I love poisoning the data of market researchers!:D
I know, damn those corporations asking you what you want. The bastards.
I tried to submit some opinions to a company once; only to get told that they only determine their product line up not by listening to people actually buying their products, but through the "focus group" method of marketing research. The problem is, their focus groups do not match their customers.
The other thing to keep in mind in that in my 100 seat example, the difference between one party having 51 seats, or 100 seats is irrelevant - they can pass whatever they want either way, so whichever election system you have that produces a 1 seat majority or a 50 seat majority is effectively the same.
And that's why some things in the US Constitution require a 66% majority vote, and others requires a 75% super majority vote; while the vast majority of things requires only a 51% simple majority vote.
The only problem is that many HR departments - especially at large organizations - won't count any unpaid time (e.g. volunteer time) towards your experience level. IMHO they should; but they don't. It would have jumped me up one or two positions at the one company I was at.
Except that with the NTLM2 hashes, you can't use the hash to get the password and thus can't use the password to decrypt EFS files. With the system you described, I can boot a Linux LiveCD and copy out all the passwords for all accounts, and then log into anything directly and decrypt any encrypted files I want.
FYI - there is a hack for Windows that lets you mount a Windows NTFS file system, and generate a password that is close enough to generate the same hash value. Using a Windows Domain doesn't solve the issue either as the local machine retains a copy (on disk) for authentication when not connected to a network the domain is accessible from. And all the disk encryption softare also stores caches for verification unless you do not use your Windows Credentials for authenticating to the encryption software (in which case it has a cache of its own credentials).
So yes, while NTLM2 hashes are one-way hashes, they is still a known exploit for them.
Based on the interesting properties of physics in that all equations are integrals of the simple value of velocity and its integrals thereof, which also btw describes Einstein's improvement of Newton's work, then a simple unified equation can be described as the following where [] means the term encapsulated within it is a subscript:
Now, let N run from 0 to infinity. The trick, however, if determine the correct values of the constant C and the variable X for each instance N in any given form of the equation, the power of the variable X being known by the value N. Needless to say, this describes an infinite number of equations; this can be reduced by filling in the first few values with the limited version of what we know. While the equation is no longer definitively inifinite it is still, for all practical purposes, infinite in nature.
Similarly, you can use the NAI's opt-out page to opt-out of Google and other ad network tracking.
I went to that page - it told me I had to turn on third-party cookies to use its functionality. Nice try!
I'm pretty sure not allowing third-party cookies largely solves the problem already. I've also got Firefox set to "ask me every time" whenever someone wants to set a cookie - yeah, it was a pain for the first few weeks, but I think it's worth it.
So what happens if a company proxies the third-party cookies through their own site and turns them into first-party cookies?
Advertisers can develop just as many hacks to deliver as as people can create hacks to stop advertisers.
Only the government and those they anoint may request money without giving anything back.
Anyone may request money from anyone else without giving anything back to the giving party. Whether or not the party decides to actually give anything is a different issue.
That is, Bob can always ask Alice for money and never give Alice anything for it. Whether Alice decides to fulfill Bob's request is her decision and her decision alone.
That is simply how the Free Markets work.
That said, there are certain regulations that governments generally impose; those regulations however tend to be on what kinds of things Bob may give Alice in exchange for the money he requests, not on whether or not Alice may give money to Bob.
For instance, walk through any major metropolitan city; you'll find beggars just sitting there with a cup asking for money. Some people do give them money; those that do get nothing in return - nothing other than the satisfaction of having given them something. This has been true throughout history; though the people asking that way historically tended to be considered among the scum of the earth.
I think he was talking about unit testing, not system or integration or even feature testing. Effective unit tests do not rely on external dependencies. You don't need or even want a poorly configured or missing "test environment" to mess up your ability to run the tests. Instead, you provide fakes that yield exactly the expected values to trigger your program's behavior. You can have fakes that drive you in the direction of the happy path, fakes that steer the code down the sad paths, and still other fakes that take you down exception paths. Mock objects can provide everything from simulated database data to simulated service responses. And the values are all coded into the tests, where they provide documentation to anyone who can read code: if you call the Add(2,3) method you should expect a result of 5, if you call the Divide(5,0) method you should expect a DivideByZeroException will be thrown, etc.
