No. Capitol Records did not sell the copyrights to the music.
Capitol Records claims it sold a physical copy (whether CD or MP3) to 1 person but then did not license the buyer to resell the item which is contrary to the US First Sale Doctrine. Google says if they claim they sold a license to the music, then they can't claim the music is protected by copyright and thus replica's can be made. Reselling may be prohibited by contract law but expressing yourself by creating a replica of an artwork licensed to you cannot be prohibited by contract law (constitutionally). Google also says if they claim they sold an actual copy of the music and want it protected by copyright, then the buyer has the right to resell their copy (first sale doctrine).
Capitol Records either has to choose whether they want their music to be a license (under contract law) or an object (under copyright law). They cannot both limit your constitutional rights and curtail the first sale doctrine.
They were convicted on "promoting other people's infringements of copyright laws"
Even though almost all charges were found invalid or dropped during the case, the prosecution was allowed to keep introducing new evidence and witnesses not shared with the defense or the court until the judge had enough of it and simply convicted them.
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses (x) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected ( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money ( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks ( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it ( ) Users of email will not put up with it ( ) Microsoft will not put up with it ( ) The police will not put up with it ( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers (x) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once (x) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers ( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists ( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it (x) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email ( ) Open relays in foreign countries ( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses (x) Asshats ( ) Jurisdictional problems ( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes ( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money (x) Huge existing software investment in SMTP ( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack ( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email (x) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes ( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches ( ) Extreme profitability of spam (x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft ( ) Technically illiterate politicians (x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers (x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves ( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering ( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical ( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable ( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation ( ) Blacklists suck ( ) Whitelists suck ( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored ( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud ( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks (x) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually ( ) Sending email should be free (x) Why should we have to trust you and your servers? (x) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses ( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem ( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome ( ) I don't want the government reading my email ( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work. (x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it. ( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
I can get it down to 1-5 meters within a few seconds in my building (external bluetooth GPS module). There are such things as GPS repeaters as well. Depending on the lab, even 12 meter resolutions might be 'good enough'. I don't know if there are any open source modules to accurately triangulate based on GPS data + the location of WiFi base stations but I know there are commercial custom solutions for it.
Accurately tracking the location of a in a building is often done in warehouses, I've seen it done and I know there are solutions for it but they aren't cheap and most often proprietary.
You could just install a WiFi base station in the middle of every room on very low power (using OpenWRT or another hackable firmware) and depending on your location have a web server or application that shows you only the instruments in that location (given they're connecting through the network as well).
Another trick is simply to use GPS. iDevices have GPS in them, most Androids do as well. I don't know what systems exactly you have but most tablets have a GPS optional or put one in a PCMCIA/ExpressCard slot. Then simply map your lab on the GPS and you should be able to figure out very exactly what room you're located in and again with a custom application or web server that reroutes you to the closest printers.
Another option but not commonly available for scientific instruments is to only use Bluetooth but you would have to locate all devices in the middle of the lab for them to be usable and it's expensive and not very reliable.
But Access only allows one connection to the database at a time. Yes, there are people out there that link their websites up to an Access database instead of a proper SQL (used to work at a web hosting company)
You can also throw real code in FileMaker (it has a scripting language and PHP).
What I meant is that a FileMaker Server admin can link up the databases to SQL without really needing to know what's in it and the end user doesn't have to worry about it.
You would be surprised how many small businesses and even large businesses rely on FileMaker. I work with a hospital and practically all ad-hoc databasing by the employees is done using FileMaker Server. It beats Excel or Access, can be linked into a proper SQL database very easily and it is centralized and doesn't need a DBA caressing the system so it doesn't fall apart for each MSSQL Server or Oracle instance.
FileMaker has what Access or MSSQL Express lacks: WYSIWYG interface that builds a database and it's front end and website in one fell swoop and recently also gives you access over mobile devices and PHP integration. What's not to like?
I think the railroads are the last form of transportation where TSA is not allowed and they want their grubby little hands in the pot. There is literally a conspiracy going on to track every citizen where they are. They can already track your car with all the camera's (to monitor traffic or give you tickets) and license plate detection in unmarked and regular police cars as well as pull you over, detain you indefinitely and search you without cause if you are 200mi from a US border or airport. Now they want in on the train stations too so all railways would be included in their 200 mile zones?
I say, kill the beast while you still can. The TSA needs to be shut down immediately.
