The system you describe is completely reasonable, and is one of tiered bandwidth caps, which exists now. I even understand the logic behind plans which offer incredible speeds but have a monthly transfer cap for customers who want the high-speed experience but don't need/want to upload and download enormous amounts of data, although I don't know of any US providers who offer this.
The reason everyone is up in arms about this is that the telecos are trying to leverage there quasi-monoply power to impose a fee system that has no bearing on the service they are actually providing. Yes, when you download 300+ MB files you are using network resources, but your use is functionally identical to your neighboor streaming 300+ MB of video from CNN.com. Bandwidth is what these companies provide and that's what the should charge for.
The electric company doesn't charge me one rate for the electricity I use to heat my apartment and another, higher rate for powering my "premium devices".
The telco's are afraid that their business is becoming a commodity business, You can't really blame them for trying this.
I agree that their position is hypocritical, but if the "digital version" of the film that they copied (the article doesn't specify) wasn't a DVD, then it may not be a DMCA violation. They're legally protected by fair use even if they don't believe in it.
AC [from the grid] is converted to DC at the power distribution unit, then converted to AC again to push out to the servers, and is converted one more time to DC at each individual server.
Acutally, all the tasks that I saw involved processing data for A9's block-level search and "tour". Seems like a clever, cheap way to organize the insane amount of data they have mapped for this project.
All the hype seems to be around slick consumer apps, but as an employee at a law firm that just switched over to a third-party web-based app for handling all case documents and communications, I would dance for joy if the interface were updated to use Ajax. 10% of the time I spend using the system is lost waiting for a response to my clicks as I navigate around in the system. Everything goes through https, which is a good thing, but only makes the response time slower. Each pause is just long enough to contemplate how long it's been since I checked/.
Yeah Google maps is great, but as more and more companies move to 'web-based solutions', the use of ajax could have really improve productivity. I mean isn't that why Microsoft created it in the first place;)
IANAL, but judging by the similar pattern of events with the "broadcast flag" it has to do with the fact that this is a regulation created by the FCC, not a law passed by Congress. FCC decisions can be challenged in court because the FCC has a specific, limited mandate and you can argue that it has exceeded it's authority.
Also, the "seriously hinder innovation" line is most likely a rhetorical tool more than the actual central legal argument of the case
The rule applies to VoIP providers such as Vonage that use a central telephone company to complete Internet calls. It also applies to cable and phone companies that provide broadband services. The companies must comply by May 2007.
Apparently not. I think the really interesting issue there is would be third party companies that were to provide certificate services for ad hoc encryption be subject to the requirement
The 20,000 additional H-1b's reserved for aliens with a Master's from a US institution is a new development, once companies have the timing down and are grabing people as they graduate rather than tracking them down abroad, I am sure they will be used as quickly as normal H-1bs are now.
L-1 visas are intracompany transfers. You must prove a direct corporate relationship with an international company that has employed the beneficiary for one of the past three years. If you aren't an international company, no L visas for you, period.
The L-1 and H-1b visas are "dual intent", meaning you may apply for immigrant status while in H or L status without risking your current non-immigrant status. I belive these are the only dual intent visas.
I don't have any numbers, and I work on the East Coast, but I find "90% Computer Programmers" figure highly dubious, the firm I work for handles a fair amount of H-1b cases, and they are a grab-bag of occupations, if anything I would say that biomedical researchers, both in acadamia and in commercial research shops, are the biggest group.
I work in immigration law (IANAL). The HUGE problem with this study is that it does not take into account responsibility & experience, while H-1B wage calculations do.
The OES lists four levels for every occupation imaginable (fence erector for example). The levels are based on the amount of responsibility you have in the job and the requirements of the position in terms of specific skills, experience and education. Thus are pretty strongly, if indirectly, correlated to experience. The wages also vary greatly across the experience levels. For example A level 1 "Computer Programmer" in San Diego makes $48,610 a year, while a level 4 job with the same title earns you $80,434 a year.
Now to me this means H-1b hires are generally more entry-level than the average worker (duh!). That's not saying that there probably isn't a fair bit of fraud and misrepresentation of the level of a position, especially since the employer sets the level themselves and then documents the requirements, but it's not happening on an industry-wide level as the article would have you believe.