And if you have code that is not unit testable today, you can certainly refactor it until it is testable. Once you learn a few patterns and anti-patterns, it's not even that hard to do. The real question is whether or not your boss thinks it's worth it to go back into a working million line project and add unit tests until you achieve 100% test coverage. (Sadly, the reply is generally "you want to spend HOW MUCH on testing code that already works? Get out of here, you psycho!") But is it worth it to add unit tests around any changes you make going forward? Absolutely.
The nature of the system relies on the external dependencies, which are very hard to virtualize in a meaningful manner for testing especially once you add them all up and how they all interact with each other. Not impossible, but very very expensive.
What I do is put my comments in the same line as the code. When I need to read the comment I just scroll right, but otherwise it doesn't distract me or eats up screen space. If it's too long, I split it up between different parts of the code. For example, I explain what a function does in the line before it, but I detail how it does that (if explanation is necessary) in the body after the lines.
One of my colleagues puts all the comments in his code in a certain column at the right side, typically on the same line as the code itself (following the GNU coding-style). While the comments are useful, they are completely useless in that location; it would be far better to have them on the preceeding line, or in a larger block so that it can actually be seen without scrolling the screen left/right.
That's why you have TEST CASES for cases x and y; so that if someone ignores the comment, tests will break alerting of an issue!
Test Cases only work when you can actually have a test environment to test in.
Not all code is testable in-house. A good bit of the code for where I work cannot be tested until we are in the field delivering it to a client. It's just not possible to do it in-house.
The software gets your fingerprint, and then logs in as that user in the background (perhaps using a service) to retrieve the relevant data.
So all you need to do is get the password or token that the software uses to login to that other account and you've got access to all passwords?
There will always be a weakness. The point is to make it as hard or as difficult as possible to get to - one reason why that should not really be something that each vendor does, but rather an API that Microsoft provides.
Basically if the fingerprint scanner integrated with Windows Login the same way as third party login systems like Novel Networks et al, it wouldn't need your password until you tried to access an encrypted file. The flaw here is they hack it out by sending your password to Windows; fingerprint data is too noisy, you compare it as "sufficiently similar" but it's going to be too unique to generate a key from with any repeatability and high entropy. Thus they store the key UUENCODED or BASE64 or MIME to obscure it, which doesn't work on hackers. Instead, they should hook the login process and directly complete user authentication without a password, and let windows ask for a password if it tries to touch an EFS file.
That wouldn't really work either. What they need to do is store the password in a system encrypted file using the Windows encryption and a per-system negotiated key to access it - perhaps one that uses TPM. Or better yet, assign a specific user (configurable which) that is created for the sole purpose of managing the keys and passwords. The software gets your fingerprint, and then logs in as that user in the background (perhaps using a service) to retrieve the relevant data.
And, of course, if the wrote their own GINA plug-in or login system then they could manage it completely and then a simple authentication token for the user would be passed back so it could be used for the login.
Regardless, it wouldn't really work best unless Microsoft provided some kind of API to really support it cleanly instead of relying on each individual manufacturer. That is - have an API whereby they could store some kind of data (perhaps even with some vendor/app specific encryption) - be it biometrics, passwords, etc - that could be stored locally or in the domain; it then returns a valid authentication token that could be used to complete the login process.
Forgot to say - our own products mainly run on DOS (legacy) and Linux (current). Windows is just the end-user portion of the system. The parent company and other units are extremely tied to Windows.
My office is no longer putting XP systems out there - any system running XP that is brought into the shop is now automatically replaced as a matter of policy (for our business clients.) Sometimes we have to twist their arms, but frankly, we've got a deadline in 2014 and we're going to make our clients meet it whether they want to or not. XP market share is likely to plummet rapidly in the next 2-3 years.
Oddly enough, my part of the company tries to use the latest version of Windows - we typically don't care and update the software as things come along.
However, our parent company is stuck on WinXP, and doesn't seem like they have any interest in moving forward. Sadly it holds us back a little as one piece of crap equipment we are forced to use comes from another portion of the company that is doing the same thing (likely at the direction of the parent company).
I really don't understand why the Kubuntu people even bother. If they're not getting any more help from Canonical, why even bother keeping the distro going at all? They should just throw in the towel, and join the Linux Mint KDE team. Linux Mint is little more than Ubuntu with some modifications, and LM even has their own KDE version which is featured prominently, unlike Kubuntu which has always been treated like a red-haired stepchild. They should join forces, move to the Linux Mint camp, and make all their contributions there. I'm sure the LM team would be happy to have the extra help. Why bother maintaining two separate distros which are almost identical?
