It's only an observation from the outside that the most vocal atheists in the media seem to be anti-Catholic.
I think the problem here is that there's not just "one kind" of atheist. As with ALL human beings, we're all different and all have varying different beliefs* I'm an atheist, and I DO openly mock religious faiths fairly regularly (I have a strong belief that religions in general are dangerous and detrimental to society and that by mocking them, it leads to open debate, which may cause at least some to question their beliefs). However, the majority of atheists I know are quiet types that tend to "live and let live" as far as religion goes. They don't believe what their neighbour believes, but unless it specifically comes up in conversation are unlikely to say anything.
Now, with the type of atheist that I am, it's quite easy to appear as if you're targetting a specific group, such as Catholics. This however tends to come about purely because they're the ones saying the most to you. I probably come across as fairly anti-Catholic when Catholic people bring up my atheism. I also appear as fairly anti-Buddhist when Buddhists bring it up... but in the society in which I live, I'm far more likely to encounter Catholics than Buddhists, so my opinions probably appear fairly focused on the Catholics when that's not truly the case.
There are of course many other atheists that DO specifically target individual religions, and the Abrahamic religions are a fairly easy target due to both the size (collectively) and dominance in western culture. Going even more specific than "Abrahamic", the Catholic church is yet even easier as a target (although perhaps slightly less so than Islam) due to the many atrocities it has committed and the strong "anti-science" attitude that it gives off to many people (whether they do or do not hold this position is entirely irrelevant - they're perceived as that, which is all that really matters from a human reaction perspective).
* I refer to all people as having "beliefs". This does NOT imply that I think atheism is a "religion" (I would never write "atheism" on a form that asked for religion... I'd write "none"). A belief is simply something you accept as being "true" or "almost certainly true". I believe that Canada is a country. I believe that there is a lot of work waiting for me at the office when I finally head that way in a few minutes. And I believe that there is no greater supernatural power in the universe watching over us. I hold all of these beliefs because it's simply not practical to live one's life without beliefs. If I held NO beliefs, I wouldn't do anything at all... I can't be CERTAIN that I exist even, but I believe I do and so act accordingly...
If they don't bother to read the blog, they won't be interested in the facts when I am on facebook or on twitter.
Not necessarily true. I have friends on facebook that I so rarely see in real life because they live on the other side of the planet from me (literally). On facebook, I look on the live feed and take in an overview of what everyone is up to. In general, most of it is pointless drivel and I ignore it. But, on the off-chance someone is doing something interesting I'll take note of it.
The best example is when an old friend was visiting France. I live in Germany but taking a quick trip over to Paris is pretty simple for me. They hadn't even considered I might want to do so (never considering how close north-western Germany is to Paris), so never let me know specifically they'd be coming. When I saw their facebook status update mentioning it however, I was able to make arrangements with them to meet up.
Yeh, MOST of what gets posted is rubbish, and that's the EXACT reason I wouldn't regularly visit the blogs of these people if they had them - they're my friends, but it doesn't mean we share all that many common interests (most of them aren't even geeks/nerds). But, by posting their status updates on facebook, it's trivial for me to "at a glance" see what's going on with all the people I know rather than checking a hundred or so blogs.
A minority of Muslims may be extremist, but a majority of Muslims sit back and say nothing about the extremists. They are just as bad.
And while there's only a minority of extremist Christians, the majority sit back and say nothing about them either (or when they do, they tend to say things like, "yeh, but they're really not being very Christian in their actions").
As an atheist, I think you're all a bunch of dangerous loonies basically.
Agreed, and in reality this is how it's done. Adding the HDD is NOT for storing temp copies of current job data - RAM is used for that. The HDD is used when RAM is full (essentially, swap), and for anything DESIGNATED as being longer term storage.
Sure, but whos to say the copier is going to work after you wipe the drive like that?
The copiers OS could be on the disk.
Extraordinarily rare. The disk is usually just storage for user data and so on. The OS is flashed to a different storage (generally some kind of non-volatile RAM / flash-based storage system.
There are devices out there that store the OS on the HDD, but generally only the print controller devices and not the actual MFP.
The HDD is used when copying after the machine runs out of imaging RAM. 1GB is a usual amount for new machines, so for black text you have to scan quite a few pages before the machine starts to save images on the HDD.
This is definitely correct, but it's worth pointing out a couple of extra things:
Most modern MFPs of any decent make have 2GB RAM, not 1GB. 1GB was common around 2 to 3 years ago (i.e. The generation of models before the current offerings on the market from most manufacturers - and, incidentally, the majority of machines in the field, which is probably the most important thing here, so the parent really isn't "wrong", I just wanted to clarify).
The HDD will only be used if the space allocated for RAM gets used up as parent mentions, but this will normally only happen with various imposition methods such as "booklet" or so on where the last page and first page are printed on the same physical sheet. In simple "one to one" or "one to two" (duplex) copy modes, it's unlikely to ever use up all of the RAM as the print engine will be outputting as the images are coming in.
When printing and scanning everything usually goes trough the HDD.
This is DEFINITELY manufacturer dependent. Many MFPs that come with standard HDDs will also work without them (almost always with reduced feature sets of course though), and so these models generally do NOT touch the HDD for prints and scans unless specifically required (such as "stored print" or "scan to HDD" functions, etc, as well as the "out of RAM" scenario already described.
Newer machines have encrypted file systems with keys stored in hardware, so removing the disk from the machine won't get you anywhere by itself.
Yes, that's definitely quite standard these days on any machine over segment 2.
One product I've been serving even renders the software on the disk useless on the first boot if put in another machine by the same type.
While I haven't seen that feature specifically, I do know that most MFPs that uses IDE HDDs (most of them) now support ATA Passwords as a standard feature which will give you almost the same concept (when the settings in nonvolatile RAM don't have the password, there's no way it'll let you use it until you enter the password).