The OP is suggesting that the "sploging" (now I feel dirty) site be removed from ranking calculations, not the site being boosted. For example, if my site SEOgawd.com suddenly creates 3,000 links to Widgets.com, then all SEOgawd links are removed from ranking calculations and Widgets.com is still ranked according to the remaining links. Therefore you can't harm a competitor
I agree 100% that the company, not the individua should be the one holding the bag, but what happens to feelancers? Unless they can pass the liablity on to the customer when they hand over the code (or otherwise shield their personal assests) virtually no-one is going to be sure enough of their work to code outside the protection of a company.
That's like comparing being a karma whore to to posting in English. Yes there's some grey area with technology standards since we do choose among new ones but it's still not the same.
The fact that people have faxed important documents around for years (and still do) is proof that it's an acceptable resolution for a lot of activities. Fax resolution would be fine for ebooks, for example.
I'm as protective of my civil liberties as the next person (maybe even more so) but why do so many people think that technology should be permitted to make existing wire-tap laws obsolete and that any effort to update these laws is unjustifiable?
Privacy advocates (and tin-foil hatted/.ers) should be focus on the inclusion of strict controls and transparancy to prevent abuse, not dig their heels in and fight all modernization of wiretapping laws.
At the risk of being naively logical, what possible purpose would putting CC information on a keycard serve for the hotel? they already have your CC information on file tied to your name and room number.
While I agree that more damaging viruses would spur users to be more concerned about security, the "we" in that sentence clearly was meant to mean all computer users, not just the IT-elite who would be freed from stupid questions and DDOS attacks by the sudden destruction of 50% of the world's pcs. (not to mention it would put a lot of/.ers out of a job)
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The system you describe is completely reasonable, and is one of tiered bandwidth caps, which exists now. I even understand the logic behind plans which offer incredible speeds but have a monthly transfer cap for customers who want the high-speed experience but don't need/want to upload and download enormous amounts of data, although I don't know of any US providers who offer this.
The reason everyone is up in arms about this is that the telecos are trying to leverage there quasi-monoply power to impose a fee system that has no bearing on the service they are actually providing. Yes, when you download 300+ MB files you are using network resources, but your use is functionally identical to your neighboor streaming 300+ MB of video from CNN.com. Bandwidth is what these companies provide and that's what the should charge for.
The electric company doesn't charge me one rate for the electricity I use to heat my apartment and another, higher rate for powering my "premium devices".
The telco's are afraid that their business is becoming a commodity business, You can't really blame them for trying this.
*CSS protected DVD that is.
Does anyone know the typical/standard format for submitting a movie to be rated?
I agree that their position is hypocritical, but if the "digital version" of the film that they copied (the article doesn't specify) wasn't a DVD, then it may not be a DMCA violation. They're legally protected by fair use even if they don't believe in it.
Not to rain on the *AA hatefest, but the original article offers a more complete and less biased account of what happened.
Depending on how many copies they made and who they gave them to, there does seem to be some grounds for a fair use defense.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!"
I was curious about this too, from TFA:
AC [from the grid] is converted to DC at the power distribution unit, then converted to AC again to push out to the servers, and is converted one more time to DC at each individual server.
Can anyone explain the extra conversion?
woops even previewing doesn't help not reading the post properly.
The stupidy of the acronym alone should kill this proposal...
While that's (mostly) true of the the actual code, it's not that much harder to squander VC money on an OSS project than it is on an CSS project.
'if you're an investor you can dump your money in the hole there.'
The number is very impressive, but I doubt it's scalable.
Acutally, all the tasks that I saw involved processing data for A9's block-level search and "tour". Seems like a clever, cheap way to organize the insane amount of data they have mapped for this project.
All the hype seems to be around slick consumer apps, but as an employee at a law firm that just switched over to a third-party web-based app for handling all case documents and communications, I would dance for joy if the interface were updated to use Ajax. 10% of the time I spend using the system is lost waiting for a response to my clicks as I navigate around in the system. Everything goes through https, which is a good thing, but only makes the response time slower. Each pause is just long enough to contemplate how long it's been since I checked /.
