The NSA has their own chip fab plant - I bet they've been doing this for years (embedding their own backdoors in the h/w). How better to manage hardware assets that are compromised in the field?
Right now it seems to be limited at only blurring faces, but why couldn't it just simply blur the entire image? Again, I'm just trying to extrapolate where this technology could go... not necessarily where it is today.
This "techonology" could be used in places where you don't want some goof with a cellphone camera taking snaps of stuff, i.e.: my company's office, the ladies change room at my local gym/pool, government offices, etc. I know I'd love to have something that disables a cellphone camera in specific areas - right now I have to rely on the honesty of my guests in disclosing if their camera has imaging capabilities or not... (hint: I work with secured technologies).
The patent may be broad enough to cover the larger concept of obscuring/degrading/modifying digital data when captured via certain types of devices.
Not all contracts for s/w development transfer source code and the related IP. Some contracts will transfer source for use internally only for maintenance purposes, other contracts will transfer it for full use (full copyright transfer, etc.). But it is not uncommon to have a contract where the contractor retains some rights to the IP (in effect licensing the code to the contracting company).
Your contract with this contractor should outline 1) your warranty period, i.e.: how long you have to get deficiencies corrected at no cost (or at some predetermined labour rate); 2) ownership of IP; and 3) any acceptance criteria (or actions that are to be construed as acceptance of the work product as is)
If you own the IP, you should have the product delivered to you in a format that is maintainable (i.e.: editable) by your company. Sounds like you didn't have such rights assigned to you in the contract. I'll have to assume that, at any rate.
So once the warranty period has expired, and you've given acceptance, you're screwed. You have no legal basis for having the contractor do additional work for free. If you want to pay him, I'm sure he'd be glad to oblige.
But, if you have not met the terms of acceptance for the work product (again, I will assume there is some definition in the contract as to what actions construe acceptance) and the warranty period had not expired, the contractor is on the hook for fixes - not improvements or additional features, mind you, but that doesn't sound like your situation.
So if you're in this case, you should estimate the $$ required to complete the work. If it's under the limit for your regional small claims court, file a claim. If you win, great. If he doesn't pay and if it's an owner/operator (i.e.: solo guy), place a lien against his car or house for the amount owing. If it's larger than the small claims court limit, you'll have to decide if it's worth your while (time and legal fees).
Talk to a lawyer AND make sure your contracts are water-tight going forward.
This is part of "discovery", whereby the plaintiff and defendants are required to share information which helps to define the scope of the infringement.. i.e.: just how much code is SCO imagining IBM has released against the terms their license agreement? If you say 1KLOC then you could quantify that as X dollars damage. If it's 100 MLOC, then you'd want to sue for more money, right?
Def'n: "Discovery -- The pretrial process by which one party discovers the evidence that will be relied upon at trial by the opposing party."
SCO has an agreement in place with their legal counsel, whereby SCO pays a fixed amount of $ to the firm, and anything over that amount is covered by the legal firm. Can't recall the amount where the legal firm is on their own dime, or, if SCO were to (ha ha) win the case, if the firm would receive additional compensation. Hmm... better go check on Groklaw...
So the waiting game is actually not that difficult for SCO - from the perspective of having resources to pay for legal costs. In fact, the single most used tactic by SCO has been delay delay delay...
What IBM needs to do is give them SO MUCH info that SCO simply cannot make heads or tails of it, forcing them to go back to the judge and cry "waaah, there's too much info and it's so confusing... make IBM explain it to us!" At which point the judge will (hopefully) say something along the lines of "bite my shiny metal ass (or the equivalent) and either do it yourself or I'll dismiss."
Sometimes just getting your track sampled and looped in someone else's can expose your music to other audiences. Besides, if it's not a super hot/top ten track, which you could license for big cha-ching, why not let it go. This seems analogous to letting folks d/l your back catalog for free (or some nominal fee), because you're not expecting to make much money off sales for those albums (you've either already made your money or you haven't - of course there are notable exceptions a la Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon). If you've already made your money (or not and have written those "losses" off), why not give it away, you might gain a new audience, who - if they like your stuff - are far more likely to purchase your next album and see you in concert (where artists actually make their money). Seems like a great idea to me.