I would start by picking up an average textbook on climate. You don't seem to understand the difference in time scales and energy between balanced weather/climate events and the unbalanced forces that create climate change. Again, feedback loops. It's not only the CO2 stored in the frozen water, it's the CO2 trapped in the frozen water + the CO2 and other greenhouse gasses WE HUMANS are adding.
Also, the last time there was such massive climate change there was a significant event that caused it (meteorite impact), now we humans are the significant event.
The effect will be even worse once the antarctic starts melting more significantly than it already does because not only will it release the CO2 trapped but also any matter that has been frozen (plants, microbes, animals, humans) or the life that cannot survive the change will start releasing methane and other greenhouse gasses common to rotting.
It won't affect glaciers on land. I don't see where you get that. The glaciers on land are melting too by the way. The glaciers on land melting will cause the sea levels to rise (Antarctica etc.).
The currents will never stand still however they will become a lot less active causing, as you said, the tropics to overheat and the north pole to freeze over. Yes, eventually nature will balance itself but this process will take a really, really long time while generations of people will either bake or freeze (depending on where they live) and the process will be violent.
Finally, it's indeed the CO2 from SUV's and coal plants that causes glaciers to melt but as the glaciers melt they also release the CO2 stored in/under them. Water acted as a sink to CO2 before the last ice age after which it froze and got captured in the ice. It's basically a positive feedback cycle which will only accelerate the process faster.
Climate change is real, global warming is real and the cause for this is real. This has been established by practically all scientists in the field. Denying it is as futile and idiotic as the few that still refute the theory of evolution based on their personal religious or political ideas.
On the other hand even if they were separated from the internet, they were intended to have some sorts of communication between a base (such as an office) and a remote station. I purchased a set of 33.6k programmable modems (Telindus Aster 5) once that were set up to dial in automatically into a specific location with passwords etc. pre-programmed. How easy do you think it would've been for anyone else to dial-in to those systems if they knew any of the details?
The matter of fact is that until the last 5 years none of these system makers thought about any security even though the techs in the field knew how their systems were going to be set up at the customer. I've worked with Siemens several times (both with their PLC side and their medical instruments side) and every single time I had to provide the additional security on my (or my clients) network even though it was never planned for, requested by them or even had come up in the negotiations when these things were purchased.
And to give you a reason why I think they should plan for it: Windows XP SP1 is what they not only use on their own systems but also set as a requirement for developers to use with their SDK's (together with some custom packages and Visual Studio 6).
As I said you're confused with VGA -> HDMI scalers/converters. Bensam was talking about DVI -> VGA, HDMI -> VGA and DP -> VGA all of which are really, really cheap. All these cables work only one way though, downgrading the signal from digital to analog.
I do agree that VGA -> DP/DVI/HDMI (analog signal to digital signal) are way more expensive and I swear by Gefen for those things. Yes, pricey but definitely worth their price.
Amazon. Search for HDMI to VGA. You can also buy directly from Chinese manufacturers if you need them in sufficient quantities, they're roughly 50 cents before shipping.
I just bought 10 DP to VGA converters for $50. HDMI to VGA are likewise $5 a piece including shipping, I think you're confused with the VGA-to-HDMI up converters which run anywhere between $30 and $100.
OLTP provides you most of the business end of an application (it gives a structured interface to the data to read/write/modify) while OLAP provides you with the information end of an application (it gives an overview or what some may call a "dashboard" to the data which usually has limited (usually no) options for the data to be modified) which could or could not be in a feedback loop with each other.
So OLTP gives you a database for your support staff and a database for your sales people and a database to HR and they use these databases daily and modify them.
OLAP then collects the information in these databases and analyzes it (usually overnight) and (sometimes) stuffs it back into the OLTP databases (such as these types of customer have been annoyed recently, which geographical areas are trending in sales, how a new release or price point affects the market etc etc.) or generates reports to the managers or a report to the C-level executives.
The problem with functioning in the OLAP space is that nobody knows what an enterprise has in the form of OLTP databases (you may know the amount of applications you host but how many do the individual departments host outside IT or how much Excel sheets does HR keep around?). Another problem is that in the OLTP databases you do know about, the information in it is highly unregulated, badly documented or done by a host of employees or even a third party. Then the third problem is that nobody of a seasoned DBA and/or architect and/or developer and/or business insider knows what the heck this flood of data means and how they can get a handle on it. Then the fourth problem is that even if some manager kind-of understands what he can get out of it, he'll ask for too much or too little and either it'll be unusable to his underlings or he'll constantly ask for modifications to the project that provides him with the data.
