Ha, well the article's picture relieved my mind a bit regarding where my imagination was going with this (for reference, google on "Sybian"). In medical school I was amazed that living models (male/female) are trained/paid to allow hordes of medical students do various breast/pelvic/rectal exams on them. Some volunteer. I understand that in days gone by, fellow classmates "volunteered" to let other classmates examine them (rough on those early women admitted to medical school).
Being an ob/gyn myself, I read the article on the birthing simulator. Reminds me of the Star Trek episode when Warf delivers a baby and says, "That's not the way it happened in the simulator." I wonder if the simulator squirts body fluids, yells and curses like real life. There's just no telling where techonology will go next. Prostate exam simulator?
You're not serious, right? To what extent do we allow an organization to be "secret" or anonymous? And whose word do we take at face value they're conducting legal proceedings. At some point we trade off some civil liberties for safety (I know, that's heresy on/.). We don't as a matter of common practice, investigate Girl Scouts of America or the 4-H Club, but I would hope we might investigate an organization named, Atomic Weapons R Us. It's my understanding the organization in question was in a public place, covered obviously by the media. If you want to conduct anonymous/secret/clandestine activities, don't do it in public. I, for one, support undercover activities by authorized police organizations to the extent current law allows. As to finding some undercover cops who are better at being undercover, this seems to go against your primary argument. The police were either both conducting a legitimate investigation and performing authorized surveillance, or they weren't. Being "better" has little to do with it. It also doesn't excuse the media from flagrantly putting anyone at risk. Through many avenues, a person's private information is allowed to be made public, doesn't mean that it should be. Examples include: political donations, home addresses and telephone numbers of public officials, civil court proceedings, student ID and driver's license numbers, etc. While it is true that undercover policemen and women voluntarily put themselves at some degree of risk, others that seek to exploit them are just wrong (and if you don't think they were being exploited, I suppose the pictures/names/addresses were just a public service, right?). I'm not for racial/ethnic profiling, nor do I believe a group of people should be condemed outright for a particular belief, but when enough information is gathered to raise suspicion above some--admittedly arbitrary/changing threshold--some further investigation is warranted. How the information gathering is done is another matter. Hopefully, the people setting the threshold are reasonable, but we can't all supervise all the threshold-setting all the time. So, when a decision is made, that action is necessary... Is it better to publicly sit in on a meeting and therby possibly changing what otherwise might have occurred (see Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle), or is better to sit in the back, blend in (like an undercover operative) and try to observe? For all the investigations that come to light because of some bad outcome, I suspect a greater number are carried out with the summary report suggesting, "no threat".
Sadly, history often looks upon public gatherings and secret organizations as either heroic, suspicious, or something that should have been stopped--all depending upon the outcome and realized accomplishments of the said people involved. As long as humans have generally free will, private thoughts and the ability to assemble that's as it should be and the dilemma will always be present (neither good nor evil wear a sign).
I just love the contradiction./. is mostly about free, open source this and that, no secrets, open protocols, liberal everything, "information wants to be free", etc... and now here's a slashdotter promoting encryption and hiding this and that. Yeah, I know, the excuse is, "We don't want the governemnt messing in our affairs..."
...have completely blown the operatives anyway. Their reaction has brought 10,000 times more attention...
Perhaps the idea is to dissuade other websites from posting similar material: the pictures/names/addresses of undercover police. I could see posting pictures not realizing some of the subjects are undercover operatives, but when you include names and addresses (per the French article), well that means you've done the research and you know what you're doing.
...the aac's and the mp3s, while they might sound very [good], are not anywhere near as good as lossless formats...
I'm no audiophile, so perhaps my opinion only reflects the majority of the public, but I can't really hear a meaningful difference between "CD quality" and MP3 (unless the latter was encoded badly). Along the same lines, I listen to AM radio from time to time too without thinking, "that would sure sound better on FM/vinyl/tape/CD". I believe most of the music listening world pays more attention to the lyrics and rhythm than actual tonal quality. Perhaps it depends on the preferred genre. Like fine art, there will always be aficionados for the very best obtainable; however, the rest of us will be happy with merely a usable copy.
I'm probably clueless for not seeing the answer to my own question, but: Why is it the user's fault for not adequately protecting their wifi networks, but it's Microsoft's fault for programmers who FAIL to follow reasonable coding standards and documented security guidelines?