Using that reasoning, then why did Linux Mint even release a KDE version instead of just working with Kubuntu? Mint KDE is not just Kubuntu fixed up. They have different goals. The real questions are how and why is Blue Systems supporting Mint KDE, Kubuntu and Netrunner? I'm glad they are, but you would think that putting all of those resources into one KDE distro sponsorship would be more efficient.
I won't use Linux Mint. For one reason, their distro management. I use Kubuntu relgularly, keep it up-to-date, and upgrade from one version to another. From what I understand about Linux Mint (from several that I know run it) you have to reinstall to go from one version to another, and that's simply a no-go. Of course, I'd likely be more at home with ArchLinux as I do tend to like the rolling distros better (I use Gentoo at home, but Kubuntu for work).
I'm sure there are others that feel similarly about Linux Mint vs. Kubuntu.
No it is more of a case that most companies don't need a team of rockstar developers.
Because in truth you don't. For an average medium large project
1 Rockstar Developer
3 Mid Level Developers
6 Jr. Developers
The Rockstar works on the proof of concepts, and the base architectural design.
Mid Level make the core building blocks
Jr. Developers put all the pieces together.
I disagree. Where I am presently working our parent company does that - they have 1 senior developer who is in charge of everything, and then a bunch of other lesser developers that implement what the senior developer says to do. Their products all suck, and they don't deliver to customers expectations. Many have sworn never to buy from our parent company.
On the other hand, in my portion of the company (until the parent destroyed it) we had 4-5 mid-senior level developers, and could turn out products that met expectations in reasonable time. We actually had something the industry we're in wanted.
It doesn't really have anything to do with ratios, as it does having a team that works well together and can deliver products. If they can't deliver, then it doesn't matter how skilled they are they need to go. If they can't work together, then it doesn't matter how skilled they are, they have to go. If they can do those two things, then products will happen and the ROI will generally be very good.
and the rest of the jury just followed along like lemmings. The foreman fancied himself an expert on patents, what with his vast experience of having secured 1 patent
What a disgrace. Unfortunately rule 606(b) of the Federal evidence code precludes using the jurors' statements in an appeal. So they can prance and prattle like jackasses, but there's not much to do about it
Did the juror text this info to the reporter with "send from my iPhone" at the bottom?
They could still question the jurors in court about how they reached their verdict and about how true the statements made to the press were. For example, how true is that they relied on the patent experience and explanation of patents from the jury foreman in reaching their verdicts? If they relied on him, then that is likely testimony that the court did not vet, neither side in the case vetted, and may not be an accurate representation of the law, etc. Or they could ask them about how much they even considered the courts instructions (which they are required to follow). While IANAL, there's ample oppurtunity for it to be overturned simply on those issues if further examined by the court.
I don't think anyone has ever believed that passing a drug test mean the person was clean for sure.
True. Just because you pass a test does not in fact mean you weren't doping. Dope addicts have ways of passing the tests, or invalidating the tests so they can retake them when they will pass them.
However, that has nothing to do with...
Why do they store samples for X number of years in order to re-test them in the future, with better technology? It's because if it's found out later that somebody was doping, then his results are invalid.
If we find out some other way besides a drug test that somebody was doping, then his results are invalid.
They store the sames in case a new drug test comes along to discover new drugs that they couldn't detect before, or for new tests that allow them to get a more accurate result, or a finer graint result (e.g. lower parts per million). They also store them in case someone disputes it so that they can be retested as part of the dispute.
It wouldn't registered as drive-thru have weight sensors to tell the person when a car approaches. I've tried going through on rollerblades, but it wouldn't trigger the weight requirement. (Didn't want to go inside of out safety concerns.)
For profit institutions have a big issue with maintaining their profit margins. However, non-profit and not-for-profit instituations shouldn't have such an issue. We could maintain the current system but require that all insurance companies be non-profit or not-for-profit. In which case it should boil down to costs+overhead.
However, that still doesn't resolve the issue of care, or expenses. In most of the world, if you want a procedure (e.g. vasectomy, plastic surgury, liposuction, etc.) you have to wait on a list to get it unless it's an emergency situation (e.g. heart failure makes you go to the to for a heart transplant very quickly). In this respect, the US system is much better except at cost control - which is primarily out of hand due to (i) malpractice insurance costs to doctors - only resolvable by changing how malpractice is handled in its entirety - and (ii) insurance companies refusing to pay, or trying to game doctors by denying in hopes they'll eventually give up trying to get paid (which does happen).