Also many, many vendors of databases and OLAP tools have promised a lot and delivered little in this space (think Oracle, MS, Peoplesoft, SAP,...) It is thus a highly stressful job where you manage not only a shitload of data but also the expectations of sometimes a whole company and the broken pieces of your predecessors and whatever scumbag tried to sell the company his snake oil.
These types of projects are not only difficult but also require a lot of involvement on all levels. I've seen only few projects get completed successfully. In most cases the projects are small and to the point (such as combining a few data sources and getting very specific data out). In 1 other case, the project had unlimited resources (in time and money), it took them over 10 years and several millions but they have normalized practically ALL their in-house data sources over this time (such as - a customer id means this and should be implemented as such and these people should have access to it) and can basically link any data source they have to any other data source and run reports on it (which they are currently implementing with utmost ease). Yes, they paid IBM, Oracle, Peoplesoft and SAP a shitload of money too over this time but they are currently running on a combination of Oracle, MySQL and Hadoop platform which is highly customized and regulated (especially new datasources get a lot of scrutiny) but you can ask the team anything and usually within a few hours to days (depending on what you want and the required authorization) they'll have something ready that can fire you with reports whenever you want.
I think this may turn into a racket actually. Look at the 'trusted traveller program' (or whatever it's called now). For $120/year (or whatever it is) you get a special pass and you don't have to submit yourself to either the body scans, the lines or the cavity search.
Basically what will happen is first the TSA will screw up several times severely. The people will call for relief to the government who will make it become a privately owned entity and claim now "they'll have someone to hang". Then you'll be able to go without the airport scans for $120, land border TSA exempting your vehicle will be another $150, making sure your freedom can't get revoked by the TSA will be $200 or if you do get arrested without such protection, you can get your out-of-jail card for $1000. Eventually the TSA will have it's privatized corporate army which is already granted to operate independent from the law and whichever corporation you offended (whether it be for piracy or you exposed them) will be able to pay the TSA to get you arrested, that's what SOPA and PIPA is actually for. If you can pay $5000/month in protection money, you'll be able to do whatever, a $10,000 service charge for murder.
Am I exaggerating? At the current rate our government has gone in privatizing the law the only thing that has to happen for the above to be true is the TSA to be privatized, the laws have been put in place by the legislature and the judicial arm has set the tone they'll support any such laws and even though the current executive branch may not necessarily use these powers, they haven't said the next one couldn't.
Not only that but regular medical X-rays already have a history of accidental radiation poisoning, poisoning several hundreds of patients over several weeks (until the cause was found because the radiation poisoning was a) localized and b) easily traced because everyone had access to decent health care and knew they were scanned at some point) because a single variable was off in a program or badly set by a technician.
A single x-ray machine can do maybe 40 people a day given a 24 hour cycle. This thing will probably do 40 people every 15 minutes and has a much higher dosage by default. One or more of these things will not only kill people but it will also kill the workers and the cause won't be as easily found because cases will appear seemingly independently all over the world and in 3rd world countries (such as Mexico or people traveling internationally) so cases won't be as easily linked, people won't know they've been scanned by these things and many will die before the one is found out and then they'll only claim 1 faulty machine, implement some 'safeguards' and make empty promises but continue doing it until the next machine fails.
He said public employee unions. Those unions are run by members of the 1%, their members don't get to set union policy, members simply get the benefit of not being able to get fired and guaranteed mediocre wages.
The only reason voting machines don't work is because they're built by people with commercial interests and thus will do whatever it is to maximize their profits.
To get the equivalent of pen and paper, you need: a) Uniform, published, open source software and hardware on all the voting machines with ample time to have the machines scrutinized. b) An external (3rd party but likewise open source) tool that any voter can plug in to verify the validity of such machine and their votes c) If a machine fails to perform as said, a paper/pen fallback.
All 3 of these issues have been solved either theoretically or practically.
I don't know if you would call $10,000 for a male and female mouse very cheap. Off course those are the variants that are genetically modified to develop a certain degenerative disease but they are still expensive - of course they breed so fast it's worth the investment. We are also housing a colony that can literally be scared to death.
Taking care of them also costs a lot of money as does the security measures to keep people like PETA out.