Yeah, how quickly people forget eh? I work in the industry, so I know about the requirements to have everything available through an internal networked system, and in some cases that system has to link to an external network (i.e.: Internet). Example: As a civilian I can search the government's website and find all sorts of good info, like what prime contractor was recently fined $20M USD for not complying with arms trafficking regulations. If I were a USG employee, I need to access information internal and external to the USG's network (i.e.: USG's network and Internet). In many classified/security cleared facilities in the US, there is NO Internet access, that is no access to any external network. The exception is email, which is all encrypted, scanned, logged/recorded, yadda yadda yadda, and passed through a very complex set of firewalls. The USG sees that the Internet is a great vehicle for sharing of information, but it's not secure enough. It's really really hard for them to interface to the Internet and maintain internal network security. The USG bureaucrats and policy makers sometimes wish they could take over the Internet and kick every one else off.
OK, it's pretty damn short article to begin with, but I betcha what's driving these comments from someone like Tenet is the fact that more and more of the government's information, records, processes, yadda yadda yadda is online. It may be "secure" (in a manner of speaking) but it's online. The military (DoD) has been mandated to have everything networked - communications is a good example (look at JTRS to see what I mean). Interoperability and accessibility are the words of the day (well, decade) at DoD. So if all that info, if all those processes, if all that is plopped ontop of a networked infrastructure, where the security of the system relies on the security of 3rd party products (i.e.: OSes, app software, web servers, even hardware, etc.), then those 3rd party vendors better be providing an incredibly secure and robust product. If the DoD builds a big honkin wall between its network and the rest of the world's network, you only need one point of compromise to take down that internal network. A chain's only as strong as it's weakest link, right?
Who works for decades at one company anymore? Particularly in tech? I saw figures around a while back that said that most tech folk switch companies every 2-5 years. OK, so we're probably on the upper end of that range in the last couple years due to market slowdowns.
I too have been an employee, an employer, and a contractor. I did the employer/contractor dual gig for 3 years and it was a tough 3 years. A few of the contracts were amazing (challenging, interesting, etc.) but many were filler and not very challening or interesting. One thing I did notice is that every organization treated me and other contractors differently than other organizations. Some were great, very professional and accommodating; others saw us as indentured slaves. Also, the FTEs in the organization treated us differently from shop to shop. The companies where management treated their contractors professionally often had staff that also worked well with contractors. But I have worked gigs where the FTEs (or the "Lifers" as they called themselves) basically refused to work with the contractors (the "Temps" on a good day; the "Usurpers" on a bad day). In that case, this cultural divide resulted in two distinct workforces: Lifers who griped all day and did very little work and Temps who did all the actual work (OK, there's my bias coming out there). I guess all I'm saying is that the company culture is an important factor here. An earlier poster suggested visiting the site to meet with some folks, esp. those folks you'd likely be working with... if they treat you like scum of the Earth because you're a contractor, then you should think twice. That kind of situation will suck the life out of you.
Good point. Also keep in mind that the EU has put out two key directives (which come into fore pretty soon) relating to the materials used/left over from electronics manufacturing processes:
RoHS - Restriction on Hazardous Substances - also known as "lead free" directive but in fact includes a whole list of other stuff
WEEE - Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment - forces producers to buy-back and recycle electronic equipment properly (no more shipping it to SE Asia)
This new technology could certainly reduce the costs related to both of these initiatives.
If you've modded your box already and hooked it up to your PC, then you can already do this. My sister-in-law was competing at the Hawaii Ironman this past weekend, and IMNorth America has a streaming video feed set-up at the finish line, that most folks would watch on their PC. We watched it on our tv, and saw her finish her race (and recorded it for her).
I just want the PVR functionality (and more streaming stations with higher quality video). Then I can cancel my cable. Mwahahaha!