Speaking from my own experience, private companies rarely cares about security, but state (esp. military) customers are always aware of the risks involved, and removes HDDs from any machine leaving their premises.
My experience matches that, yeh. Although, the smaller govt departments can be pretty lax as well unless they've got significant oversight.
I've been a technician on MFPs and copiers for 12 years serving products from Xerox, HP, Lexmark, OKI and Canon. To me it seems focus on data security have been improved somewhat the last few years, parent can probably elaborate on that.
I don't think I need to elaborate too much, but in general, yes - perception of and focus on security really has improved greatly over the last few years. I've only been in the industry 10 years, but initially as technician support for connectivity (so, I was the guy that parent would call for support if he got stuck on network stuff in the field) and then from a bit later through to now as a software developer. I've never actually been a tech, but I dealt with them in my daily work for about 6 years, and now peripherally for the last 4 (but now working MUCH more closely with the MFP firmware)
Ok, here's a question: Why is it, with these big fancy copiers with their colour displays and massive computing capabilities, that I can't get the damn thing to just show me what it's about to copy? I can't count the number of pages I've wasted because I never remember which orientation this particular copier expects the original to be in, or because a tiny, unnoticed gust of air shifted the page as I was closing the copier lid, or because the margins cut off 1/4in of important material around the edges, or because the auto-exposure auto-exposed wrong, or because the book I'm copying turns out to be just an inch wider than the size of paper I'm copying to, or...
It's bad enough when I'm just wasting paper on an office copier, but when I'm wasting cold hard cash on those overpriced pay-per-sheet machines at a school or library it's enough to make me want to get all PC Load Letter on its plastic ass.
Hmmm... sorry for your pain. On the devices I work with, the ability to preview before output is definitely standard on all models beypnd the tiny el-cheapo things... sounds like you're dealing with crappy equipment.
Instead of wasting cold hard cash on the school or library devices, do some googling for how to enter "service mode" on the device in question (no, I won't tell you... I'm quite sure none of my superiors read this, but "just in case") and then look for settings relating to "key counter", "vendor mode" or similar. Disable it, and then your copies will be free. Once you've done your stuff, re-enable it and no-one will be any the wiser (if there's an external box separate to the main unit and it has a network cable, it's probably safer to unplug that as well before disabling the vendor device). Note of course that many devices contain an additional password for entering service mode (separate to the administrator password of course), and this may be changed from the default, but in practice it's rarely enabled and even more rarely set to anything other than the default (it causes service organisations too many headaches to do so)
Yes, both of those are pretty much "open secrets". Here's some details:
color copiers can detect certain unique features of currency, and will refuse to copy a document that has those features.
The currency detection routines are pretty much hardcoded in the image processing ASICs are NOT a part of the copier firmware that gets flashed in a routine firmware upgrade. This means that in general it's not easily updated for new currencies (although can be in some cases where image processing boards are physically replaced). It also means it's incredibly hard to bypass and extraordinarily annoying when it misdetects something. Most devices will block out ALL further output if a certain number of detections are made in a row. This however is generally just a flag in the nonvolatile RAM which a service technician can then clear from the device's service mode. The legal proceedings for doing so differ by country (in most of Europe for example, there's no specific law, and the techs just do it as a matter of course without any special procedures. In Australia, they're required to contact their head office who will then contact the appropriate government agency before the technician may clear that bit. I don't know about the US though sorry.). In some poorly designed devices, you can work around the currency detection by bypassing the image processing. This would be done by getting data in to the MFP in the raw raster format that the MFP uses (essentially the format that print/scan/copy jobs are processed as internally before being output on paper or as a scan job) and then getting the MFP to print that directly. The exact method would vary by MFP, but if the MFP has a "box" function where data is stored in user specific folders on the MFP's HDD, then copying the raster data in there would probably do the trick for many device types. I can say from my own work that this will NOT work on all devices though as the devices I work with don't allow raster data to be printed directly from any storage source - all user data on the HDD must be either "image" (PNG, JPG, TIFF, etc) or print data (PCL, PS, PDF, XPS, etc) format, or it will be ignored and deleted during the internal security processing of the firmware (and data coming in from external won't even make it to image processing if it doesn't match a valid type).
color printers put a virtually invisible unique pattern of tiny yellow dots on every sheet they print, so that the sheet can be traced back to its owner.
The yellow dots will match to the manufacturer, model and serial number. It's up to the local laws of the country to determine if the government has the right to request the manufacturer to store and divulge that information. It's also worth noting that in many models (almost every model from every manufacturer, but not ALL) the serial number is electronically entered during the MFP's "run up" (initial factory setup) and so CAN be altered in the case of someone wanting to avoid being tracked simply by clearing the nonvolatile RAM (making it believe it's "factory fresh" again) and then following the service procedures for running the device up. The process is basically impossible to know without the appropriate documentation though, as it's deliberately esoteric and weird (things such as "enter the date, then the serial number, then go back to the date screen, then press OK, otherwise it won't accept the serial number" (note: not a real example)) as a kind of security through obscurity on top of the requisite knowledge to do this sort of thing. A copier technician under normal circumstances doesn't get told about the yellow dots, although we don't really keep it secret from them - just don't specifically tell them. So, I'd say most of them do know about them, but don't know the finer details such as that the electronic serial number is a part of it... If they did know this, then yes, they most certainly COULD take any MFP they know how to service and change the serial nu
Sadly true... Well, true that I don't do the UI (our marketing guys don't either... we actually have a dedicated team for UI design, and they constantly make me cringe)
I never would have guessed the copy stayed in memory on the device.
When I copy, scan to email or, scan to file it doesn't give me the option to 'scan again without reinserting original'... or does that imply the ones we have don't have this 'feature'?