I agree. Working in an MRI environment, some people have piercings in the usual places (genital area, nipple) and then discreetly ask one person accompanying them something about it but not mention it on their screening forms.
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No. Capitol Records did not sell the copyrights to the music.
Capitol Records claims it sold a physical copy (whether CD or MP3) to 1 person but then did not license the buyer to resell the item which is contrary to the US First Sale Doctrine.
Google says if they claim they sold a license to the music, then they can't claim the music is protected by copyright and thus replica's can be made. Reselling may be prohibited by contract law but expressing yourself by creating a replica of an artwork licensed to you cannot be prohibited by contract law (constitutionally).
Google also says if they claim they sold an actual copy of the music and want it protected by copyright, then the buyer has the right to resell their copy (first sale doctrine).
Capitol Records either has to choose whether they want their music to be a license (under contract law) or an object (under copyright law). They cannot both limit your constitutional rights and curtail the first sale doctrine.
Corporations are people my friend... you incite to murder!
They were convicted on "promoting other people's infringements of copyright laws"
Even though almost all charges were found invalid or dropped during the case, the prosecution was allowed to keep introducing new evidence and witnesses not shared with the defense or the court until the judge had enough of it and simply convicted them.
Your post advocates a
(x) technical ( ) legislative (x) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
(x) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
(x) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
(x) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(x) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
(x) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
(x) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
(x) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
(x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
(x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
(x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
(x) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
(x) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
(x) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
(x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
house down!
I can get it down to 1-5 meters within a few seconds in my building (external bluetooth GPS module). There are such things as GPS repeaters as well. Depending on the lab, even 12 meter resolutions might be 'good enough'. I don't know if there are any open source modules to accurately triangulate based on GPS data + the location of WiFi base stations but I know there are commercial custom solutions for it.
Accurately tracking the location of a in a building is often done in warehouses, I've seen it done and I know there are solutions for it but they aren't cheap and most often proprietary.
You could just install a WiFi base station in the middle of every room on very low power (using OpenWRT or another hackable firmware) and depending on your location have a web server or application that shows you only the instruments in that location (given they're connecting through the network as well).
Another trick is simply to use GPS. iDevices have GPS in them, most Androids do as well. I don't know what systems exactly you have but most tablets have a GPS optional or put one in a PCMCIA/ExpressCard slot. Then simply map your lab on the GPS and you should be able to figure out very exactly what room you're located in and again with a custom application or web server that reroutes you to the closest printers.
Another option but not commonly available for scientific instruments is to only use Bluetooth but you would have to locate all devices in the middle of the lab for them to be usable and it's expensive and not very reliable.
Then who am I supposed to be?
But Access only allows one connection to the database at a time. Yes, there are people out there that link their websites up to an Access database instead of a proper SQL (used to work at a web hosting company)
You can also throw real code in FileMaker (it has a scripting language and PHP).
What I meant is that a FileMaker Server admin can link up the databases to SQL without really needing to know what's in it and the end user doesn't have to worry about it.
You would be surprised how many small businesses and even large businesses rely on FileMaker. I work with a hospital and practically all ad-hoc databasing by the employees is done using FileMaker Server. It beats Excel or Access, can be linked into a proper SQL database very easily and it is centralized and doesn't need a DBA caressing the system so it doesn't fall apart for each MSSQL Server or Oracle instance.
FileMaker has what Access or MSSQL Express lacks: WYSIWYG interface that builds a database and it's front end and website in one fell swoop and recently also gives you access over mobile devices and PHP integration. What's not to like?
I think the railroads are the last form of transportation where TSA is not allowed and they want their grubby little hands in the pot. There is literally a conspiracy going on to track every citizen where they are. They can already track your car with all the camera's (to monitor traffic or give you tickets) and license plate detection in unmarked and regular police cars as well as pull you over, detain you indefinitely and search you without cause if you are 200mi from a US border or airport. Now they want in on the train stations too so all railways would be included in their 200 mile zones?
I say, kill the beast while you still can. The TSA needs to be shut down immediately.
Safari is still based on WebKit which also runs Chrome, Konqueror, Android and a host of other commercial and open source browsers.
I would start by picking up an average textbook on climate. You don't seem to understand the difference in time scales and energy between balanced weather/climate events and the unbalanced forces that create climate change. Again, feedback loops. It's not only the CO2 stored in the frozen water, it's the CO2 trapped in the frozen water + the CO2 and other greenhouse gasses WE HUMANS are adding.
