To this day I do not understand why computers outside of a massively secure data center are allowed to keep records of ANY private data. We don't let any of our staff maintain local copies of any data. Not even e-mail. If you stole a computer from any of our offices, you'd basically have an underpowered Dell desktop. You could easily log into the system, but aside from a few cache files and browsing history, you'd have nothing.
Why is it so hard for banks and insurance companies to do the same?
It's not like getting an internet connection via cell phone provider is hard or prohibitively expensive these days. I can only hope that some large, sweeping changes take place before the government begins mandating things (and subsequently inflating the cost, legislating bad technology, etc, as per their normal operating behavior). Fix it before they make you.
Can the British police effectively arrest, book, jail, and prosecute 1 million people? 1 million out of 60 million sounds like great numbers to me. Compared to the US, that'd be something like 5 million people marching. No city, let alone entire state, could handle anything like that.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mean spam from outside companies. I use a unique address for every online system (well, most) and I have yet to receive outside spam from them. But, for instance, I used H&R block rouhgly 3 years ago, and just a precursory search of my Gmail inbox shows 45 e-mails from H&R Block inviting me to come back and do my taxes for free. I used TurboTax this year, and have not finalized my return (waiting on a few things to get clarified yet), and I get an e-mail almost every other day pleading with me to come back and finish.
The free, web-based packages depend greatly upon a few things. If your income is over or under a certain threshold, you may not qualify. Some states don't qualify. Some only cater to joint filings. Some only fill out the 1040EZ equivalent. A lot of them will file your federal taxes for free, but not file state unless you pay.
I used the free ones for a few years, and now I get close to 100-150 messages per week from Turbo Tax, H&R Block, etc. I think by next year they will outpace Viagra ads, at least for January through April.
With two guys, it's easy to figure out whether something is profitable. "Hey, did we make money by fixing that dude's computer? Yeah? Cool, let's keep doing that."
With Apple, though, any profitable venture has to go through massive marketing, advertising, and financial analysis because it's on a national/global scale, not a few square miles of a single city. Will it be profitable in Milwaukee? Chicago? New York? Miami? Why or why not? What can we do to ensure it is profitable everywhere? Can we offer the same service everywhere? Do we hire out like GeekSquad used to or do we only hire through our Apple stores? If you've noticed, too, Apple rarely does something without KNOWING it will work. They, compared to other technology companies, have very few product release failures, at least in recent years.
I've been considering migrating my company to Mac. However, they have a high price point and I really do like the service we get from Dell. We had a problem with a new system being DOA. Dell overnighted a brand new one to us for free even before we had sent the old one back. (I realize that may not be standard operating procedure, but was still damned cool.) I highly doubt Apple would ever do that, except maybe for some huge contracts that they have with large design studios that rely on the very pricey Macs for design work.
Why do teachers get blank checks when it comes to discontent? Every other profession has to deal with compensation mismatch in one form or another.
In fact, teachers already do. Teachers that have been teaching longer get paid more. This will empower teachers to, at least to some degree, control what they earn instead of just waiting to grow old. "Hmm. I can learn more and pass a strict exam and be rewarded now, or I can wait 15 years. The choice is mine."
The sheet should print in a clear, visible box (obviously covered by plastic or glass or what have you). This way when it prints, you can verify what it printed. It would get pushed down into the paper stack and obscured from view prior to the next voter entering his or her vote.
A printed receipt does nothing if the printed receipts are fixed, too.
If I could download high-quality (FLAC!), DRM-free music I'd pay for it. I'd pay for knowing that it's tagged correctly, named correctly, and actually is the content that it says it is. I'd pay for not having to rename my music and listen to each song the whole way through to make sure it's a complete song, free of artifacts and background noise, etc. I'd pay for knowing the artist is getting the money (minus some cost for the music store directly).
But to generate electricity, you have to rebuild the machines to store, move, and pass the energy back to the grid (or, at the very least, back into the building). That has a solid cost associated with it: wiring, engineering work, parts, etc. It is doubtful that a machine will generate enough energy to offset the energy expended creating the system. If bikes could last decades, sure, but do you run on a canvas-backed wood-and-cast-iron treadmill? No.
You could argue that the energy cost would be offset by the many gyms that make use of the same equipment brands, but they will still have to be equipped with wiring, etc.
Besides, do you really trust people that run your gym to harness all that energy safely? I mean, I love the trainers and managers at my gym, but they aren't exactly, uh, the brightest bulbs out there.
Everything is subject to government regulation when it is used directly by the government. The people have an interest in maintaining the government through themselves through community involvement (free beer) instead of through companies. Companies prove left and right that they are only in it for the profit and nothing else.
And yes, if web browsers were used to produce thousands of publicly-owned documents per year and created them in a locked, proprietary format that was built to attempt to force million-dollar upgrades every 4 years, I would be screaming at the government to switch platforms, too.