The linked MS article has a reference to a very well written security guideline, just as many home router/gateway manufacturers have documentation in their user manuals about WEP/WAP. If a businessman/woman or grandma/pa is expected to RTFM about their home network, I suggest programmers and web designers have at least an equal responsibility to follow manufacturer's security-related advice.
I'm not totally clueless. I realize this is/. and the article is the obligatory, daily, "let's bash MS" post.
I can't even begin to imagine what your son was thinking (or even your first thought). At 4, be glad you at least got the notes and they didn't "magically" end up lost. Hopefully the teacher truly had the children's best interests at heart. Children love field trips, even before they really know what they are, and with younger kids, the more field trips the better. Too often though, the teachers end up paying out of pocket for these trips because the school funding for such things is pretty small (too often considered non-essential). Only a few alternatives seem to present themselves. Avoid field trips (arrg); ask the a parents to pay (then what about the poor children who's parents can't/won't pay); lobby your politicians/school board for more money (very anti-slashdot since the easy solution for that is higher taxes); work out a "deal" with a marketing company to sell products (a necessary evil?); or higher wealthy teachers.
My child goes to a private school, not so much because I've lost faith in the public school system's ability to teach, but because I think a private school is safer and has a better student-to-teacher ratio. I think our public school system is just simply overwhelmed and has historically not been given adequate resources equivalent to the magnitude and importance of the task. Sadly, it's a vicious cycle.
Of course the RIAA is going to be upset... there are only two possibilities:
1) Either the scientists deemed the record industry too "insignificant" to bother with and didn't simulate music--don't ever let the RIAA catch you calling them, "insignificant"... or
2) they simulated the music in which case they're in copyright violation--unless of course they paid simulated money.
I vote we start paying everyone with simulated money (except for me naturally). "And one more thing, none of them ever wants to pay taxes again... ever." -- Bruce Willis (Armageddon).
As the MS/Linux ratio on the server market is roughly balanced...
Netcraft suggests the percentages of servers is very much Linux biased (or at least Apache-biased), perhaps 3:1 versus Windows.
As to the number of updates to the Linux kernel, I'll have to take your experience on that one. But I suspect the number of kernel changes between say 1.0 and 2.0 was significant, and I'm sure there continue to be many changes (ratio of enhancements to bug fixes I don't know) between each dot release. And this doesn't even touch upon what changes to the open-source kernel that Red Hat, et alia make before pressing it to CD. I read in one of the posts here, that the update download for the most recent version of Red Hat was over 150MB (and that's just due to point releases in the kernel and whatever apps they ship along). The entire update for Windows XP, incorporating all bug fixes known-to-date, was about 75MB (for typical desktop user). Of course neither Linux nor Windows has seen their last update.
Regarding IT personnel, I don't know how many are security "experts" or simply know how to insert CD's to install software. I hope the industry is somewhat savvy about the folks it places "in charge" of their computing resources. When I was a member of an IT team (back in my VAX/VMS days and the orange books and all that, early to mid-80's) my partner and I regularly gave talks regarding security at the national user's group meeting, DECUS... sort of a passion of ours.
I think the term, "tactical deployment" as used here simply means installing and verifying the software works at the customer's facility. To my knowledge, there is no such term used in the medical community. This link just shows as an example company using the term as I described (from a google search).
That's an interesting article and definitely worth the read, I was exposed to such teaching and ideas in medical school. I realize the entire welfare system is "only" about 1-2% of the federal budget, but my contention is the seemingly (observer error?) haphazard and blind giving away of funds; to me, this is not the right solution. The right solution would be giving the funds to private organizations that are closer to the folks in need and in a better position to assess what works best for specific individuals. One blanket remedy doesn't work for everyone. I believe in the idea that compassion can't and shouldn't be legislated. Money given to private organizations would put the solution closer to the problem and cut out a tremendous amount of overhead expenses.