Also, the last time there was such massive climate change there was a significant event that caused it (meteorite impact), now we humans are the significant event.
The effect will be even worse once the antarctic starts melting more significantly than it already does because not only will it release the CO2 trapped but also any matter that has been frozen (plants, microbes, animals, humans) or the life that cannot survive the change will start releasing methane and other greenhouse gasses common to rotting.
It won't affect glaciers on land. I don't see where you get that. The glaciers on land are melting too by the way. The glaciers on land melting will cause the sea levels to rise (Antarctica etc.).
The currents will never stand still however they will become a lot less active causing, as you said, the tropics to overheat and the north pole to freeze over. Yes, eventually nature will balance itself but this process will take a really, really long time while generations of people will either bake or freeze (depending on where they live) and the process will be violent.
Finally, it's indeed the CO2 from SUV's and coal plants that causes glaciers to melt but as the glaciers melt they also release the CO2 stored in/under them. Water acted as a sink to CO2 before the last ice age after which it froze and got captured in the ice. It's basically a positive feedback cycle which will only accelerate the process faster.
Climate change is real, global warming is real and the cause for this is real. This has been established by practically all scientists in the field. Denying it is as futile and idiotic as the few that still refute the theory of evolution based on their personal religious or political ideas.
On the other hand even if they were separated from the internet, they were intended to have some sorts of communication between a base (such as an office) and a remote station. I purchased a set of 33.6k programmable modems (Telindus Aster 5) once that were set up to dial in automatically into a specific location with passwords etc. pre-programmed. How easy do you think it would've been for anyone else to dial-in to those systems if they knew any of the details?
The matter of fact is that until the last 5 years none of these system makers thought about any security even though the techs in the field knew how their systems were going to be set up at the customer. I've worked with Siemens several times (both with their PLC side and their medical instruments side) and every single time I had to provide the additional security on my (or my clients) network even though it was never planned for, requested by them or even had come up in the negotiations when these things were purchased.
And to give you a reason why I think they should plan for it: Windows XP SP1 is what they not only use on their own systems but also set as a requirement for developers to use with their SDK's (together with some custom packages and Visual Studio 6).
As I said you're confused with VGA -> HDMI scalers/converters. Bensam was talking about DVI -> VGA, HDMI -> VGA and DP -> VGA all of which are really, really cheap. All these cables work only one way though, downgrading the signal from digital to analog.
I do agree that VGA -> DP/DVI/HDMI (analog signal to digital signal) are way more expensive and I swear by Gefen for those things. Yes, pricey but definitely worth their price.
Amazon. Search for HDMI to VGA. You can also buy directly from Chinese manufacturers if you need them in sufficient quantities, they're roughly 50 cents before shipping.
I just bought 10 DP to VGA converters for $50. HDMI to VGA are likewise $5 a piece including shipping, I think you're confused with the VGA-to-HDMI up converters which run anywhere between $30 and $100.
Basically, the way I most easily understand it:
OLTP provides you most of the business end of an application (it gives a structured interface to the data to read/write/modify) while OLAP provides you with the information end of an application (it gives an overview or what some may call a "dashboard" to the data which usually has limited (usually no) options for the data to be modified) which could or could not be in a feedback loop with each other.
So OLTP gives you a database for your support staff and a database for your sales people and a database to HR and they use these databases daily and modify them.
OLAP then collects the information in these databases and analyzes it (usually overnight) and (sometimes) stuffs it back into the OLTP databases (such as these types of customer have been annoyed recently, which geographical areas are trending in sales, how a new release or price point affects the market etc etc.) or generates reports to the managers or a report to the C-level executives.
The problem with functioning in the OLAP space is that nobody knows what an enterprise has in the form of OLTP databases (you may know the amount of applications you host but how many do the individual departments host outside IT or how much Excel sheets does HR keep around?). Another problem is that in the OLTP databases you do know about, the information in it is highly unregulated, badly documented or done by a host of employees or even a third party. Then the third problem is that nobody of a seasoned DBA and/or architect and/or developer and/or business insider knows what the heck this flood of data means and how they can get a handle on it. Then the fourth problem is that even if some manager kind-of understands what he can get out of it, he'll ask for too much or too little and either it'll be unusable to his underlings or he'll constantly ask for modifications to the project that provides him with the data.