Generally it doesn't. Many devices have the ability to store at the same time as copy, however it's a feature you generally have to explicitly choose (unless enabled as a security mechanism by the device administrator). Some devices also have the option to keep the last job in memory (however not permanent storage such as HDD) in order for a "fast reprint" or "fast resend", but it's not a common feature, so I wouldn't be too surprised that the ones you're using don't have it.
A far more pressing concern than memory is the permanent storage. Most devices these days have an HDD that will store data for various purposes. Actual images of copy/print/scan jobs are only rarely stored, and usually only when explicitly set to do so (as above), however user data information in the form of job logs, counter information, credit information (for embedded accounting applications) and so on can be quite a concern. Most decent devices will however have a "secure erase" feature to be used by the administrator before disposing of the device, and often also an option whereby data going through HDD and RAM is encrypted on the way in/out (except of course actual operating code - but that doesn't contain YOUR sensitive data, only the manufacturers...).
To all: Feel free to ask for clarification on anything copier/MFP related... writing code for these things is my day job. Many things in the article are half-truths and some are just flat out wrong.
You're taking things to an extreme here to try and make it seem more absurd than it is.
Yes, I DO consider all of the professions you mentioned to be worthless in a truly perfect world and pretty much for the reasons you mentioned. However you're also dead right that such a perfect world is totally in the realms of fantasy. The world without lawyers, accountants and marketing people is also (in my opinion) unlikely to be achievable given that we humans are how we are, but its MUCH closer to a possible reality than the world without shopkeepers, pilots and server admins.
sociopaths (I guess you mean psychopaths, since they are marked by lack of empathy)
No, I mean sociopaths. Neither is a recognised term in modern psychiatric medicine and amongst those that do use the terms there are debates about the differences. Both are generally regarded as having a lack of empathy. Personally, I tend to agree with David Lykken (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Psychopathy_vs._sociopathy) on the subject.
No, not "of course" - an aspie may not be able to read the facial expressions or body language, but if the other person explains, describes or specifies his/her emotions, an aspie definitely can empathize.
I wouldn't call that "empathy" at all. That's "feeling an emotion", which most certainly aspies can do. Feeling an emotion because someone else is feeling one is NOT empathy. Empathy is mentally putting oneself in the position of another. To do this, one has to be able to comprehend how the others mind works (even if actually falsely assuming how it works). The majority of people with aspergers would find this extraordinarily difficult and require conscious effort to do so, where as neurotypicals tend to do this without even thinking about it. The reason I consider it to not be empathy when the emotion is described is that the aspie would not be consider him/herself in the place of the other, but instead simply perceiving themselves as feeling the same emotion. It's perhaps a relatively subtle distinction, but nevertheless very different.
As mentioned, I don't consider myself an aspie, but I definitely do have empathy difficulties, so this topic isn't far from my own understanding.
Glancing at the Wikipedia page, I see Hans Asperger essentially described the lack of displayed empathy as being one of the key points of the children he worked with. A Google search for "aspergers+empathy" seems to give a lot of conflicting data. There are MANY anecdotal reports on both sides, and several studies that claim aspies empathise "too much" (information overload causing shutting oneself out) but the general consensus still seems to point to a lack of real empathy.
Using the adverb "naturally" and the phrase "of course" in my post were not attempts at weasel words, but rather my own projection of following a logical conclusion (equivalent to: "If I pick something up, then of course I am now holding something").
Rereading your posts, I don't think we entirely disagree as to whether aspies have empathy, but rather on the definition of empathy itself, which makes any discussion like this difficult.
And as a last note: I am not attempting to lump all people with aspergers together. Just as every mental state of being has varying degrees, there are people that would be clinically diagnosed as having aspergers that show varying traits to different degrees. I don't doubt there are highly empathetic people with aspergers, but they'd be an exception rather than the norm.
Interesting, but I'm not sure we agree on the meaning of "empathy". In my post, I was meaning it purely as "ability to feel for other people's emotions"... this naturally requires reading others emotions of course, which you quite rightly pointed out that people on the autism spectrum have great difficulty doing.
Also note that I wasn't really equating sociopathy with autism spectrum disorders - I do believe they have some commonalities, but are by no means the same thing (just as "beer" and "coffee" have some commonalities, but are by no means the same!)
I think that was GNUALMAFUERTE's point. Those jobs DO serve a valid need in today's system, but only because there are fundamental flaws in today's system. I agree with him on that. Now, he never actually said that the flawless system COULD exist in the real world, and therefore also never said that those professions could be done away with if we improved the system. If he thinks it would be possible, then I disagree with that part, but still agree that the professions only exist to work around flaws (a "glitch" in his words).
To clarify on your answers:
Are you in business? Because if you are, your accountant had better save you lots more money than he/she costs. And no, I'm not talking about complex tax laws, I'm talking about simple asset and expense management. Companies which aren't tightly controlled in accounting burn through cash like you wouldn't believe. It's the accountants who (ahem) account for it all and help control expenses and maximize return on investment!
In a perfect world, economics would be simple enough for anyone to handle it without needing an accountant. The "better save you lots more than he/she costs" is hiding the issue a bit, because regardless they ARE costing money, and that money has to come from somewhere. Under the current system, a good accountant will save you more money than they cost and therefore from YOUR point of view you've saved some money, but overall the money had to come out of somewhere, so someone has to be losing out of the deal. IF we could find a system where accountants weren't needed, this money would be distributed more appropriately.
Your lawyer is there to advise you of the rules of the road. And those rules generally aren't arbitrary, they are complex and detailed because reality is complex and detailed. Laws generally get passed in response to real situations that have really happened! But do you know this? Sorry, of course you don't. And that's why when you are in legal trouble, you get a lawyer. Just the other day, I had a 2 hour interview with my lawyer save me some $100,000 cash. You think I don't value my laywer?