I can tell from your posts you're probably intelligent enough to realize the main reason why Windows folks tend to spend so much more time fighting viruses is because Windows is overwhelmingly the most common OS and therefore the most reasonable target for virus writers (obviously this is not my epiphany but a rather well known idea). If Linux was so good, why don't all those Linux servers block the viruses before they even get to the targets? If IT was so in-the-know then why weren't there appropriate business firewalls? If Linux was so secure, why are there so many security related updates on Freshmeat (here)? Blaming the tool and end user is pretty weak. I'm not a Linux snob, I just don't think it's there yet for the masses... despite it's Unix similarity and thus 33-year history (some day maybe, but not yet). Red Hat, Debian, Suse, Mandrake... will there be convergence? If so, then a user can sit at a computer and have a familiar interface. If not, then costs for re-training go up. I'm not saying I know what the answer is, but I think most users are happy with a consistent computer interface and a single point of contact for problems. I believe one of the things that drives Linux popularity still (dating back to Unix) remains its strong geek factor (and a desire to see or have a hand in source code, I used to study VMS source microfiche all the time)... but I've been wrong before. The market will ultimately decide and in 25-50 years, neither Windows or Linux are likely to be around.
Perhaps we should take this off Slashdot... you can send email to DocJohn05 AT Hot~Mail Dot Com. I don't check that address often, but I'll make it a point to if it appears you'd like to continue to discuss all that we've covered. Not that you probably care what I think, but you don't sound "too liberal".
Of course, found the quote I was looking for only after I clicked, "submit."
"To liberals, 'compassion' means giving less productive people the fruits of the efforts of more productive people. But real compassion means enabling less productive people to become more productive themselves. That way, the poor have not only more material things but also more self-respect, as well as more respect from others, and the society as a whole has a higher standard of living and less internal strife." - Thomas Sowell
I suspect you meant that sarcastically. I never said anything as strong as you imply, that dissidents can't live in God's country. Fanatics on the other hand, are an entirely different matter. Extremists in both directions, liberal/conservative, take a disproportionate amount of energy to reason with and distract from true issues... though I would never exile them either. Everyone deserves an opinion, but having said that, folks should also realize that some opinions are, in fact, wrong or based on poor information or ignorance.
As far as outsourcing, you can already imagine that I favor corporations and big business... I have no desire to return to an agricultural-based society such as "Little House on the Prairie". I think profit is a good thing. So many folks here think that once they have a job they've earned a job for life. The mentality that a company "owes" you a living died in the 60's--get a clue. Even Japan, once renowned for employee loyalty is turning about. If a person wants to do what they can to make sure their job isn't outsourced, then always improve yourself... go to college, graduate school, attend conferences, research and publish. I'm sorry, but being a DeVry graduate/Degreed web-designer doesn't guarantee you anything without ambition and a realistic evaluation of where the future might head.
If you continue to toss the homeless/hungry a fish, instead of teaching them, what incentive is there to ever get folks to learn/earn/work for themselves? There's quite a bit to be said for the benefit to self-esteem for a job a person does themselves. Typically, folks on welfare are depressed and dissatisfied; unfortunately, many also feel deprived of an entitlement... which is hard on the self-esteem and confidence... a very non-productive circle. I think welfare has its place, what I said originally was, "look how it's exploited" (in this latter case, I'm talking about families with multiple generations on welfare... insurance fraud on welfare... having extra children for the express purpose of getting more welfare, etc. Sadly, we will always have those that are less fortunate, but in many cases, I think the individuals bear at least some of the responsibility... it's not all The Man's fault.
Let's take Microsoft, since it's Slashdot's favorite bashing target... everyone despises them for lots of reasons, but at least one reason is because they're a mega$$$ corporation with focus on profit margin and marketing. I applaud their success. Do you have any idea how many employees MS supports world wide by salaries, and how much they pay in taxes so that others can throw those fish. I suppose if everyone--instead--lived on a commune and ate daisies and smoked weed, we'd all be happier, right?
The "contract" is signed/agreed to when one purchases the property. The city "owns" it in that they can come along and take it for street widening... unless of course, you want to maintain you "own" that part of the street now (as some folks do with lake front property, that they own part of the otherwise public lake). I suppose easements can differ by municipality, but in the areas where I've lived, this has been true. The original intent of my post was simply to say, you as a land owner, don't always get to decide what happens on "your" land (as an example, the utility access you mentioned).