But if I copy and paste, that uses up both of my Ctrl keys. How will I open documents with Ctrl and the capital O key? Will I have to use my clicker for that again?
If, and when, such a format comes into play, and has a large enough subset of tools available for it, then the laws can be revised. With all documents already in XML, converting to the new format should be nearly painless, and more likely, both formats could be used.
The tech needs to be spelled out clearly in the law, otherwise vendors like Microsoft will be able to say their format qualifies and lobby until enough tech-clueless legislators agree to it.
We're considering using it for yet-another offsite backup of some of our records, in an encrypted form.
The prospect of being able to use a simple API to update and download backups seems like a great idea to me, but I've yet to find any decent service reviews.
If you're that concerned, you could keep your files in an encrypted volume using TrueCrypt and then back up the volume. Unfortunately, TrueCrypt volumes don't lend themselves to incremental backups very well, but if you keep the volume size roughly at what the files require and you don't write often, it won't be that bad. You could split them up into multiple volumes if you'd like, too.
This applies not just to pictures but to sensitive e-mail backups, database dumps, etc.
But the exploit doesn't have to be like the demo exploit. It could be a simple comment form on a blog that only triggers if you happen to hit the right characters. With some better JavaScript handling, backspace wouldn't screw up, either.
Your future employee prospects will question those four jobs during the 16 months (or will it be 5 jobs in 20 month). Your employee does not want to invest in someone who jumps ship in four months. Jumping ship so often also cannot be easily explained when you have a long term pattern of it. If I were interviewing someone, regardless of what they said, it would raise major red flags. Despite good references, it would still be in the back of my mind that you left for a reason other than the next job offer. Did you screw a project up and left before they found out who or how bad it was? Did you make a bad move for the business? Did you just not know enough? Over your head? Did you not get along with coworkers?
Those are all things you do not want your interviewer to think.
Also, depending on how your new employer found you, it may have been a very, very expensive process. A lot of staffing/head hunter companies are locking companies into contracts, e.g., you will pay us for 6 months regardless of how long the employee works. So if you leave at 4 months, you're really, really screwing the company (out of work and out of (tens) thousands of dollars depending on your pay rate). Loyal or not, that will make ensuring those references are good ones more difficult over time.
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To this day I do not understand why computers outside of a massively secure data center are allowed to keep records of ANY private data. We don't let any of our staff maintain local copies of any data. Not even e-mail. If you stole a computer from any of our offices, you'd basically have an underpowered Dell desktop. You could easily log into the system, but aside from a few cache files and browsing history, you'd have nothing.
Why is it so hard for banks and insurance companies to do the same?
It's not like getting an internet connection via cell phone provider is hard or prohibitively expensive these days. I can only hope that some large, sweeping changes take place before the government begins mandating things (and subsequently inflating the cost, legislating bad technology, etc, as per their normal operating behavior). Fix it before they make you.
Can the British police effectively arrest, book, jail, and prosecute 1 million people? 1 million out of 60 million sounds like great numbers to me. Compared to the US, that'd be something like 5 million people marching. No city, let alone entire state, could handle anything like that.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mean spam from outside companies. I use a unique address for every online system (well, most) and I have yet to receive outside spam from them. But, for instance, I used H&R block rouhgly 3 years ago, and just a precursory search of my Gmail inbox shows 45 e-mails from H&R Block inviting me to come back and do my taxes for free. I used TurboTax this year, and have not finalized my return (waiting on a few things to get clarified yet), and I get an e-mail almost every other day pleading with me to come back and finish.
The free, web-based packages depend greatly upon a few things. If your income is over or under a certain threshold, you may not qualify. Some states don't qualify. Some only cater to joint filings. Some only fill out the 1040EZ equivalent. A lot of them will file your federal taxes for free, but not file state unless you pay.
I used the free ones for a few years, and now I get close to 100-150 messages per week from Turbo Tax, H&R Block, etc. I think by next year they will outpace Viagra ads, at least for January through April.
I'd type up a witty reply, but the Government is watching me.
With two guys, it's easy to figure out whether something is profitable. "Hey, did we make money by fixing that dude's computer? Yeah? Cool, let's keep doing that."
With Apple, though, any profitable venture has to go through massive marketing, advertising, and financial analysis because it's on a national/global scale, not a few square miles of a single city. Will it be profitable in Milwaukee? Chicago? New York? Miami? Why or why not? What can we do to ensure it is profitable everywhere? Can we offer the same service everywhere? Do we hire out like GeekSquad used to or do we only hire through our Apple stores? If you've noticed, too, Apple rarely does something without KNOWING it will work. They, compared to other technology companies, have very few product release failures, at least in recent years.
I've been considering migrating my company to Mac. However, they have a high price point and I really do like the service we get from Dell. We had a problem with a new system being DOA. Dell overnighted a brand new one to us for free even before we had sent the old one back. (I realize that may not be standard operating procedure, but was still damned cool.) I highly doubt Apple would ever do that, except maybe for some huge contracts that they have with large design studios that rely on the very pricey Macs for design work.
