recent grads are expected to know then make sure you know all of that and then some. "All of that" so you can pass the initial interview and "then some" so you can stand out. If you can tailor the "then some" to match the job you are interested in, then you already have a leg up on the competition.
If you are looking for non-entry-level positions, make sure you understand the basic requirements of the jobs you are interested in and make sure you have the skills needed so that you would "hire yourself" if pitted against average and above-average applicants. Make sure you've got all the technical and non-technical basics and make sure you have something that makes you "stand out from the crowd." Yes, a small percentage of your fellow applicants will also have something that makes them "stand out from the crowd" but at least you'll make the initial cut and probably the final cut. If you aren't hired, lather-rinse-repeat for the next job which you are interested in.
"It's necessary to keep the American people safe and secure."
Grammatically, this is written as a statement of fact. Assuming everyone agrees on what the sentence actually means (granted, they don't, but go with me here), it is either true or it is false statement. We may not be able to tell if it's a true or false statement, but it is a true or false statement.
In the real world, it really means "I, President Obama, believe that [this] is necessary to keep the American people safe and secure."
I'll grant Obama is either an expert or is relying on experts and I'll grant that his opinion is an informed one, and I'll grant that for some definition of "safe and secure"* that I don't subscribe to he might actually be correct. However, making a statement as if it was a true-or-false statement doesn't change the fact that he's still just giving us his opinion.
* Any definition of "safe and secure" that I would subscribe to in peacetime includes being able to assume that my private conversations, including who I am communicating with, are not being monitored.
When it comes to the software that makes a car a car, things shouldn't be so simple that even an idiot could do it.
Yes, I'm all for revoking copyright- and DRM from such software, but it should be a little more regulated than "plug and play."
Here is what I would recommend:
1) Use a standard, very simple, well-understood, non-patent/copyright-encumbered interface like a serial port or, if they aren't encumbered, existing car diagnostic ports.
2) Allow "anyone" to upload software that is "signed" by the manufacturer and for which the manufacturer will take full responsibility for. This is so Joe SixPack or any shade-tree mechanic with the hardware to access the diagnostic port can install factory-authorized software updates such without having to go to the dealer (think "your car has been recalled due to faulty software, here's the patch if you want to install it yourself rather than driving in to the dealership").
3) Any user who chooses to blow a hardware "fuse" can install any software he wants to without permission from the auto-maker, BUT prior to driving the vehicle on the public road he must register his car as an "experimental vehicle" and he assumes complete responsibility for it from that point on. Not only is the warranty void but he inherits the legal liability from the automaker if any mechanical or computer failure causes anyone any injury or death. Why? Because maybe there is a latent bug in the air-bag-sensor computer that, thanks to a different bug in the main computer's factory firmware, is never reached. A few days or weeks after the customer loads his own software into the main computer, the air bag bug rears its ugly head and someone dies because an air bag didn't deploy or deployed when it shouldn't have.
4) A dashboard indicator would show that the fuse had not been blown and it would be illegal to cause the indicator to come on if the fuse had been blown. The absence of this indicator would alert the driver that either he had a faulty indicator light or that he was driving an experimental vehicle.
If it's like most jurisdictions, it's probably a "civil" (i.e. non-criminal) ticket levied against the car owner rather than the presumptive driver.
Other American jurisdictions have run into legal trouble when they try to use cameras to send misdemeanor (criminal charge) tickets to people with things like speeding and running red lights.
The distinction may be moot though, if speeding is merely a civil, not criminal, offense in D.C.
Pressure cookers have also been used to cook delicious meals economically and quickly. That's actually why they're called pressure cookers.
So have cars.
In some states and possibly in D.C., ordinary traffic tickets require a police to witness you "doing the deed," but more serious crimes like DWI, reckless driving, and possibly driving with a revoked license do not. Yes, they require proof beyond a reasonable doubt to result in a conviction (assuming a fair trial *cough*), but that can be achieved legally through non-police witnesses, surveillance cameras (the cops can subpoena the ATM across the street or the toll-road cameras, and D.C. is littered with government-run security cameras), or even a non-coerced admission.
Assuming the cops had good cause to check his license, assuming there is little or no doubt about him driving with an expired license (maybe he foolishly admitted it, or maybe he was caught on camera), and assuming the offense is one that routinely results in arrest (vs. a ticket-and-tow as some jurisdictions do) then it's a good arrest.
Without evidence that a motorist with a revoked license would typically only be ticketed (and towed), or lack of evidence that he was the driver, it's premature to claim that the arrest was done to cover up the other issue. The only legal tie between the two is that the suspicious car - or perhaps the driver's claim that the car was his car - gave the cops probable cause to check his license for validity. Other than that, they are separate and should be treated as such.
Now, does there need to be an independent investigation to determine if these cops used prudent judgment (vs. "looking for trouble" "judgement") - yes. If they were not acting prudently, does the police dept. need to issue an apology and pay damages? Yes.
Memo to self:
If I drive a car without a license and park it, and I see police activity around my car, call a lawyer and have HIM arrange to recover the car.
Memo to self #2:
If my license is revoked, call a cab.