I find it interesting that so many folks "know" word-for-word what was actually said between the cyclist and police. In the style of Michael Moore's knowing what Bush was thinking... It seems many readers here are too willing to take at face value what an author writes... as if it is known to be fact. That the arresting officer conferred with superiors isn't surprising at all, he probably knew this was a potential "hot potato"... unlike the police officer recently who was arrested for threatening to kill the president. From a republican's viewpoint, the thing that worries us, is the fanaticism we see among "some" democrats/liberals. People that we perceive can't or don't want to talk about issues in a rational and logical manner. Unfortunately, the "some" are more vocal/visible and overshadow other democrats. The saying, "Give a man a fish and he eats a meal, teach a man to fish and he eats for life."... in many republicans' eyes, typifies the democrat's ("give me a fish") mentality and the republican's ("teach him to fish"). If you think this is an exaggeration, just take a look at the real-world exploitation of our (US) welfare system.
I believe in most cases, those signs are placed in areas known as easements (typically close to the street). You may believe you own that portion of the property because you water and mow the grass, but in all reality, the city/province owns it and they're just letting you "borrow" it until they decide to add sidewalks or widen the roadway. Checking a true surveyor's map of your property will often reveal the extent of truly owned land, which to too many folks is very surprising.
I think I understand the point of your post... non-destructive expression shouldn't be a crime... but what about all the subway cars, private businesses, mail boxes, etc that have tons of graffiti plastered all over them. I doubt in the case of graffiti, that the "artists" had malicious destruction in mind, but yet it is (rightly-imho) a crime. There must be some distinction in some people's minds between what this biker did, and graffiti. I'm a Bush/big-business/profits-are-okay supporter, and I think this guy should have been cut some slack. Obviously tensions and emotions can run high in the area of politics (and Linux vs Windows). I didn't RTFA, but perhaps there was something in the language of what was written that was considered threatening... freedom of expression goes only so far (you can't threaten someone for example).
...add $90 for my time to put the drive in the enclosure, install Mandrake, etc and it doesn't seem like such a bad deal to me.
And folks really wonder why so much is being outsourced to India? Now if you had said something like, "plus typical oem markup", I might have bought into that figure; however, in today's minimal profit margin days, I'm not sure that's a realistic number.
I couldn't agree more with much of the sentiment/opinion you expressed... though, perhaps I would have done without the Star Trek metaphor. I was formerly in the IT (though we called it CS or IS back then) industry long enough ago to have heard Grace Hopper in person talk about the "first bug" (attracted by the glow of vacuum tubes and trapped by the relays you mention) which she mentioned is still encased in the computer log book.
Defects/bugs will continue to be made as long as software is developed in the current manner... we haven't progressed very far... and only those who have been around awhile can appreciate that. We used to say, "you can write Fortran programs in any language"... that's as true today as it was many years ago. I've coded in Ada, Algol, Assembler, Basic, C, C++, Cobol, Fortran, Lisp, Modula 2, Pascal and quite a few that nobody's heard of. I've also used nearly all of the software design methodologies that have been popularized... there is no panacea. Brooks' book should be on everybody's reading list (as should so many others, including Knuth's series). Sadly, so many IT jobs are held these days by folks who will never study CS formerly; they will only have picked up the latest (PHP | Perl | Python | Prolog | Java *) for Dummies book and convinced someone (including themselves) they're an IT expert. Newer hardware, computer programming languages and design tools can either help the overall process or further obfuscate bugs; it's still ultimately up to a person's training to realize which is happening.
It's so easy to point a finger at someone else and say that OS/application/etc is "so lame"... There's no substitute for continuing to study and learning from your own and others' mistakes... one of the important things is that you're building upon where others have already been... be grateful, without their mistakes (you probably wouldn't have a job), you no doubt would have been committed to making them yourself at some point. If there's progress, then it's because others have come before and either motivated us because we didn't like a "feature", or there was a bug that needed fixing. Very few entirely new, no prior concept ever imagined, software products are introduced.
Thanks for letting me vent, I'll go take some Imodium now...
"No man is an island..." unless he's had too much beer and wets the bed.
I belive a non-compete clause, such as ones alluded to here, exist in a number of industries. Speaking as a physician and member of the medical community, most of our contracts have non-compete clauses that state, in effect, "Upon leaving The Practice, you will not practice within your specialty in a similar hospital/clinic located within 5 miles of any of The Practice's locations". Of course, in this field it's so as not to "steal" patients (and therefor business) rather than technology.