OK, first off let me fess up: I am a QA manager, have been for near on 10 years now. I've worked on projects with MS, Adobe, IBM, Sun, yadda yadda yadda. All sorts of projects and languages, products and programmers.
Cox really does highlight some of the best practices out there, but he also skims over some key ones. The biggest problem I've seen out there (and I've done QA Management consulting for a good chunk of those 10 yrs, so I've seen a lot of organizations) is commitment by management. Most QA folk know that there will always be a challenge to find the right balance between schedule/budget, quality of product, and feature set of the product. Do you want it good? now? or stripped down? And most QA folk are willing to work within that mindset. But when management 1) does not appropriately staff QA activities; 2) does not appropriately fund QA activities & annual budgets; 3) does not make it damn clear to all staff that QA is a requirement for project and thus ultimately product success and if you don't like someone testing your code and logging bugs against it, you better move along pardner, the organization pays lip service to QA. Heck even when QA finds a horrible problem prior to release, so there's time to fix the problem, you'd think most folks would be happy (ok, not thrilled because that balance is skewed towards a schedule slip) that there was time to get in a fix. But no, 99 times out of 100, QA is slammed for holding up the process.
Independent testing is a must for an organization to have any real understanding of the quality of the product. Engineers cannot be the only folks testing their outputs. For oone, it's a very expensive way to test - I want geers designing & coding & unit testing not integration or system or release testing. QA folks will cost between 30-70% of a geers salary - why would you want the most expensive resource doing the (in most cases) less technically demanding work? And work they usually don't enjoy doing anyways (grumble grumble, I didn't sign up for this!)
OK, so this is a bit of a rant. I'm just dealing with my current senior management who say they want QA to manage and execute the independent testing, but turn around and find 95% of Engineereing who refuse to participate in the process.
I'll just go have a beer and forget about my problems...mmm... beer... drool drool.
Slightly off-topic, but in Canada, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act ("PIPEDA") (link here) came into effect on Jan 1, 2004. No organization is allowed to solicit your personal information without clearly showing you their privacy policy which must outline what is done with the data (how it's stored, managed, if it leaves the company's hands, the country, etc.). You have the right to say "No thanks" when the clerk at SportMart asks for your phone number, ditto when the clerk at Toys'R'Us when making a return. Sad things about this are 1) most Canadians don't even know about the act and 2) even less corporations know about it. All you fellow Canucks, next time you are making a purchase and they clerk asks for your phone number, say "No" and see what they do. Or better yet, ask the clerk what they need the info for, and what they intend to do with that information. Watch said clerk squirm and stammer ("Umm...ummm... I dunno"). Kinda cruel to the clerk, I s'pose but telling of the management of most Canadian corporations.
Protectionism is harmful to corporations. I will posit the "working opposite" of protectionism is free trade and globalization. Free trade and globalization allows corporations, who's interest is *solely* that of the shareholders not of the indigienous populations, to contribute less and less to the local populations, to move their operations to the locale with the best tax incentives and cheapest labour, without any real repercussions. Protectionism can be a good thing, from the perspective of the public good, as the government can have more say in the impact corporations have on its people. I agree that from the corporate perspective, protectionism is one of worst possible stances a government can take - it makes it that much harder for a corporation to reap greater profits for their shareholders. But don't be naive and think for one minute that those folks who fight protectionism are doing it for the public good, or even for consumers.
Re:A chance to make up for past injustices
on
Strike on Iraq
·
· Score: 1
I agree with much of your post. One thing that seems to often be (conveniently) forgotten is that 20 years ago, the US was *actively* supporting Iraq in it's conflict against Iran. By actively supporting we're talking money, arms, training. Oh and turning a blind eye when Saddam uses biological weapons on his own people (Kurds).
This idea I like: you purchase the license for "life", just like with most s/w (ahem) where you pay X and get a license for a piece of s/w in perpetuity. However, I would like to add on the caveat that as per Fair Use guidelines, the format shouldn't matter i.e.: if I purchase a license to song X in MP3 format, I should be permitted to burn it onto CD, or transfer it to a cassette, or convert it to whatever format I wish to use. If I can copy my CD I purchased onto a cassette, then by extension I must be permitted the ability to copy my MP3 to a CD or to some other format for my personal use.