Now, Medicare and Medicaid also have major problems with costs - primarily because they don't "shop around" enough for prices, so you end up paying $19 for an aspirin to be administered (never mind that the same nurse administered 10 other drugs at the same time, and they charged similarly for each of them - thus all the overhead was charged multiple times and the difference is the cost of the medication - I'm sure it happens to insurance companies too).
Both have problems, and neither is really controlled. Nor will it be controlled until a third party intervenes. If I were to write a health care reform law, it would do the following to address the costs:
1. All insurers are required to pay out what is charged. No denying allowed.
2. All charges must be under the guidance of a third party regulation body - for the US this would be a joint body primarily administered by the AMA (representing doctors) and FDA (representing government). They could also allow adjustments for different areas for based on cost-of-living (e.g. NY, NY vs Erie, PA vs Billings, MT)
3. All charges are the same whether to insured or uninsured. (As it is now, many will discount the uninsured since they are more likely to get paid.)
No mandatory insurance, etc. Doctor's would do well to abide by #2, and if either they or the insurance companies didn't like the rates they could appeal to the regulation body, but it would affect everyone (not that one individual). If someone was suspected of malpractice, over testing, etc. then the AMA could step in to review, repremand, etc. (That is within their purview as the Medical License administrators.)
US healthcare is expensive, and supply is high, but demand is low (as fewer can afford it, though I thought Obamacare was supposed to fix that). Hence lots of money to spend on shiny new toys to fix people, and no waiting lists. (Of course, there are other costs as well - like people delaying trips to the doctor so they can get more ailments before seeking treatment...).
No ObamaCare won't do any such thing in actuality; though it may pretend to do so it will actually make all the costs go up as it lacks any actual cost control mechanism. Their ideas was "make everyone get it and the insurers will lower their prices" but it doesn't work that way - especially when the insurers are the number one or two problem (the other being malpractice lawsuits, which again ObamaCare does nothing to cure).
Citations please? I'll wait...
Can't find the link for the first one now but:
1. A doctor made the news in the last two years for refusing all insurance companies. He cut his overhead costs by 2/3rds and was able to pass that on to his patients as he no longer had to do appeals. My father-in-law is also a doctor, and they do have to file and re-file to get paid the bare minimums. You bill may say $42k, but that's only so they'll actually get paid the $12k it actually cost them - and that barely breaks even.
2. Malpractice insurance has been driving up prices for doctor's and been one of the signficant cost drivers over the last decade. Nothing to do with the quality of the doctor - and its mainly lawsuit driven. It has also pushed a lot of doctors out of the profession, and has been in the news for the last 5 years or so. No one is expecting it to get better any time soon.
Unless you fix the cost drivers, then you are not fixing the problem. No matter how much you fix the pin hole leaks in an aging house with copper pipes, you won't solve the continual leaking until you replace all the pipes (the problem) either with new copper and a filter to get the chemicals out, or with PVC pipes.
US healthcare is expensive, and supply is high, but demand is low (as fewer can afford it, though I thought Obamacare was supposed to fix that). Hence lots of money to spend on shiny new toys to fix people, and no waiting lists. (Of course, there are other costs as well - like people delaying trips to the doctor so they can get more ailments before seeking treatment...).
No ObamaCare won't do any such thing in actuality; though it may pretend to do so it will actually make all the costs go up as it lacks any actual cost control mechanism. Their ideas was "make everyone get it and the insurers will lower their prices" but it doesn't work that way - especially when the insurers are the number one or two problem (the other being malpractice lawsuits, which again ObamaCare does nothing to cure).
If you want real health reform in the US, then you have to address malpractice lawsuits in some meaningful manner, and also address the fact that insurance companies do everything they can to keep from paying anything - which results in 3, 4, or more appeals before a doctor gets paid - each appeal making costs higher as it requires money to file, and personnel to file and track - people that could otherwise be helping service patients. Solve those to things and health care costs will drop dramatically.
It wasn't funny after the first person did it for Windows XP (2000 SP), nor was it funny for Windows 7 (Vista SP). Chances are good that it's not funny now.
Well, it wasn't the case for 2k->Vista; however, Vista, Win7, and Win8 are following what they are doing in most of otheir other products lines - Release, one service, new release; possibly with a second service pack in there. They started that with MS Office 2007, and Visual Studios 2002. It works very well to incrementally improving the system overall; and even adding in some major new functions in general (e.g. VS2008 to VS2010 to VS2011 to VS2012).