Slashdot Mirror
Sadly true, here's a link: Reeve dead at 52
Ha, well the article's picture relieved my mind a bit regarding where my imagination was going with this (for reference, google on "Sybian"). In medical school I was amazed that living models (male/female) are trained/paid to allow hordes of medical students do various breast/pelvic/rectal exams on them. Some volunteer. I understand that in days gone by, fellow classmates "volunteered" to let other classmates examine them (rough on those early women admitted to medical school).
Being an ob/gyn myself, I read the article on the birthing simulator. Reminds me of the Star Trek episode when Warf delivers a baby and says, "That's not the way it happened in the simulator." I wonder if the simulator squirts body fluids, yells and curses like real life. There's just no telling where techonology will go next. Prostate exam simulator?
Sadly, history often looks upon public gatherings and secret organizations as either heroic, suspicious, or something that should have been stopped--all depending upon the outcome and realized accomplishments of the said people involved. As long as humans have generally free will, private thoughts and the ability to assemble that's as it should be and the dilemma will always be present (neither good nor evil wear a sign).
Okay, diarrhea of the fingers again...
I just love the contradiction. /. is mostly about free, open source this and that, no secrets, open protocols, liberal everything, "information wants to be free", etc... and now here's a slashdotter promoting encryption and hiding this and that. Yeah, I know, the excuse is, "We don't want the governemnt messing in our affairs..."
Perhaps the idea is to dissuade other websites from posting similar material: the pictures/names/addresses of undercover police. I could see posting pictures not realizing some of the subjects are undercover operatives, but when you include names and addresses (per the French article), well that means you've done the research and you know what you're doing.
I'm no audiophile, so perhaps my opinion only reflects the majority of the public, but I can't really hear a meaningful difference between "CD quality" and MP3 (unless the latter was encoded badly). Along the same lines, I listen to AM radio from time to time too without thinking, "that would sure sound better on FM/vinyl/tape/CD". I believe most of the music listening world pays more attention to the lyrics and rhythm than actual tonal quality. Perhaps it depends on the preferred genre. Like fine art, there will always be aficionados for the very best obtainable; however, the rest of us will be happy with merely a usable copy.
Lawsuit 101: You go for the deep pockets with the shotgun approach.
The linked MS article has a reference to a very well written security guideline, just as many home router/gateway manufacturers have documentation in their user manuals about WEP/WAP. If a businessman/woman or grandma/pa is expected to RTFM about their home network, I suggest programmers and web designers have at least an equal responsibility to follow manufacturer's security-related advice.
I'm not totally clueless. I realize this is /. and the article is the obligatory, daily, "let's bash MS" post.
My child goes to a private school, not so much because I've lost faith in the public school system's ability to teach, but because I think a private school is safer and has a better student-to-teacher ratio. I think our public school system is just simply overwhelmed and has historically not been given adequate resources equivalent to the magnitude and importance of the task. Sadly, it's a vicious cycle.
1) Either the scientists deemed the record industry too "insignificant" to bother with and didn't simulate music--don't ever let the RIAA catch you calling them, "insignificant"... or
2) they simulated the music in which case they're in copyright violation--unless of course they paid simulated money.
I vote we start paying everyone with simulated money (except for me naturally). "And one more thing, none of them ever wants to pay taxes again... ever." -- Bruce Willis (Armageddon).
Netcraft suggests the percentages of servers is very much Linux biased (or at least Apache-biased), perhaps 3:1 versus Windows.
As to the number of updates to the Linux kernel, I'll have to take your experience on that one. But I suspect the number of kernel changes between say 1.0 and 2.0 was significant, and I'm sure there continue to be many changes (ratio of enhancements to bug fixes I don't know) between each dot release. And this doesn't even touch upon what changes to the open-source kernel that Red Hat, et alia make before pressing it to CD. I read in one of the posts here, that the update download for the most recent version of Red Hat was over 150MB (and that's just due to point releases in the kernel and whatever apps they ship along). The entire update for Windows XP, incorporating all bug fixes known-to-date, was about 75MB (for typical desktop user). Of course neither Linux nor Windows has seen their last update.
Regarding IT personnel, I don't know how many are security "experts" or simply know how to insert CD's to install software. I hope the industry is somewhat savvy about the folks it places "in charge" of their computing resources. When I was a member of an IT team (back in my VAX/VMS days and the orange books and all that, early to mid-80's) my partner and I regularly gave talks regarding security at the national user's group meeting, DECUS... sort of a passion of ours.