I'll try to ignore your snark about "of course you don't [know this]". The lawyer deals with complex laws because the laws are complex. You claim the laws are complex because they're based on reality, but I disagree with this. The laws are complex because they're a highly patched system. They've never been simplified and only become more complex over time as new patches are added. I contest that it SHOULD be possible to create sets of laws that are VASTLY simpler than the current laws of most nations, to the point that pretty much everyone would understand them easily. (the likely downside is that writing such a set of laws without loopholes is an exceedingly complex task... it only needs to be done once, but I think the ability to do so is well beyond us right now)
Marketing droids are (I hate to say) some of the most valuable members of an organization. Sure, some are idiots - such as those running the current Verizon ads (which seem to go out of their way to convince me NOT to buy Verizon hi-speed smart phones) but they are the exception. They are there to generate demand for the products of an organization. If they weren't there, selling the widgets that the engineers produce, there wouldn't be any need for engineers to produce anything because nobody would want them. They wouldn't even know that they exist! (which, even the Verizon idiots are succeeding at)
That relies on the assumption that there's a need to "sell" a product rather than only producing things people want/need. There are businesses that do extra-ordinarily well without advertising or other forms of marketing, purely because they're "needs based" only. Examples include the market for non-fiction books, non-speciality bread, and electricity providers in areas where you have no choice. The purpose of marketing a product is to make your po
It's the kind of thing that can come back and haunt you months or years later.
But ONLY in the puritanical society described. If it wasn't a big deal to begin with, then it also wouldn't be a big deal to be able to "come back and haunt you".
As an aside, my brain is certainly restricted to a single task, since I'm an aspie.
The prevalence of people who claim to have Aspergers on geek related web sites like Slashdot tends to very high. I think there are a few reasons for this.
One is that people with Aspergers are more likely to be driven to a geekier lifestyle; another is the perception by many non-aspie geeks that having Aspergers wouldn't really be such a bad thing (there are several positives associated with it as well as the negatives). The most interesting reason for me though is that I don't really think of Aspergers (or even complete autism) as being a fundamentally different thing to being "normal". From everything I've seen and read about it (which admittedly is less than most medical professionals that focus on it, but significantly more than most laymen) I would consider there to be various mental factors that have a range of possible states. To keep it easy, let's start with one: Empathy. If a normal person has an empathy value of "50", and a complete sociopath has an empathy value of "0", I would put myself somewhere around 10. Another factor may be "external awareness" (how much priority your brain puts on actually processing the signals coming in from your senses). Again, we'll say a normal person has a value of "50", and in this example, someone with extremely serious Autism may have a value around "5". My value is probably around 40.
Slowly but surely getting to my point here... Let's say we define a good hundred or so of these things. Chances are, we'll find correlations pretty quickly that show many of them are related - for example, people with lower external awareness also tend to have lower empathy. I would consider Aspergers to be a significant lowering of some of these factors. But people who are above this line, and below normal, tend to just be "socially awkward geeks" (such as myself - borderline aspie by symptoms but never diagnosed as such and generally don't refer to myself as such at all... quite happy with just saying "socially awkward geek").
Now... I'm not saying here that you do or don't have Aspergers - that's actually beside my point... Whether you do by a formal definition or not, you're probably somewhere in these "lower values" that I've described, and so from my point of view, any formal definition is fairly irrelevant (I'm sceptical of the mental health field in general, as there's a lot of quackery that clouds the real science being studied and even professionals seem to get mixes of both). The entire point of describing all of this is to suggest something that helps me greatly to understand my own mind: LSD. It's also very likely to help you multitask in your own brain for a bit, which would probably be a novel experience for you... it definitely was for me the first time. The best "multitasking" experience I ever had involved performing no physical tasks whatsoever, but with one part of my mind I was intensely focused on some music, picking out each instrument and each note that it played, savouring it in fine detail and then moving on to the next (which in reality was taking tenths of a second at longest, but the amount of time was meaningless... it was enough to fully savour each note), with another part of my mind I was finding geometric patterns in the stucco on my wall, and finally with yet a third part I was intensely aware of my left leg (no idea why only my left...) and the minute amount of pressure pressing down on each hair of that leg from the weight of my trouser leg. Being able to focus in great detail on these three things simultaneously is definitely WELL beyond my capabilities when not under the influence of LSD (other hallucinogens I've tried have had mild effects like this (even with stronger other effects such as visual distortions) but never to the level that a high dose of LSD (around 5 to 8 tabs) gives (although if you're new to it, I wouldn't recommend more than 2 tabs until you're comfortable and then build up from there over the course of a year or so)).
Sorry to hear that. Mine used to be too - then I started using QT and QtCreator for my main project. Bliss!
I'm honestly jealous... while I don't dislike C#, I'm definitely not a huge fan of it. I started my "serious" programming life with C++ (although dabbled in many other languages before that), so I'd love to go back if I could. Sadly, for my day job at least, I'm at the mercy of the parent company on this...
Finally I am able to easily write apps that will run on multiple platforms, but still has a rich library of UI controls ( widgets) and plenty of abstract data types.
About 75% of everything I do for work has to be cross platform under mono. The "core" of all of my apps is therefore always specifically designed with this in mind. I DO re-write all of the GUI though for any app that has one (using WinForms on Windows, GTK# on Linux, and Cocoa# on MacOS if I have to target that also). That really is a complete PITA, but if kept in mind from the start it generally only adds an extra 2 to 3 days on any project I do. I could be lazy and just use GTK# on all three, but it looks pretty ugly on both MacOS and Windows, so I prefer to take the time for a "native" look and feel.
Only down side I had initially to moving to QT was getting my head around how QT form designs and widget layouts work compared to how forms work in C#
I haven't looked at QT much, but the small amount I did, it sort of reminded me of a really hyped up version of "MUI" on AmigaOS from the layout perspective. If my impression was correct, I probably wouldn't have too many migration pains were I try.
I'm not forking out $15,000 for the team edition to get a profiler.