Yeah they're not bug bites... I had that checked out. That's interesting about the paper ink. It's too bad that the majority of medication to relieve these symptoms is cortisone based though... long term use can;t be good for us.
All I know is that over the years, I hae developed sensitivities to things that *never* bothered me before. I get outside more than most people (running, cycling, open water swimming, soccer, golf, hiking, you get the idea), and over the last four years, I have become:
allergic to cats - this one is wierd, growing up I always had cats and never had a problem
allergic to plant pollens - also wierd, I've always spent tons of time outdoors and never had "hayfever" symptoms, used to work for a florist is college
allergic to grasses (esp cuttings) - for someone who played soccer for 10+ years, it's pretty odd that I'd develop this sensitivity only in the last three-ish years
allergic to strong scents and colourings in beauty/skin care products - how the hell did this happen? after 5-10 years of use?
All of these "allergies" or sensitivities started showing up after I had a bad bought of bronchitis is '98 and was given heaps of drugs, including brochodilators. I am in the peak of health - 500+ annual hours of aerobic and anaerobic activity, VO2 max in the top 5% of the population, resting HR below 50 bpm, below 20% body fat, etc. Yet everytime I go for a bike ride through agricultural regions near where I live, my legs are covered with welts for days afterwards (likely due to the chemicals used in farming).
While there's lots of people out there who want you to believe you're sick, sick enough to give them money for some wonder product, I also believe that there is too much of... everything.. in our daily environment. Our bodies are reacting more and more to compounds found in nature, let alone those crazy man made chemical products. So you tell me what the hell's going on. Why has everyone I know developed some sort of sensitivity in the last 5ish years?
I just finished this book. I was an avid comic collector in high school, even worked at a comic book store (one of very few women who were into that whole scene). The style of writing, the plot, the themes, all resonated with me because they were familiar - they were "comic-bookish". The book possesses a momentum of its own, it propels itself forward in the same fits and starts as a comic book, jumping along from frame to frame, with the odd pause for a 2 page ad spread. The story is just as detailed as Frank Miller's Batman was, while possessing the dynamic movement that you'd see by McFarlane's Spiderman. Great character development. Highly recommended. Nice change from the angst-ridden navel-gazing pulp we see featured by Oprah. One of the best books I've read in the last few years.
Slashdot Mirror
The NSA has their own chip fab plant - I bet they've been doing this for years (embedding their own backdoors in the h/w). How better to manage hardware assets that are compromised in the field?
Thanks. I might look into that.
Right now it seems to be limited at only blurring faces, but why couldn't it just simply blur the entire image? Again, I'm just trying to extrapolate where this technology could go... not necessarily where it is today.
Dunh, I mean if their PHONE has imaging capabilities... better get another cup o joe...
This "techonology" could be used in places where you don't want some goof with a cellphone camera taking snaps of stuff, i.e.: my company's office, the ladies change room at my local gym/pool, government offices, etc. I know I'd love to have something that disables a cellphone camera in specific areas - right now I have to rely on the honesty of my guests in disclosing if their camera has imaging capabilities or not... (hint: I work with secured technologies).
The patent may be broad enough to cover the larger concept of obscuring/degrading/modifying digital data when captured via certain types of devices.
Not all contracts for s/w development transfer source code and the related IP. Some contracts will transfer source for use internally only for maintenance purposes, other contracts will transfer it for full use (full copyright transfer, etc.). But it is not uncommon to have a contract where the contractor retains some rights to the IP (in effect licensing the code to the contracting company).
Don't assume all contracts are the same.
Your contract with this contractor should outline 1) your warranty period, i.e.: how long you have to get deficiencies corrected at no cost (or at some predetermined labour rate); 2) ownership of IP; and 3) any acceptance criteria (or actions that are to be construed as acceptance of the work product as is)
If you own the IP, you should have the product delivered to you in a format that is maintainable (i.e.: editable) by your company. Sounds like you didn't have such rights assigned to you in the contract. I'll have to assume that, at any rate.