Slashdot Mirror
I love poisoning the data of market researchers! :D
I know, damn those corporations asking you what you want. The bastards.
I tried to submit some opinions to a company once; only to get told that they only determine their product line up not by listening to people actually buying their products, but through the "focus group" method of marketing research. The problem is, their focus groups do not match their customers.
The other thing to keep in mind in that in my 100 seat example, the difference between one party having 51 seats, or 100 seats is irrelevant - they can pass whatever they want either way, so whichever election system you have that produces a 1 seat majority or a 50 seat majority is effectively the same.
And that's why some things in the US Constitution require a 66% majority vote, and others requires a 75% super majority vote; while the vast majority of things requires only a 51% simple majority vote.
The only problem is that many HR departments - especially at large organizations - won't count any unpaid time (e.g. volunteer time) towards your experience level. IMHO they should; but they don't. It would have jumped me up one or two positions at the one company I was at.
What does HTML5 have to do with this?
HTML5 includes a scripting functionality, based on JavaScript IIRCC.
Except that with the NTLM2 hashes, you can't use the hash to get the password and thus can't use the password to decrypt EFS files. With the system you described, I can boot a Linux LiveCD and copy out all the passwords for all accounts, and then log into anything directly and decrypt any encrypted files I want.
FYI - there is a hack for Windows that lets you mount a Windows NTFS file system, and generate a password that is close enough to generate the same hash value. Using a Windows Domain doesn't solve the issue either as the local machine retains a copy (on disk) for authentication when not connected to a network the domain is accessible from. And all the disk encryption softare also stores caches for verification unless you do not use your Windows Credentials for authenticating to the encryption software (in which case it has a cache of its own credentials).
So yes, while NTLM2 hashes are one-way hashes, they is still a known exploit for them.
Based on the interesting properties of physics in that all equations are integrals of the simple value of velocity and its integrals thereof, which also btw describes Einstein's improvement of Newton's work, then a simple unified equation can be described as the following where [] means the term encapsulated within it is a subscript:
f(x) = C[n](X[n]^n) + C[n-1](X[n-1]^(n-1))+....C[1]X[1]
Now, let N run from 0 to infinity. The trick, however, if determine the correct values of the constant C and the variable X for each instance N in any given form of the equation, the power of the variable X being known by the value N. Needless to say, this describes an infinite number of equations; this can be reduced by filling in the first few values with the limited version of what we know. While the equation is no longer definitively inifinite it is still, for all practical purposes, infinite in nature.
Similarly, you can use the NAI's opt-out page to opt-out of Google and other ad network tracking.
I went to that page - it told me I had to turn on third-party cookies to use its functionality. Nice try!
I'm pretty sure not allowing third-party cookies largely solves the problem already. I've also got Firefox set to "ask me every time" whenever someone wants to set a cookie - yeah, it was a pain for the first few weeks, but I think it's worth it.
So what happens if a company proxies the third-party cookies through their own site and turns them into first-party cookies?
Advertisers can develop just as many hacks to deliver as as people can create hacks to stop advertisers.
What, you thought HTML5 was just for kicks?
Only the government and those they anoint may request money without giving anything back.
Anyone may request money from anyone else without giving anything back to the giving party. Whether or not the party decides to actually give anything is a different issue.
That is, Bob can always ask Alice for money and never give Alice anything for it. Whether Alice decides to fulfill Bob's request is her decision and her decision alone.
That is simply how the Free Markets work.
That said, there are certain regulations that governments generally impose; those regulations however tend to be on what kinds of things Bob may give Alice in exchange for the money he requests, not on whether or not Alice may give money to Bob.
For instance, walk through any major metropolitan city; you'll find beggars just sitting there with a cup asking for money. Some people do give them money; those that do get nothing in return - nothing other than the satisfaction of having given them something. This has been true throughout history; though the people asking that way historically tended to be considered among the scum of the earth.
I think he was talking about unit testing, not system or integration or even feature testing. Effective unit tests do not rely on external dependencies. You don't need or even want a poorly configured or missing "test environment" to mess up your ability to run the tests. Instead, you provide fakes that yield exactly the expected values to trigger your program's behavior. You can have fakes that drive you in the direction of the happy path, fakes that steer the code down the sad paths, and still other fakes that take you down exception paths. Mock objects can provide everything from simulated database data to simulated service responses. And the values are all coded into the tests, where they provide documentation to anyone who can read code: if you call the Add(2,3) method you should expect a result of 5, if you call the Divide(5,0) method you should expect a DivideByZeroException will be thrown, etc.