One advantage of working for a huge multinational I guess... For Microsoft stuff at least, I just log on to MSDN and download pretty much anything I want/need (including the "Team Edition"). I certainly can't imagine actually PAYING for Visual Studio (or Windows, or Office, etc etc)...
most people don't upgrade until necessity forces it on them.
My "day job" is C#, using Visual Studio, and yes, I'd agree with this in general. Not exactly for the reasons you mention, but close enough to it. My job is basically maintaining and extending an SDK that's handed down from our parent company and then handing it over further to third party development companies (plus a bit of in-house coding ourselves, using the same SDK) and providing code level support for them. The current release of our SDK is entirely.NET 2.0 with VS2005 solution files. We've only just very recently started releasing demo applications for the third parties with VS2008 solution files. It'll be a very long time before we even think about touching VS2010 outside of my "playground" Virtual Machines, since any upgrade we do, we're essentially forcing on several hundred other companies...
Teaching kids to drink in moderation is prevalent in France, where kids are allowed to drink wine with the family at dinner from a teenagehood. Coincidentally (sarcasm), binge drinking in France is FAR less prevalent than it is in the U.S. or U.K.
What I like is that in large parts of Europe, the age to drink alcohol is either non-existent, or somewhat lower than the age to purchase it. This encourages much safer practices in general. Take a look at the Wikipedia entry for legal drinking ages.
Somewhat of a tangent, but I also like that in most of Europe it's lower than the age for driving a motor vehicle. In countries where you can drive younger than you can drink, the incidence of driving while dangerously intoxicated seems to be much higher than in countries where you can drink younger than you can drive. I personally believe (although have no evidence to back this up) that people learn the effects of alcohol, then when they finally get behind the wheel of a car are already familiar enough with how alcohol affects them and make they well reasoned decision that being in that condition while in control of a vehicle would be a very bad thing indeed.
but this important work of fiction is very much in favor of marital sex, and doesn't exactly frown on extramarital sex either.
The problem is that that's where a lot of the confusion comes in. In many cases (in the old testament at least), the simple act of having sex was what made you "married". There was simply no distinction made between the two things in many of the cultures that are described. About the only times that sex wasn't considered the same was in deliberate violent rape (noting that many "forced marriages" would be what we'd call rape these days, but it did fall short of the "hold them down, get yourself off, and then slit their throat" approach)
It gets murky and difficult because many of the books are from different cultures and different times, where there'd be varying degrees of distinction made between the two concepts.
Can't speak for many other countries, but here in Germany at least, each of those has a well reasoned and easy answer to avoid a conflict:
You are 61 miles away from the courthouse, are due in court in 1 hour, and the speed limit is 60 miles per hour. You are either going to break the law by speeding, or break the law by missing your appointed court time.
If it's your own fault that you're late, then yes, you will break one of those two laws. However, if you were engaged in something at the requirement of the government (e.g. were currently being held in custody for a crime you committed (whether related to your court appointment or not)), then you could not be held responsible for missing the court appointment and it would have to be rescheduled.
A person who has taken out a restraining order on you is standing in the only exit from a private building from which you have been asked to leave. Remaining inside is trespassing. Walking past that person is a violation of the restraining order.
The person asking you to live the private premises would be required to ask the other person to move if they wished to enforce their eviction of you. There's no requirement for that person to move, and if they don't, the law will protect you for your continued trespass as you had no legal avenue to leave.
You discover that a bag you recently picked up is full of cocaine. Continuing to hold onto it is a felony. Dropping it is anywhere from a weak misdemeanor (littering) to a felony (various unlikely scenarios).
Continuing to hold on to the bag is not a crime of any kind if you can demonstratably prove that you are actively endeavouring to bring it to the proper authorities.
Perhaps North American gut bacteria are more efficient at digesting high fructose corn syrup
That was an attempt at humour, but you may be at least partially right... I'm a European that feels horribly sick if he consumes too much HFCS (one bottle of US produced Coca Cola will do it), whereas I can chow down on basic Fructose and Sucrose all day long with no ill effects (other than getting fat and having rotten teeth). HFCS just makes me queasy. I don't really think it's specifically to do with the ability to digest it, but something in the manner of processing/tolerance is definitely different.
Re:Here come the DRM whiners
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Apple iPad Reviewed
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· Score: 3, Insightful
It is an obvious PC pretending to be an appliance.
I can see where you're coming from, but can't agree still. My day job is as a software developer. I write code that runs on devices you'd probably NEVER think of as "general purpose computers", but in fact are. Specifically, print devices. The print controller of a modern MFP tends to have ASICs for image processing that aren't dissimilar to mid-range graphics chipsets, intel processors, SDRAM, IDE HDDs, and so on. Many run Linux (about 20% of the ones I work with (75% are VxWorks, and the remaining 5% are "misc")) and some even run Windows (last one of those I worked with was XP Embedded). If you work in a corporate office, chances are you've used these things on a daily basis without ever even considering it as a "general purpose PC" - it is for all intents and purposes an appliance.
I'll grant that the iPad is middle ground there between the two, but the target audience of it is definitely NOT the likes of you or I. It's targetted at people that WANT a "multi purpose appliance", without it being a real PC.
To be honest, I am actually quite disappointed in it, since I am still waiting for a really nice tablet to come along that I'd be happy using, and had hopes that this might be it until the announcement of the OS and details about it. But I don't get annoyed about these deliberate limitations - they are what they are, and for better or worse it's what Apple decided to do. They don't get you or I as a customer out of it, but I assume they've got a bunch of marketing guys sitting around who knew that people like us wouldn't be interested, and weighted that as a lower value than the number of people they thought the iPad WILL appeal to.
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It's only an observation from the outside that the most vocal atheists in the media seem to be anti-Catholic.