;)
Yeah Google maps is great, but as more and more companies move to 'web-based solutions', the use of ajax could have really improve productivity. I mean isn't that why Microsoft created it in the first place
IANAL, but judging by the similar pattern of events with the "broadcast flag" it has to do with the fact that this is a regulation created by the FCC, not a law passed by Congress. FCC decisions can be challenged in court because the FCC has a specific, limited mandate and you can argue that it has exceeded it's authority.
Also, the "seriously hinder innovation" line is most likely a rhetorical tool more than the actual central legal argument of the case
The rule applies to VoIP providers such as Vonage that use a central telephone company to complete Internet calls. It also applies to cable and phone companies that provide broadband services. The companies must comply by May 2007.
Apparently not. I think the really interesting issue there is would be third party companies that were to provide certificate services for ad hoc encryption be subject to the requirement
The 20,000 additional H-1b's reserved for aliens with a Master's from a US institution is a new development, once companies have the timing down and are grabing people as they graduate rather than tracking them down abroad, I am sure they will be used as quickly as normal H-1bs are now.
L-1 visas are intracompany transfers. You must prove a direct corporate relationship with an international company that has employed the beneficiary for one of the past three years. If you aren't an international company, no L visas for you, period.
The L-1 and H-1b visas are "dual intent", meaning you may apply for immigrant status while in H or L status without risking your current non-immigrant status. I belive these are the only dual intent visas. I don't have any numbers, and I work on the East Coast, but I find "90% Computer Programmers" figure highly dubious, the firm I work for handles a fair amount of H-1b cases, and they are a grab-bag of occupations, if anything I would say that biomedical researchers, both in acadamia and in commercial research shops, are the biggest group.
I work in immigration law (IANAL). The HUGE problem with this study is that it does not take into account responsibility & experience, while H-1B wage calculations do.
The OES lists four levels for every occupation imaginable (fence erector for example). The levels are based on the amount of responsibility you have in the job and the requirements of the position in terms of specific skills, experience and education. Thus are pretty strongly, if indirectly, correlated to experience. The wages also vary greatly across the experience levels. For example A level 1 "Computer Programmer" in San Diego makes $48,610 a year, while a level 4 job with the same title earns you $80,434 a year.
Now to me this means H-1b hires are generally more entry-level than the average worker (duh!). That's not saying that there probably isn't a fair bit of fraud and misrepresentation of the level of a position, especially since the employer sets the level themselves and then documents the requirements, but it's not happening on an industry-wide level as the article would have you believe.
The OP is suggesting that the "sploging" (now I feel dirty) site be removed from ranking calculations, not the site being boosted. For example, if my site SEOgawd.com suddenly creates 3,000 links to Widgets.com, then all SEOgawd links are removed from ranking calculations and Widgets.com is still ranked according to the remaining links. Therefore you can't harm a competitor
I agree 100% that the company, not the individua should be the one holding the bag, but what happens to feelancers? Unless they can pass the liablity on to the customer when they hand over the code (or otherwise shield their personal assests) virtually no-one is going to be sure enough of their work to code outside the protection of a company.
Wrong standard.
That's like comparing being a karma whore to to posting in English. Yes there's some grey area with technology standards since we do choose among new ones but it's still not the same.
The fact that people have faxed important documents around for years (and still do) is proof that it's an acceptable resolution for a lot of activities. Fax resolution would be fine for ebooks, for example.
Here'sThe product page which discusses the use of "carbon fiber and composites".
I'm as protective of my civil liberties as the next person (maybe even more so) but why do so many people think that technology should be permitted to make existing wire-tap laws obsolete and that any effort to update these laws is unjustifiable?
/.ers) should be focus on the inclusion of strict controls and transparancy to prevent abuse, not dig their heels in and fight all modernization of wiretapping laws.
Privacy advocates (and tin-foil hatted
Now where am I supposed to flee to when things go south in the US.
At the risk of being naively logical, what possible purpose would putting CC information on a keycard serve for the hotel? they already have your CC information on file tied to your name and room number.
While I agree that more damaging viruses would spur users to be more concerned about security, the "we" in that sentence clearly was meant to mean all computer users, not just the IT-elite who would be freed from stupid questions and DDOS attacks by the sudden destruction of 50% of the world's pcs. (not to mention it would put a lot of /.ers out of a job)