And if you have code that is not unit testable today, you can certainly refactor it until it is testable. Once you learn a few patterns and anti-patterns, it's not even that hard to do. The real question is whether or not your boss thinks it's worth it to go back into a working million line project and add unit tests until you achieve 100% test coverage. (Sadly, the reply is generally "you want to spend HOW MUCH on testing code that already works? Get out of here, you psycho!") But is it worth it to add unit tests around any changes you make going forward? Absolutely.
The nature of the system relies on the external dependencies, which are very hard to virtualize in a meaningful manner for testing especially once you add them all up and how they all interact with each other. Not impossible, but very very expensive.
What I do is put my comments in the same line as the code. When I need to read the comment I just scroll right, but otherwise it doesn't distract me or eats up screen space. If it's too long, I split it up between different parts of the code. For example, I explain what a function does in the line before it, but I detail how it does that (if explanation is necessary) in the body after the lines.
One of my colleagues puts all the comments in his code in a certain column at the right side, typically on the same line as the code itself (following the GNU coding-style). While the comments are useful, they are completely useless in that location; it would be far better to have them on the preceeding line, or in a larger block so that it can actually be seen without scrolling the screen left/right.
That's why you have TEST CASES for cases x and y; so that if someone ignores the comment, tests will break alerting of an issue!
Test Cases only work when you can actually have a test environment to test in.
Not all code is testable in-house. A good bit of the code for where I work cannot be tested until we are in the field delivering it to a client. It's just not possible to do it in-house.
The software gets your fingerprint, and then logs in as that user in the background (perhaps using a service) to retrieve the relevant data.
So all you need to do is get the password or token that the software uses to login to that other account and you've got access to all passwords?
There will always be a weakness. The point is to make it as hard or as difficult as possible to get to - one reason why that should not really be something that each vendor does, but rather an API that Microsoft provides.
Basically if the fingerprint scanner integrated with Windows Login the same way as third party login systems like Novel Networks et al, it wouldn't need your password until you tried to access an encrypted file. The flaw here is they hack it out by sending your password to Windows; fingerprint data is too noisy, you compare it as "sufficiently similar" but it's going to be too unique to generate a key from with any repeatability and high entropy. Thus they store the key UUENCODED or BASE64 or MIME to obscure it, which doesn't work on hackers. Instead, they should hook the login process and directly complete user authentication without a password, and let windows ask for a password if it tries to touch an EFS file.
That wouldn't really work either. What they need to do is store the password in a system encrypted file using the Windows encryption and a per-system negotiated key to access it - perhaps one that uses TPM. Or better yet, assign a specific user (configurable which) that is created for the sole purpose of managing the keys and passwords. The software gets your fingerprint, and then logs in as that user in the background (perhaps using a service) to retrieve the relevant data.
And, of course, if the wrote their own GINA plug-in or login system then they could manage it completely and then a simple authentication token for the user would be passed back so it could be used for the login.
Regardless, it wouldn't really work best unless Microsoft provided some kind of API to really support it cleanly instead of relying on each individual manufacturer. That is - have an API whereby they could store some kind of data (perhaps even with some vendor/app specific encryption) - be it biometrics, passwords, etc - that could be stored locally or in the domain; it then returns a valid authentication token that could be used to complete the login process.
Forgot to say - our own products mainly run on DOS (legacy) and Linux (current). Windows is just the end-user portion of the system. The parent company and other units are extremely tied to Windows.
My office is no longer putting XP systems out there - any system running XP that is brought into the shop is now automatically replaced as a matter of policy (for our business clients.) Sometimes we have to twist their arms, but frankly, we've got a deadline in 2014 and we're going to make our clients meet it whether they want to or not. XP market share is likely to plummet rapidly in the next 2-3 years.
Oddly enough, my part of the company tries to use the latest version of Windows - we typically don't care and update the software as things come along.
However, our parent company is stuck on WinXP, and doesn't seem like they have any interest in moving forward. Sadly it holds us back a little as one piece of crap equipment we are forced to use comes from another portion of the company that is doing the same thing (likely at the direction of the parent company).
I really don't understand why the Kubuntu people even bother. If they're not getting any more help from Canonical, why even bother keeping the distro going at all? They should just throw in the towel, and join the Linux Mint KDE team. Linux Mint is little more than Ubuntu with some modifications, and LM even has their own KDE version which is featured prominently, unlike Kubuntu which has always been treated like a red-haired stepchild. They should join forces, move to the Linux Mint camp, and make all their contributions there. I'm sure the LM team would be happy to have the extra help. Why bother maintaining two separate distros which are almost identical?