I think the problem here is that there's not just "one kind" of atheist. As with ALL human beings, we're all different and all have varying different beliefs* I'm an atheist, and I DO openly mock religious faiths fairly regularly (I have a strong belief that religions in general are dangerous and detrimental to society and that by mocking them, it leads to open debate, which may cause at least some to question their beliefs). However, the majority of atheists I know are quiet types that tend to "live and let live" as far as religion goes. They don't believe what their neighbour believes, but unless it specifically comes up in conversation are unlikely to say anything.
Now, with the type of atheist that I am, it's quite easy to appear as if you're targetting a specific group, such as Catholics. This however tends to come about purely because they're the ones saying the most to you. I probably come across as fairly anti-Catholic when Catholic people bring up my atheism. I also appear as fairly anti-Buddhist when Buddhists bring it up... but in the society in which I live, I'm far more likely to encounter Catholics than Buddhists, so my opinions probably appear fairly focused on the Catholics when that's not truly the case.
There are of course many other atheists that DO specifically target individual religions, and the Abrahamic religions are a fairly easy target due to both the size (collectively) and dominance in western culture. Going even more specific than "Abrahamic", the Catholic church is yet even easier as a target (although perhaps slightly less so than Islam) due to the many atrocities it has committed and the strong "anti-science" attitude that it gives off to many people (whether they do or do not hold this position is entirely irrelevant - they're perceived as that, which is all that really matters from a human reaction perspective).
* I refer to all people as having "beliefs". This does NOT imply that I think atheism is a "religion" (I would never write "atheism" on a form that asked for religion... I'd write "none"). A belief is simply something you accept as being "true" or "almost certainly true". I believe that Canada is a country. I believe that there is a lot of work waiting for me at the office when I finally head that way in a few minutes. And I believe that there is no greater supernatural power in the universe watching over us. I hold all of these beliefs because it's simply not practical to live one's life without beliefs. If I held NO beliefs, I wouldn't do anything at all... I can't be CERTAIN that I exist even, but I believe I do and so act accordingly...
If they don't bother to read the blog, they won't be interested in the facts when I am on facebook or on twitter.
Not necessarily true. I have friends on facebook that I so rarely see in real life because they live on the other side of the planet from me (literally). On facebook, I look on the live feed and take in an overview of what everyone is up to. In general, most of it is pointless drivel and I ignore it. But, on the off-chance someone is doing something interesting I'll take note of it.
The best example is when an old friend was visiting France. I live in Germany but taking a quick trip over to Paris is pretty simple for me. They hadn't even considered I might want to do so (never considering how close north-western Germany is to Paris), so never let me know specifically they'd be coming. When I saw their facebook status update mentioning it however, I was able to make arrangements with them to meet up.
Yeh, MOST of what gets posted is rubbish, and that's the EXACT reason I wouldn't regularly visit the blogs of these people if they had them - they're my friends, but it doesn't mean we share all that many common interests (most of them aren't even geeks/nerds). But, by posting their status updates on facebook, it's trivial for me to "at a glance" see what's going on with all the people I know rather than checking a hundred or so blogs.
A minority of Muslims may be extremist, but a majority of Muslims sit back and say nothing about the extremists. They are just as bad.
And while there's only a minority of extremist Christians, the majority sit back and say nothing about them either (or when they do, they tend to say things like, "yeh, but they're really not being very Christian in their actions").
As an atheist, I think you're all a bunch of dangerous loonies basically.
Agreed, and in reality this is how it's done. Adding the HDD is NOT for storing temp copies of current job data - RAM is used for that. The HDD is used when RAM is full (essentially, swap), and for anything DESIGNATED as being longer term storage.
Sure, but whos to say the copier is going to work after you wipe the drive like that?
The copiers OS could be on the disk.
Extraordinarily rare. The disk is usually just storage for user data and so on. The OS is flashed to a different storage (generally some kind of non-volatile RAM / flash-based storage system.
There are devices out there that store the OS on the HDD, but generally only the print controller devices and not the actual MFP.
The HDD is used when copying after the machine runs out of imaging RAM. 1GB is a usual amount for new machines, so for black text you have to scan quite a few pages before the machine starts to save images on the HDD.
This is definitely correct, but it's worth pointing out a couple of extra things:
When printing and scanning everything usually goes trough the HDD.
This is DEFINITELY manufacturer dependent. Many MFPs that come with standard HDDs will also work without them (almost always with reduced feature sets of course though), and so these models generally do NOT touch the HDD for prints and scans unless specifically required (such as "stored print" or "scan to HDD" functions, etc, as well as the "out of RAM" scenario already described.
Newer machines have encrypted file systems with keys stored in hardware, so removing the disk from the machine won't get you anywhere by itself.
Yes, that's definitely quite standard these days on any machine over segment 2.
One product I've been serving even renders the software on the disk useless on the first boot if put in another machine by the same type.
While I haven't seen that feature specifically, I do know that most MFPs that uses IDE HDDs (most of them) now support ATA Passwords as a standard feature which will give you almost the same concept (when the settings in nonvolatile RAM don't have the password, there's no way it'll let you use it until you enter the password).
Speaking from my own experience, private companies rarely cares about security, but state (esp. military) customers are always aware of the risks involved, and removes HDDs from any machine leaving their premises.
My experience matches that, yeh. Although, the smaller govt departments can be pretty lax as well unless they've got significant oversight.
I've been a technician on MFPs and copiers for 12 years serving products from Xerox, HP, Lexmark, OKI and Canon. To me it seems focus on data security have been improved somewhat the last few years, parent can probably elaborate on that.