So once the warranty period has expired, and you've given acceptance, you're screwed. You have no legal basis for having the contractor do additional work for free. If you want to pay him, I'm sure he'd be glad to oblige.
But, if you have not met the terms of acceptance for the work product (again, I will assume there is some definition in the contract as to what actions construe acceptance) and the warranty period had not expired, the contractor is on the hook for fixes - not improvements or additional features, mind you, but that doesn't sound like your situation.
So if you're in this case, you should estimate the $$ required to complete the work. If it's under the limit for your regional small claims court, file a claim. If you win, great. If he doesn't pay and if it's an owner/operator (i.e.: solo guy), place a lien against his car or house for the amount owing. If it's larger than the small claims court limit, you'll have to decide if it's worth your while (time and legal fees).
Talk to a lawyer AND make sure your contracts are water-tight going forward.
This is part of "discovery", whereby the plaintiff and defendants are required to share information which helps to define the scope of the infringement.. i.e.: just how much code is SCO imagining IBM has released against the terms their license agreement? If you say 1KLOC then you could quantify that as X dollars damage. If it's 100 MLOC, then you'd want to sue for more money, right?
l egalTerms/legalTerms.asp
Def'n: "Discovery -- The pretrial process by which one party discovers the evidence that will be relied upon at trial by the opposing party."
Ref: http://www.superiorcourt.maricopa.gov/publicInfo/
SCO has an agreement in place with their legal counsel, whereby SCO pays a fixed amount of $ to the firm, and anything over that amount is covered by the legal firm. Can't recall the amount where the legal firm is on their own dime, or, if SCO were to (ha ha) win the case, if the firm would receive additional compensation. Hmm... better go check on Groklaw...
So the waiting game is actually not that difficult for SCO - from the perspective of having resources to pay for legal costs. In fact, the single most used tactic by SCO has been delay delay delay...
What IBM needs to do is give them SO MUCH info that SCO simply cannot make heads or tails of it, forcing them to go back to the judge and cry "waaah, there's too much info and it's so confusing... make IBM explain it to us!" At which point the judge will (hopefully) say something along the lines of "bite my shiny metal ass (or the equivalent) and either do it yourself or I'll dismiss."
Sometimes just getting your track sampled and looped in someone else's can expose your music to other audiences. Besides, if it's not a super hot/top ten track, which you could license for big cha-ching, why not let it go. This seems analogous to letting folks d/l your back catalog for free (or some nominal fee), because you're not expecting to make much money off sales for those albums (you've either already made your money or you haven't - of course there are notable exceptions a la Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon). If you've already made your money (or not and have written those "losses" off), why not give it away, you might gain a new audience, who - if they like your stuff - are far more likely to purchase your next album and see you in concert (where artists actually make their money).
Seems like a great idea to me.
I have only 3 words for you:
1. Get
2. A
3. Mac
Roger roger over and out.
Yeah, how quickly people forget eh? I work in the industry, so I know about the requirements to have everything available through an internal networked system, and in some cases that system has to link to an external network (i.e.: Internet). Example: As a civilian I can search the government's website and find all sorts of good info, like what prime contractor was recently fined $20M USD for not complying with arms trafficking regulations. If I were a USG employee, I need to access information internal and external to the USG's network (i.e.: USG's network and Internet). In many classified/security cleared facilities in the US, there is NO Internet access, that is no access to any external network. The exception is email, which is all encrypted, scanned, logged/recorded, yadda yadda yadda, and passed through a very complex set of firewalls. The USG sees that the Internet is a great vehicle for sharing of information, but it's not secure enough. It's really really hard for them to interface to the Internet and maintain internal network security. The USG bureaucrats and policy makers sometimes wish they could take over the Internet and kick every one else off.