Using that reasoning, then why did Linux Mint even release a KDE version instead of just working with Kubuntu? Mint KDE is not just Kubuntu fixed up. They have different goals. The real questions are how and why is Blue Systems supporting Mint KDE, Kubuntu and Netrunner? I'm glad they are, but you would think that putting all of those resources into one KDE distro sponsorship would be more efficient.
I won't use Linux Mint. For one reason, their distro management. I use Kubuntu relgularly, keep it up-to-date, and upgrade from one version to another. From what I understand about Linux Mint (from several that I know run it) you have to reinstall to go from one version to another, and that's simply a no-go. Of course, I'd likely be more at home with ArchLinux as I do tend to like the rolling distros better (I use Gentoo at home, but Kubuntu for work).
I'm sure there are others that feel similarly about Linux Mint vs. Kubuntu.
No it is more of a case that most companies don't need a team of rockstar developers.
Because in truth you don't. For an average medium large project 1 Rockstar Developer 3 Mid Level Developers 6 Jr. Developers
The Rockstar works on the proof of concepts, and the base architectural design. Mid Level make the core building blocks Jr. Developers put all the pieces together.
I disagree. Where I am presently working our parent company does that - they have 1 senior developer who is in charge of everything, and then a bunch of other lesser developers that implement what the senior developer says to do. Their products all suck, and they don't deliver to customers expectations. Many have sworn never to buy from our parent company.
On the other hand, in my portion of the company (until the parent destroyed it) we had 4-5 mid-senior level developers, and could turn out products that met expectations in reasonable time. We actually had something the industry we're in wanted.
It doesn't really have anything to do with ratios, as it does having a team that works well together and can deliver products. If they can't deliver, then it doesn't matter how skilled they are they need to go. If they can't work together, then it doesn't matter how skilled they are, they have to go. If they can do those two things, then products will happen and the ROI will generally be very good.
and the rest of the jury just followed along like lemmings. The foreman fancied himself an expert on patents, what with his vast experience of having secured 1 patent
What a disgrace. Unfortunately rule 606(b) of the Federal evidence code precludes using the jurors' statements in an appeal. So they can prance and prattle like jackasses, but there's not much to do about it
Did the juror text this info to the reporter with "send from my iPhone" at the bottom?
They could still question the jurors in court about how they reached their verdict and about how true the statements made to the press were. For example, how true is that they relied on the patent experience and explanation of patents from the jury foreman in reaching their verdicts? If they relied on him, then that is likely testimony that the court did not vet, neither side in the case vetted, and may not be an accurate representation of the law, etc. Or they could ask them about how much they even considered the courts instructions (which they are required to follow). While IANAL, there's ample oppurtunity for it to be overturned simply on those issues if further examined by the court.
I don't think anyone has ever believed that passing a drug test mean the person was clean for sure.
True. Just because you pass a test does not in fact mean you weren't doping. Dope addicts have ways of passing the tests, or invalidating the tests so they can retake them when they will pass them.
However, that has nothing to do with...
Why do they store samples for X number of years in order to re-test them in the future, with better technology? It's because if it's found out later that somebody was doping, then his results are invalid.
If we find out some other way besides a drug test that somebody was doping, then his results are invalid.
They store the sames in case a new drug test comes along to discover new drugs that they couldn't detect before, or for new tests that allow them to get a more accurate result, or a finer graint result (e.g. lower parts per million). They also store them in case someone disputes it so that they can be retested as part of the dispute.
1 BTC = 9.93 USD
And here I was thinking it'd be something like $6.66 USD (or any currency) to 1 BTC.
Is it allowed through the drive-thru?
It wouldn't registered as drive-thru have weight sensors to tell the person when a car approaches. I've tried going through on rollerblades, but it wouldn't trigger the weight requirement. (Didn't want to go inside of out safety concerns.)
Not quite.
For profit institutions have a big issue with maintaining their profit margins. However, non-profit and not-for-profit instituations shouldn't have such an issue. We could maintain the current system but require that all insurance companies be non-profit or not-for-profit. In which case it should boil down to costs+overhead.