I don't think I need to elaborate too much, but in general, yes - perception of and focus on security really has improved greatly over the last few years. I've only been in the industry 10 years, but initially as technician support for connectivity (so, I was the guy that parent would call for support if he got stuck on network stuff in the field) and then from a bit later through to now as a software developer. I've never actually been a tech, but I dealt with them in my daily work for about 6 years, and now peripherally for the last 4 (but now working MUCH more closely with the MFP firmware)
Ok, here's a question: Why is it, with these big fancy copiers with their colour displays and massive computing capabilities, that I can't get the damn thing to just show me what it's about to copy? I can't count the number of pages I've wasted because I never remember which orientation this particular copier expects the original to be in, or because a tiny, unnoticed gust of air shifted the page as I was closing the copier lid, or because the margins cut off 1/4in of important material around the edges, or because the auto-exposure auto-exposed wrong, or because the book I'm copying turns out to be just an inch wider than the size of paper I'm copying to, or...
It's bad enough when I'm just wasting paper on an office copier, but when I'm wasting cold hard cash on those overpriced pay-per-sheet machines at a school or library it's enough to make me want to get all PC Load Letter on its plastic ass.
Hmmm... sorry for your pain. On the devices I work with, the ability to preview before output is definitely standard on all models beypnd the tiny el-cheapo things... sounds like you're dealing with crappy equipment.
Instead of wasting cold hard cash on the school or library devices, do some googling for how to enter "service mode" on the device in question (no, I won't tell you... I'm quite sure none of my superiors read this, but "just in case") and then look for settings relating to "key counter", "vendor mode" or similar. Disable it, and then your copies will be free. Once you've done your stuff, re-enable it and no-one will be any the wiser (if there's an external box separate to the main unit and it has a network cable, it's probably safer to unplug that as well before disabling the vendor device). Note of course that many devices contain an additional password for entering service mode (separate to the administrator password of course), and this may be changed from the default, but in practice it's rarely enabled and even more rarely set to anything other than the default (it causes service organisations too many headaches to do so)
Yes, both of those are pretty much "open secrets". Here's some details:
color copiers can detect certain unique features of currency, and will refuse to copy a document that has those features.
The currency detection routines are pretty much hardcoded in the image processing ASICs are NOT a part of the copier firmware that gets flashed in a routine firmware upgrade. This means that in general it's not easily updated for new currencies (although can be in some cases where image processing boards are physically replaced). It also means it's incredibly hard to bypass and extraordinarily annoying when it misdetects something.
Most devices will block out ALL further output if a certain number of detections are made in a row. This however is generally just a flag in the nonvolatile RAM which a service technician can then clear from the device's service mode. The legal proceedings for doing so differ by country (in most of Europe for example, there's no specific law, and the techs just do it as a matter of course without any special procedures. In Australia, they're required to contact their head office who will then contact the appropriate government agency before the technician may clear that bit. I don't know about the US though sorry.).
In some poorly designed devices, you can work around the currency detection by bypassing the image processing. This would be done by getting data in to the MFP in the raw raster format that the MFP uses (essentially the format that print/scan/copy jobs are processed as internally before being output on paper or as a scan job) and then getting the MFP to print that directly. The exact method would vary by MFP, but if the MFP has a "box" function where data is stored in user specific folders on the MFP's HDD, then copying the raster data in there would probably do the trick for many device types. I can say from my own work that this will NOT work on all devices though as the devices I work with don't allow raster data to be printed directly from any storage source - all user data on the HDD must be either "image" (PNG, JPG, TIFF, etc) or print data (PCL, PS, PDF, XPS, etc) format, or it will be ignored and deleted during the internal security processing of the firmware (and data coming in from external won't even make it to image processing if it doesn't match a valid type).
color printers put a virtually invisible unique pattern of tiny yellow dots on every sheet they print, so that the sheet can be traced back to its owner.
The yellow dots will match to the manufacturer, model and serial number. It's up to the local laws of the country to determine if the government has the right to request the manufacturer to store and divulge that information. It's also worth noting that in many models (almost every model from every manufacturer, but not ALL) the serial number is electronically entered during the MFP's "run up" (initial factory setup) and so CAN be altered in the case of someone wanting to avoid being tracked simply by clearing the nonvolatile RAM (making it believe it's "factory fresh" again) and then following the service procedures for running the device up. The process is basically impossible to know without the appropriate documentation though, as it's deliberately esoteric and weird (things such as "enter the date, then the serial number, then go back to the date screen, then press OK, otherwise it won't accept the serial number" (note: not a real example)) as a kind of security through obscurity on top of the requisite knowledge to do this sort of thing. A copier technician under normal circumstances doesn't get told about the yellow dots, although we don't really keep it secret from them - just don't specifically tell them. So, I'd say most of them do know about them, but don't know the finer details such as that the electronic serial number is a part of it... If they did know this, then yes, they most certainly COULD take any MFP they know how to service and change the serial nu
Sadly true... Well, true that I don't do the UI (our marketing guys don't either... we actually have a dedicated team for UI design, and they constantly make me cringe)
I never would have guessed the copy stayed in memory on the device.
When I copy, scan to email or, scan to file it doesn't give me the option to 'scan again without reinserting original'... or does that imply the ones we have don't have this 'feature'?
Generally it doesn't. Many devices have the ability to store at the same time as copy, however it's a feature you generally have to explicitly choose (unless enabled as a security mechanism by the device administrator). Some devices also have the option to keep the last job in memory (however not permanent storage such as HDD) in order for a "fast reprint" or "fast resend", but it's not a common feature, so I wouldn't be too surprised that the ones you're using don't have it.
A far more pressing concern than memory is the permanent storage. Most devices these days have an HDD that will store data for various purposes. Actual images of copy/print/scan jobs are only rarely stored, and usually only when explicitly set to do so (as above), however user data information in the form of job logs, counter information, credit information (for embedded accounting applications) and so on can be quite a concern. Most decent devices will however have a "secure erase" feature to be used by the administrator before disposing of the device, and often also an option whereby data going through HDD and RAM is encrypted on the way in/out (except of course actual operating code - but that doesn't contain YOUR sensitive data, only the manufacturers...).