That's an argument for a high base pay, good lifetime medical coverage for job-related stress/injuries regardless of when you retire/separate-from-service, and good survivor benefits if you die before separation or from a service-related condition after separation. It is not a good argument for allowing you to retire with full benefits after 20 years.
STOP LETTING PEOPLE RETIRE AT 55 WITH FULL BENEFITS!
The US military and some US civilian jobs such as FBI agents let you retire with full benefits after 20 years of service. The US military allows you to retire at 100% of base pay plus benefits at 40 years of service (typically age 58 for those enlisting straight out of high school).
Treaty or no treaty, any Eurozone country can pull out just by declaring themselves no longer in the Eurozone and declaring that all existing sovereign debt owed by them is hereby converted into the new national currency and if the creditors don't like it tough on them.
Yes, there will be a price to pay. Technically, the other countries could declare war on Greece for breaking the treaty but that's not going to happen. Much more likely, they'll just stop doing business with Greece and its citizens and companies and possibly pass laws making it hard for their citizens and companies to do business with Greece or its citizens and companies.
The question for Greece is: What is your least-painful option?
Or something like that.
This is another reason restricting "ex offenders are not allowed to live in this neighborhood because it is too close to a church/school/park/bus-stop/bank/check-cashing-business/bar/adult-entertainment-venue/etc" rules are bad ideas.
I'm not saying it's a bad idea to tell a particular offender who is on parole or probation he can't live in a given area as a condition of release, or that a particular ex-offender has to stay away from his past victims, but it is a terrible idea to have entire neighborhoods "off limits" to all ex-offenders or all ex-offenders of a given class (e.g. ex-gangbangers, etc.).
Ever tried putting a post-it note through your laser printer? Ever had your phone battery go bad and needed to make a note of something?
Despite the story from earlier today, not teaching students how to use pens and paper is unfair to the kids.
Some microwave frequencies are sensitive to the weather.
I'm not sure if there are any that are weather-insensitive to be useful in a thunderstorm, snowstorm, or in heavy low-lying clouds/foggy conditions.
This is the kind of things where the industry needs to adopt "best practices" then buy off Congress to immunize those who follow those practices.
Did I say "buy off," sorry, I meant "lobby."
Blue- and red-pixels adjacent or lined up on top of each other? Unless we are looking at them straight on, those get cross-ways and overlap or no longer line up for those of us wearing thick glasses. Not only can this cause distractions and headaches, but in some cases like a poorly-done bar chart it can actually lead to me reading the bar chart differently than a person with thinner glasses, contacts, or 20/20 vision.
In the case of the BSA, you can easily identify all legitimate plaintiffs - there is usually only 1 per possible violation - and it or they can authorize the BSA to act on its behalf.
Even if every ADA-advocacy-group signed on with Prenda, Prenda could still not speak for individuals who were not members of these groups, and it could not speak for those who were members of the groups unless the individuals had authorized the groups to act as their legal representatives in such cases.
In short, Prenda is saying "settle with us" without saying "but oh by the way there are millions of potential plaintiffs out there who can sue you over this same issue tomorrow."
If that isn't worthy of sanctions by the state bar associations, it should be.
Unlike a copyright claim that only has one potential plaintiff, EVERY disabled person in America is a potential plaintiff, as well as your state's Attorney General and the US Attorney General.
Plus, once you've been sued, you can no longer claim ignorance if someone else sues you over the same issue later.
The only proper response is to say "thank you for informing us of the problem" and if there is an actual violation, fix it or find some legal work-around (You have excess bathrooms that aren't ADA-compliant? Close them down. Is there a way to apply for a waiver? Apply. Etc. etc.). But do not pay the dane-geld or you will never get rid of the "Dane".
Oh, and yes, these guys should be disbarred for offering to settle a claim when they know good and well they cannot speak for all potential plaintiffs AND they know good and well that if a settlement is reached, it will at least temporarily defeat the purpose and intent of the law.
Many companies own assets that are hard to value or quickly fluctuate in value so any expert appraisal of the "asset value" of a company should be assumed to have non-trivial "error bars."
Also, some "assets" like "goodwill" are very difficult to measure reliably. Let's take the company that makes Blue Bell Ice Cream. It's got 100+ years of "goodwill" stored up in the minds of Texas Ice Cream and once they get their production going again, their ice cream will fly off the shelf in Texas simply because many customers will buy it "as a show of support".
However, the current recall as "spent" a good deal of that "goodwill": If they have a similar recall any time in the next 30 years, or if they do anything that indicates they don't care about their product's quality, they won't have it nearly as easy a time if they have another corporate disaster.
All outbound travelers should have a meaningful way of saying "no, I don't want you to search this thing. Hold it for me until I get back or until the person I designate retrieves it. I will pay reasonable and customary storage charges." The same option should be given for "not allowed on the plane" items like over-sized bottles, etc. where the flyer would not otherwise be arrested (in other words, either arrest and charge the person with a crime or give him the option of not having his "contraband" forfeited/trashed).
All inbound travelers should be able to say "no, I do not give you permission to search it. If it is suspected of being too dangerous to transport (e.g. explosives) you may destroy it at my expense, otherwise you may either ship it back to my home country at my expense or hold it until my departure and I will pay reasonable and customary storage costs."