OK, it's pretty damn short article to begin with, but I betcha what's driving these comments from someone like Tenet is the fact that more and more of the government's information, records, processes, yadda yadda yadda is online. It may be "secure" (in a manner of speaking) but it's online. The military (DoD) has been mandated to have everything networked - communications is a good example (look at JTRS to see what I mean). Interoperability and accessibility are the words of the day (well, decade) at DoD. So if all that info, if all those processes, if all that is plopped ontop of a networked infrastructure, where the security of the system relies on the security of 3rd party products (i.e.: OSes, app software, web servers, even hardware, etc.), then those 3rd party vendors better be providing an incredibly secure and robust product. If the DoD builds a big honkin wall between its network and the rest of the world's network, you only need one point of compromise to take down that internal network. A chain's only as strong as it's weakest link, right?
Who works for decades at one company anymore? Particularly in tech? I saw figures around a while back that said that most tech folk switch companies every 2-5 years. OK, so we're probably on the upper end of that range in the last couple years due to market slowdowns.
I too have been an employee, an employer, and a contractor. I did the employer/contractor dual gig for 3 years and it was a tough 3 years. A few of the contracts were amazing (challenging, interesting, etc.) but many were filler and not very challening or interesting. One thing I did notice is that every organization treated me and other contractors differently than other organizations. Some were great, very professional and accommodating; others saw us as indentured slaves. Also, the FTEs in the organization treated us differently from shop to shop. The companies where management treated their contractors professionally often had staff that also worked well with contractors. But I have worked gigs where the FTEs (or the "Lifers" as they called themselves) basically refused to work with the contractors (the "Temps" on a good day; the "Usurpers" on a bad day). In that case, this cultural divide resulted in two distinct workforces: Lifers who griped all day and did very little work and Temps who did all the actual work (OK, there's my bias coming out there). I guess all I'm saying is that the company culture is an important factor here. An earlier poster suggested visiting the site to meet with some folks, esp. those folks you'd likely be working with... if they treat you like scum of the Earth because you're a contractor, then you should think twice. That kind of situation will suck the life out of you.
My 2 cents.
This new technology could certainly reduce the costs related to both of these initiatives.
If you've modded your box already and hooked it up to your PC, then you can already do this. My sister-in-law was competing at the Hawaii Ironman this past weekend, and IMNorth America has a streaming video feed set-up at the finish line, that most folks would watch on their PC. We watched it on our tv, and saw her finish her race (and recorded it for her).
I just want the PVR functionality (and more streaming stations with higher quality video). Then I can cancel my cable. Mwahahaha!
Cox really does highlight some of the best practices out there, but he also skims over some key ones. The biggest problem I've seen out there (and I've done QA Management consulting for a good chunk of those 10 yrs, so I've seen a lot of organizations) is commitment by management. Most QA folk know that there will always be a challenge to find the right balance between schedule/budget, quality of product, and feature set of the product. Do you want it good? now? or stripped down? And most QA folk are willing to work within that mindset. But when management 1) does not appropriately staff QA activities; 2) does not appropriately fund QA activities & annual budgets; 3) does not make it damn clear to all staff that QA is a requirement for project and thus ultimately product success and if you don't like someone testing your code and logging bugs against it, you better move along pardner, the organization pays lip service to QA. Heck even when QA finds a horrible problem prior to release, so there's time to fix the problem, you'd think most folks would be happy (ok, not thrilled because that balance is skewed towards a schedule slip) that there was time to get in a fix. But no, 99 times out of 100, QA is slammed for holding up the process.
Independent testing is a must for an organization to have any real understanding of the quality of the product. Engineers cannot be the only folks testing their outputs. For oone, it's a very expensive way to test - I want geers designing & coding & unit testing not integration or system or release testing. QA folks will cost between 30-70% of a geers salary - why would you want the most expensive resource doing the (in most cases) less technically demanding work? And work they usually don't enjoy doing anyways (grumble grumble, I didn't sign up for this!)
OK, so this is a bit of a rant. I'm just dealing with my current senior management who say they want QA to manage and execute the independent testing, but turn around and find 95% of Engineereing who refuse to participate in the process.
I'll just go have a beer and forget about my problems...mmm... beer... drool drool.