I think the term, "tactical deployment" as used here simply means installing and verifying the software works at the customer's facility. To my knowledge, there is no such term used in the medical community. This link just shows as an example company using the term as I described (from a google search).
I can tell from your posts you're probably intelligent enough to realize the main reason why Windows folks tend to spend so much more time fighting viruses is because Windows is overwhelmingly the most common OS and therefore the most reasonable target for virus writers (obviously this is not my epiphany but a rather well known idea). If Linux was so good, why don't all those Linux servers block the viruses before they even get to the targets? If IT was so in-the-know then why weren't there appropriate business firewalls? If Linux was so secure, why are there so many security related updates on Freshmeat (here)? Blaming the tool and end user is pretty weak. I'm not a Linux snob, I just don't think it's there yet for the masses... despite it's Unix similarity and thus 33-year history (some day maybe, but not yet). Red Hat, Debian, Suse, Mandrake... will there be convergence? If so, then a user can sit at a computer and have a familiar interface. If not, then costs for re-training go up. I'm not saying I know what the answer is, but I think most users are happy with a consistent computer interface and a single point of contact for problems. I believe one of the things that drives Linux popularity still (dating back to Unix) remains its strong geek factor (and a desire to see or have a hand in source code, I used to study VMS source microfiche all the time)... but I've been wrong before. The market will ultimately decide and in 25-50 years, neither Windows or Linux are likely to be around.
Perhaps we should take this off Slashdot... you can send email to DocJohn05 AT Hot~Mail Dot Com. I don't check that address often, but I'll make it a point to if it appears you'd like to continue to discuss all that we've covered. Not that you probably care what I think, but you don't sound "too liberal".
"To liberals, 'compassion' means giving less productive people the fruits of the efforts of more productive people. But real compassion means enabling less productive people to become more productive themselves. That way, the poor have not only more material things but also more self-respect, as well as more respect from others, and the society as a whole has a higher standard of living and less internal strife." - Thomas Sowell
As far as outsourcing, you can already imagine that I favor corporations and big business... I have no desire to return to an agricultural-based society such as "Little House on the Prairie". I think profit is a good thing. So many folks here think that once they have a job they've earned a job for life. The mentality that a company "owes" you a living died in the 60's--get a clue. Even Japan, once renowned for employee loyalty is turning about. If a person wants to do what they can to make sure their job isn't outsourced, then always improve yourself... go to college, graduate school, attend conferences, research and publish. I'm sorry, but being a DeVry graduate/Degreed web-designer doesn't guarantee you anything without ambition and a realistic evaluation of where the future might head.
If you continue to toss the homeless/hungry a fish, instead of teaching them, what incentive is there to ever get folks to learn/earn/work for themselves? There's quite a bit to be said for the benefit to self-esteem for a job a person does themselves. Typically, folks on welfare are depressed and dissatisfied; unfortunately, many also feel deprived of an entitlement... which is hard on the self-esteem and confidence... a very non-productive circle. I think welfare has its place, what I said originally was, "look how it's exploited" (in this latter case, I'm talking about families with multiple generations on welfare... insurance fraud on welfare... having extra children for the express purpose of getting more welfare, etc. Sadly, we will always have those that are less fortunate, but in many cases, I think the individuals bear at least some of the responsibility... it's not all The Man's fault.
Let's take Microsoft, since it's Slashdot's favorite bashing target... everyone despises them for lots of reasons, but at least one reason is because they're a mega$$$ corporation with focus on profit margin and marketing. I applaud their success. Do you have any idea how many employees MS supports world wide by salaries, and how much they pay in taxes so that others can throw those fish. I suppose if everyone--instead--lived on a commune and ate daisies and smoked weed, we'd all be happier, right?
The "contract" is signed/agreed to when one purchases the property. The city "owns" it in that they can come along and take it for street widening... unless of course, you want to maintain you "own" that part of the street now (as some folks do with lake front property, that they own part of the otherwise public lake). I suppose easements can differ by municipality, but in the areas where I've lived, this has been true. The original intent of my post was simply to say, you as a land owner, don't always get to decide what happens on "your" land (as an example, the utility access you mentioned).