Also many, many vendors of databases and OLAP tools have promised a lot and delivered little in this space (think Oracle, MS, Peoplesoft, SAP, ...) It is thus a highly stressful job where you manage not only a shitload of data but also the expectations of sometimes a whole company and the broken pieces of your predecessors and whatever scumbag tried to sell the company his snake oil.
These types of projects are not only difficult but also require a lot of involvement on all levels. I've seen only few projects get completed successfully. In most cases the projects are small and to the point (such as combining a few data sources and getting very specific data out). In 1 other case, the project had unlimited resources (in time and money), it took them over 10 years and several millions but they have normalized practically ALL their in-house data sources over this time (such as - a customer id means this and should be implemented as such and these people should have access to it) and can basically link any data source they have to any other data source and run reports on it (which they are currently implementing with utmost ease). Yes, they paid IBM, Oracle, Peoplesoft and SAP a shitload of money too over this time but they are currently running on a combination of Oracle, MySQL and Hadoop platform which is highly customized and regulated (especially new datasources get a lot of scrutiny) but you can ask the team anything and usually within a few hours to days (depending on what you want and the required authorization) they'll have something ready that can fire you with reports whenever you want.
I think this may turn into a racket actually. Look at the 'trusted traveller program' (or whatever it's called now). For $120/year (or whatever it is) you get a special pass and you don't have to submit yourself to either the body scans, the lines or the cavity search.
Basically what will happen is first the TSA will screw up several times severely. The people will call for relief to the government who will make it become a privately owned entity and claim now "they'll have someone to hang". Then you'll be able to go without the airport scans for $120, land border TSA exempting your vehicle will be another $150, making sure your freedom can't get revoked by the TSA will be $200 or if you do get arrested without such protection, you can get your out-of-jail card for $1000. Eventually the TSA will have it's privatized corporate army which is already granted to operate independent from the law and whichever corporation you offended (whether it be for piracy or you exposed them) will be able to pay the TSA to get you arrested, that's what SOPA and PIPA is actually for. If you can pay $5000/month in protection money, you'll be able to do whatever, a $10,000 service charge for murder.
Am I exaggerating? At the current rate our government has gone in privatizing the law the only thing that has to happen for the above to be true is the TSA to be privatized, the laws have been put in place by the legislature and the judicial arm has set the tone they'll support any such laws and even though the current executive branch may not necessarily use these powers, they haven't said the next one couldn't.
Not only that but regular medical X-rays already have a history of accidental radiation poisoning, poisoning several hundreds of patients over several weeks (until the cause was found because the radiation poisoning was a) localized and b) easily traced because everyone had access to decent health care and knew they were scanned at some point) because a single variable was off in a program or badly set by a technician.
A single x-ray machine can do maybe 40 people a day given a 24 hour cycle. This thing will probably do 40 people every 15 minutes and has a much higher dosage by default. One or more of these things will not only kill people but it will also kill the workers and the cause won't be as easily found because cases will appear seemingly independently all over the world and in 3rd world countries (such as Mexico or people traveling internationally) so cases won't be as easily linked, people won't know they've been scanned by these things and many will die before the one is found out and then they'll only claim 1 faulty machine, implement some 'safeguards' and make empty promises but continue doing it until the next machine fails.
He said public employee unions. Those unions are run by members of the 1%, their members don't get to set union policy, members simply get the benefit of not being able to get fired and guaranteed mediocre wages.
The only reason voting machines don't work is because they're built by people with commercial interests and thus will do whatever it is to maximize their profits.
To get the equivalent of pen and paper, you need:
a) Uniform, published, open source software and hardware on all the voting machines with ample time to have the machines scrutinized.
b) An external (3rd party but likewise open source) tool that any voter can plug in to verify the validity of such machine and their votes
c) If a machine fails to perform as said, a paper/pen fallback.
All 3 of these issues have been solved either theoretically or practically.
I don't know if you would call $10,000 for a male and female mouse very cheap. Off course those are the variants that are genetically modified to develop a certain degenerative disease but they are still expensive - of course they breed so fast it's worth the investment. We are also housing a colony that can literally be scared to death.
Taking care of them also costs a lot of money as does the security measures to keep people like PETA out.
I agree. Working in an MRI environment, some people have piercings in the usual places (genital area, nipple) and then discreetly ask one person accompanying them something about it but not mention it on their screening forms.
Ever connected anything over the serial port? You can still select 7 bit encoding and it's required on some (weird medical) devices.