Slightly off-topic, but in Canada, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act ("PIPEDA") (link here) came into effect on Jan 1, 2004. No organization is allowed to solicit your personal information without clearly showing you their privacy policy which must outline what is done with the data (how it's stored, managed, if it leaves the company's hands, the country, etc.). You have the right to say "No thanks" when the clerk at SportMart asks for your phone number, ditto when the clerk at Toys'R'Us when making a return. Sad things about this are 1) most Canadians don't even know about the act and 2) even less corporations know about it. All you fellow Canucks, next time you are making a purchase and they clerk asks for your phone number, say "No" and see what they do. Or better yet, ask the clerk what they need the info for, and what they intend to do with that information. Watch said clerk squirm and stammer ("Umm...ummm... I dunno"). Kinda cruel to the clerk, I s'pose but telling of the management of most Canadian corporations.
Protectionism is harmful to corporations. I will posit the "working opposite" of protectionism is free trade and globalization. Free trade and globalization allows corporations, who's interest is *solely* that of the shareholders not of the indigienous populations, to contribute less and less to the local populations, to move their operations to the locale with the best tax incentives and cheapest labour, without any real repercussions. Protectionism can be a good thing, from the perspective of the public good, as the government can have more say in the impact corporations have on its people. I agree that from the corporate perspective, protectionism is one of worst possible stances a government can take - it makes it that much harder for a corporation to reap greater profits for their shareholders. But don't be naive and think for one minute that those folks who fight protectionism are doing it for the public good, or even for consumers.
I agree with much of your post. One thing that seems to often be (conveniently) forgotten is that 20 years ago, the US was *actively* supporting Iraq in it's conflict against Iran. By actively supporting we're talking money, arms, training. Oh and turning a blind eye when Saddam uses biological weapons on his own people (Kurds).
This idea I like: you purchase the license for "life", just like with most s/w (ahem) where you pay X and get a license for a piece of s/w in perpetuity. However, I would like to add on the caveat that as per Fair Use guidelines, the format shouldn't matter i.e.: if I purchase a license to song X in MP3 format, I should be permitted to burn it onto CD, or transfer it to a cassette, or convert it to whatever format I wish to use. If I can copy my CD I purchased onto a cassette, then by extension I must be permitted the ability to copy my MP3 to a CD or to some other format for my personal use.
Yeah they're not bug bites... I had that checked out. That's interesting about the paper ink. It's too bad that the majority of medication to relieve these symptoms is cortisone based though... long term use can;t be good for us.
All of these "allergies" or sensitivities started showing up after I had a bad bought of bronchitis is '98 and was given heaps of drugs, including brochodilators. I am in the peak of health - 500+ annual hours of aerobic and anaerobic activity, VO2 max in the top 5% of the population, resting HR below 50 bpm, below 20% body fat, etc. Yet everytime I go for a bike ride through agricultural regions near where I live, my legs are covered with welts for days afterwards (likely due to the chemicals used in farming).
While there's lots of people out there who want you to believe you're sick, sick enough to give them money for some wonder product, I also believe that there is too much of... everything.. in our daily environment. Our bodies are reacting more and more to compounds found in nature, let alone those crazy man made chemical products. So you tell me what the hell's going on. Why has everyone I know developed some sort of sensitivity in the last 5ish years?
Wow, there is another... this is amazing. In all my years I've never heard of another... ;-) Welcome to the neighbourhood, see ya around...
I just finished this book. I was an avid comic collector in high school, even worked at a comic book store (one of very few women who were into that whole scene). The style of writing, the plot, the themes, all resonated with me because they were familiar - they were "comic-bookish". The book possesses a momentum of its own, it propels itself forward in the same fits and starts as a comic book, jumping along from frame to frame, with the odd pause for a 2 page ad spread. The story is just as detailed as Frank Miller's Batman was, while possessing the dynamic movement that you'd see by McFarlane's Spiderman. Great character development.
Highly recommended. Nice change from the angst-ridden navel-gazing pulp we see featured by Oprah. One of the best books I've read in the last few years.