I find it interesting that so many folks "know" word-for-word what was actually said between the cyclist and police. In the style of Michael Moore's knowing what Bush was thinking... It seems many readers here are too willing to take at face value what an author writes... as if it is known to be fact. That the arresting officer conferred with superiors isn't surprising at all, he probably knew this was a potential "hot potato"... unlike the police officer recently who was arrested for threatening to kill the president. From a republican's viewpoint, the thing that worries us, is the fanaticism we see among "some" democrats/liberals. People that we perceive can't or don't want to talk about issues in a rational and logical manner. Unfortunately, the "some" are more vocal/visible and overshadow other democrats. The saying, "Give a man a fish and he eats a meal, teach a man to fish and he eats for life."... in many republicans' eyes, typifies the democrat's ("give me a fish") mentality and the republican's ("teach him to fish"). If you think this is an exaggeration, just take a look at the real-world exploitation of our (US) welfare system.
Wow, a well-written, responsible, cogent thought on /.
I believe in most cases, those signs are placed in areas known as easements (typically close to the street). You may believe you own that portion of the property because you water and mow the grass, but in all reality, the city/province owns it and they're just letting you "borrow" it until they decide to add sidewalks or widen the roadway. Checking a true surveyor's map of your property will often reveal the extent of truly owned land, which to too many folks is very surprising.
I think I understand the point of your post... non-destructive expression shouldn't be a crime... but what about all the subway cars, private businesses, mail boxes, etc that have tons of graffiti plastered all over them. I doubt in the case of graffiti, that the "artists" had malicious destruction in mind, but yet it is (rightly-imho) a crime. There must be some distinction in some people's minds between what this biker did, and graffiti. I'm a Bush/big-business/profits-are-okay supporter, and I think this guy should have been cut some slack. Obviously tensions and emotions can run high in the area of politics (and Linux vs Windows). I didn't RTFA, but perhaps there was something in the language of what was written that was considered threatening... freedom of expression goes only so far (you can't threaten someone for example).
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Laptops_N otebooks/Q_20934463.html
that suggests there are a few laptops anyways that can boot from USB HD's. A Google search for "motherboard bootable USB" returned >250 hits.
And folks really wonder why so much is being outsourced to India? Now if you had said something like, "plus typical oem markup", I might have bought into that figure; however, in today's minimal profit margin days, I'm not sure that's a realistic number.
Defects/bugs will continue to be made as long as software is developed in the current manner... we haven't progressed very far... and only those who have been around awhile can appreciate that. We used to say, "you can write Fortran programs in any language"... that's as true today as it was many years ago. I've coded in Ada, Algol, Assembler, Basic, C, C++, Cobol, Fortran, Lisp, Modula 2, Pascal and quite a few that nobody's heard of. I've also used nearly all of the software design methodologies that have been popularized... there is no panacea. Brooks' book should be on everybody's reading list (as should so many others, including Knuth's series). Sadly, so many IT jobs are held these days by folks who will never study CS formerly; they will only have picked up the latest (PHP | Perl | Python | Prolog | Java *) for Dummies book and convinced someone (including themselves) they're an IT expert. Newer hardware, computer programming languages and design tools can either help the overall process or further obfuscate bugs; it's still ultimately up to a person's training to realize which is happening.
It's so easy to point a finger at someone else and say that OS/application/etc is "so lame"... There's no substitute for continuing to study and learning from your own and others' mistakes... one of the important things is that you're building upon where others have already been... be grateful, without their mistakes (you probably wouldn't have a job), you no doubt would have been committed to making them yourself at some point. If there's progress, then it's because others have come before and either motivated us because we didn't like a "feature", or there was a bug that needed fixing. Very few entirely new, no prior concept ever imagined, software products are introduced.
Thanks for letting me vent, I'll go take some Imodium now...
"No man is an island..." unless he's had too much beer and wets the bed.
I belive a non-compete clause, such as ones alluded to here, exist in a number of industries. Speaking as a physician and member of the medical community, most of our contracts have non-compete clauses that state, in effect, "Upon leaving The Practice, you will not practice within your specialty in a similar hospital/clinic located within 5 miles of any of The Practice's locations". Of course, in this field it's so as not to "steal" patients (and therefor business) rather than technology.