However, that still doesn't resolve the issue of care, or expenses. In most of the world, if you want a procedure (e.g. vasectomy, plastic surgury, liposuction, etc.) you have to wait on a list to get it unless it's an emergency situation (e.g. heart failure makes you go to the to for a heart transplant very quickly). In this respect, the US system is much better except at cost control - which is primarily out of hand due to (i) malpractice insurance costs to doctors - only resolvable by changing how malpractice is handled in its entirety - and (ii) insurance companies refusing to pay, or trying to game doctors by denying in hopes they'll eventually give up trying to get paid (which does happen).
Now, Medicare and Medicaid also have major problems with costs - primarily because they don't "shop around" enough for prices, so you end up paying $19 for an aspirin to be administered (never mind that the same nurse administered 10 other drugs at the same time, and they charged similarly for each of them - thus all the overhead was charged multiple times and the difference is the cost of the medication - I'm sure it happens to insurance companies too).
Both have problems, and neither is really controlled. Nor will it be controlled until a third party intervenes. If I were to write a health care reform law, it would do the following to address the costs:
1. All insurers are required to pay out what is charged. No denying allowed.
2. All charges must be under the guidance of a third party regulation body - for the US this would be a joint body primarily administered by the AMA (representing doctors) and FDA (representing government). They could also allow adjustments for different areas for based on cost-of-living (e.g. NY, NY vs Erie, PA vs Billings, MT)
3. All charges are the same whether to insured or uninsured. (As it is now, many will discount the uninsured since they are more likely to get paid.)
No mandatory insurance, etc. Doctor's would do well to abide by #2, and if either they or the insurance companies didn't like the rates they could appeal to the regulation body, but it would affect everyone (not that one individual). If someone was suspected of malpractice, over testing, etc. then the AMA could step in to review, repremand, etc. (That is within their purview as the Medical License administrators.)
In the end, keep-it-simple-stupid.
No ObamaCare won't do any such thing in actuality; though it may pretend to do so it will actually make all the costs go up as it lacks any actual cost control mechanism. Their ideas was "make everyone get it and the insurers will lower their prices" but it doesn't work that way - especially when the insurers are the number one or two problem (the other being malpractice lawsuits, which again ObamaCare does nothing to cure).
Citations please? I'll wait...
Can't find the link for the first one now but:
1. A doctor made the news in the last two years for refusing all insurance companies. He cut his overhead costs by 2/3rds and was able to pass that on to his patients as he no longer had to do appeals. My father-in-law is also a doctor, and they do have to file and re-file to get paid the bare minimums. You bill may say $42k, but that's only so they'll actually get paid the $12k it actually cost them - and that barely breaks even.
2. Malpractice insurance has been driving up prices for doctor's and been one of the signficant cost drivers over the last decade. Nothing to do with the quality of the doctor - and its mainly lawsuit driven. It has also pushed a lot of doctors out of the profession, and has been in the news for the last 5 years or so. No one is expecting it to get better any time soon.
Unless you fix the cost drivers, then you are not fixing the problem. No matter how much you fix the pin hole leaks in an aging house with copper pipes, you won't solve the continual leaking until you replace all the pipes (the problem) either with new copper and a filter to get the chemicals out, or with PVC pipes.
No ObamaCare won't do any such thing in actuality; though it may pretend to do so it will actually make all the costs go up as it lacks any actual cost control mechanism. Their ideas was "make everyone get it and the insurers will lower their prices" but it doesn't work that way - especially when the insurers are the number one or two problem (the other being malpractice lawsuits, which again ObamaCare does nothing to cure).
If you want real health reform in the US, then you have to address malpractice lawsuits in some meaningful manner, and also address the fact that insurance companies do everything they can to keep from paying anything - which results in 3, 4, or more appeals before a doctor gets paid - each appeal making costs higher as it requires money to file, and personnel to file and track - people that could otherwise be helping service patients. Solve those to things and health care costs will drop dramatically.
Oh no. Are we going to start this crap again?
It wasn't funny after the first person did it for Windows XP (2000 SP), nor was it funny for Windows 7 (Vista SP). Chances are good that it's not funny now.
Well, it wasn't the case for 2k->Vista; however, Vista, Win7, and Win8 are following what they are doing in most of otheir other products lines - Release, one service, new release; possibly with a second service pack in there. They started that with MS Office 2007, and Visual Studios 2002. It works very well to incrementally improving the system overall; and even adding in some major new functions in general (e.g. VS2008 to VS2010 to VS2011 to VS2012).
And yes, it's not meant to be funny - it's fact.