You say it like missing out on a Mustang is a bad thing. (--Prior Mustang owner-turned 350Z owner.)
Costs be damned when you're The Decider and, much to the dismay of IT budgets everywhere, can change time itself on a whim!
Just wait until the government hears that URLs change and they try to force ISPs to maintain a cache of pages along with the history.
Why do teachers get blank checks when it comes to discontent? Every other profession has to deal with compensation mismatch in one form or another.
In fact, teachers already do. Teachers that have been teaching longer get paid more. This will empower teachers to, at least to some degree, control what they earn instead of just waiting to grow old. "Hmm. I can learn more and pass a strict exam and be rewarded now, or I can wait 15 years. The choice is mine."
Exactly my thoughts.
I got my hopes up thinking it was about typography on small devices, but alas, my hopes were dashed as I realized it was about games.
The sheet should print in a clear, visible box (obviously covered by plastic or glass or what have you). This way when it prints, you can verify what it printed. It would get pushed down into the paper stack and obscured from view prior to the next voter entering his or her vote.
A printed receipt does nothing if the printed receipts are fixed, too.
No, the citizens hate America. The government must protect America from its anti-American citizens.
Don't just blame Google, blame your legislators for setting up such a ridiculous taxation system, too.
Does the EU have such vast abuses of the VAT system?
But that doesn't have to remain the case.
If I could download high-quality (FLAC!), DRM-free music I'd pay for it. I'd pay for knowing that it's tagged correctly, named correctly, and actually is the content that it says it is. I'd pay for not having to rename my music and listen to each song the whole way through to make sure it's a complete song, free of artifacts and background noise, etc. I'd pay for knowing the artist is getting the money (minus some cost for the music store directly).
But to generate electricity, you have to rebuild the machines to store, move, and pass the energy back to the grid (or, at the very least, back into the building). That has a solid cost associated with it: wiring, engineering work, parts, etc. It is doubtful that a machine will generate enough energy to offset the energy expended creating the system. If bikes could last decades, sure, but do you run on a canvas-backed wood-and-cast-iron treadmill? No.
You could argue that the energy cost would be offset by the many gyms that make use of the same equipment brands, but they will still have to be equipped with wiring, etc.
Besides, do you really trust people that run your gym to harness all that energy safely? I mean, I love the trainers and managers at my gym, but they aren't exactly, uh, the brightest bulbs out there.
Everything is subject to government regulation when it is used directly by the government. The people have an interest in maintaining the government through themselves through community involvement (free beer) instead of through companies. Companies prove left and right that they are only in it for the profit and nothing else.
And yes, if web browsers were used to produce thousands of publicly-owned documents per year and created them in a locked, proprietary format that was built to attempt to force million-dollar upgrades every 4 years, I would be screaming at the government to switch platforms, too.
But if I copy and paste, that uses up both of my Ctrl keys. How will I open documents with Ctrl and the capital O key? Will I have to use my clicker for that again?
If, and when, such a format comes into play, and has a large enough subset of tools available for it, then the laws can be revised. With all documents already in XML, converting to the new format should be nearly painless, and more likely, both formats could be used.
The tech needs to be spelled out clearly in the law, otherwise vendors like Microsoft will be able to say their format qualifies and lobby until enough tech-clueless legislators agree to it.
Has anyone used Amazon's S3 service? [ http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=16427261 ]
We're considering using it for yet-another offsite backup of some of our records, in an encrypted form.
The prospect of being able to use a simple API to update and download backups seems like a great idea to me, but I've yet to find any decent service reviews.
If you're that concerned, you could keep your files in an encrypted volume using TrueCrypt and then back up the volume. Unfortunately, TrueCrypt volumes don't lend themselves to incremental backups very well, but if you keep the volume size roughly at what the files require and you don't write often, it won't be that bad. You could split them up into multiple volumes if you'd like, too.
This applies not just to pictures but to sensitive e-mail backups, database dumps, etc.
Better to have it burn up in re-entry than have your wife get your truck in the divorce.
I hate the spam I get from Cingular. I've called several times about it, replied back with "STOP" like they tell me to, all to no avail.
Cingular even refuses to turn my text messaging off (I never use it, I hate text messages).
But the exploit doesn't have to be like the demo exploit. It could be a simple comment form on a blog that only triggers if you happen to hit the right characters. With some better JavaScript handling, backspace wouldn't screw up, either.
Those are all things you do not want your interviewer to think.
Also, depending on how your new employer found you, it may have been a very, very expensive process. A lot of staffing/head hunter companies are locking companies into contracts, e.g., you will pay us for 6 months regardless of how long the employee works. So if you leave at 4 months, you're really, really screwing the company (out of work and out of (tens) thousands of dollars depending on your pay rate). Loyal or not, that will make ensuring those references are good ones more difficult over time.