To all: Feel free to ask for clarification on anything copier/MFP related... writing code for these things is my day job. Many things in the article are half-truths and some are just flat out wrong.
You're taking things to an extreme here to try and make it seem more absurd than it is.
Yes, I DO consider all of the professions you mentioned to be worthless in a truly perfect world and pretty much for the reasons you mentioned. However you're also dead right that such a perfect world is totally in the realms of fantasy. The world without lawyers, accountants and marketing people is also (in my opinion) unlikely to be achievable given that we humans are how we are, but its MUCH closer to a possible reality than the world without shopkeepers, pilots and server admins.
On another topic (hence separate reply):
sociopaths (I guess you mean psychopaths, since they are marked by lack of empathy)
No, I mean sociopaths. Neither is a recognised term in modern psychiatric medicine and amongst those that do use the terms there are debates about the differences. Both are generally regarded as having a lack of empathy. Personally, I tend to agree with David Lykken (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Psychopathy_vs._sociopathy) on the subject.
No, not "of course" - an aspie may not be able to read the facial expressions or body language, but if the other person explains, describes or specifies his/her emotions, an aspie definitely can empathize.
I wouldn't call that "empathy" at all. That's "feeling an emotion", which most certainly aspies can do. Feeling an emotion because someone else is feeling one is NOT empathy. Empathy is mentally putting oneself in the position of another. To do this, one has to be able to comprehend how the others mind works (even if actually falsely assuming how it works). The majority of people with aspergers would find this extraordinarily difficult and require conscious effort to do so, where as neurotypicals tend to do this without even thinking about it. The reason I consider it to not be empathy when the emotion is described is that the aspie would not be consider him/herself in the place of the other, but instead simply perceiving themselves as feeling the same emotion. It's perhaps a relatively subtle distinction, but nevertheless very different.
As mentioned, I don't consider myself an aspie, but I definitely do have empathy difficulties, so this topic isn't far from my own understanding.
Glancing at the Wikipedia page, I see Hans Asperger essentially described the lack of displayed empathy as being one of the key points of the children he worked with. A Google search for "aspergers+empathy" seems to give a lot of conflicting data. There are MANY anecdotal reports on both sides, and several studies that claim aspies empathise "too much" (information overload causing shutting oneself out) but the general consensus still seems to point to a lack of real empathy.
Using the adverb "naturally" and the phrase "of course" in my post were not attempts at weasel words, but rather my own projection of following a logical conclusion (equivalent to: "If I pick something up, then of course I am now holding something").
Rereading your posts, I don't think we entirely disagree as to whether aspies have empathy, but rather on the definition of empathy itself, which makes any discussion like this difficult.
And as a last note: I am not attempting to lump all people with aspergers together. Just as every mental state of being has varying degrees, there are people that would be clinically diagnosed as having aspergers that show varying traits to different degrees. I don't doubt there are highly empathetic people with aspergers, but they'd be an exception rather than the norm.
Interesting, but I'm not sure we agree on the meaning of "empathy". In my post, I was meaning it purely as "ability to feel for other people's emotions"... this naturally requires reading others emotions of course, which you quite rightly pointed out that people on the autism spectrum have great difficulty doing.
Also note that I wasn't really equating sociopathy with autism spectrum disorders - I do believe they have some commonalities, but are by no means the same thing (just as "beer" and "coffee" have some commonalities, but are by no means the same!)
I think that was GNUALMAFUERTE's point. Those jobs DO serve a valid need in today's system, but only because there are fundamental flaws in today's system. I agree with him on that. Now, he never actually said that the flawless system COULD exist in the real world, and therefore also never said that those professions could be done away with if we improved the system. If he thinks it would be possible, then I disagree with that part, but still agree that the professions only exist to work around flaws (a "glitch" in his words).
To clarify on your answers:
Are you in business? Because if you are, your accountant had better save you lots more money than he/she costs. And no, I'm not talking about complex tax laws, I'm talking about simple asset and expense management. Companies which aren't tightly controlled in accounting burn through cash like you wouldn't believe. It's the accountants who (ahem) account for it all and help control expenses and maximize return on investment!
In a perfect world, economics would be simple enough for anyone to handle it without needing an accountant. The "better save you lots more than he/she costs" is hiding the issue a bit, because regardless they ARE costing money, and that money has to come from somewhere. Under the current system, a good accountant will save you more money than they cost and therefore from YOUR point of view you've saved some money, but overall the money had to come out of somewhere, so someone has to be losing out of the deal. IF we could find a system where accountants weren't needed, this money would be distributed more appropriately.
Your lawyer is there to advise you of the rules of the road. And those rules generally aren't arbitrary, they are complex and detailed because reality is complex and detailed. Laws generally get passed in response to real situations that have really happened! But do you know this? Sorry, of course you don't. And that's why when you are in legal trouble, you get a lawyer. Just the other day, I had a 2 hour interview with my lawyer save me some $100,000 cash. You think I don't value my laywer?
I'll try to ignore your snark about "of course you don't [know this]". The lawyer deals with complex laws because the laws are complex. You claim the laws are complex because they're based on reality, but I disagree with this. The laws are complex because they're a highly patched system. They've never been simplified and only become more complex over time as new patches are added. I contest that it SHOULD be possible to create sets of laws that are VASTLY simpler than the current laws of most nations, to the point that pretty much everyone would understand them easily. (the likely downside is that writing such a set of laws without loopholes is an exceedingly complex task... it only needs to be done once, but I think the ability to do so is well beyond us right now)
Marketing droids are (I hate to say) some of the most valuable members of an organization. Sure, some are idiots - such as those running the current Verizon ads (which seem to go out of their way to convince me NOT to buy Verizon hi-speed smart phones) but they are the exception. They are there to generate demand for the products of an organization. If they weren't there, selling the widgets that the engineers produce, there wouldn't be any need for engineers to produce anything because nobody would want them. They wouldn't even know that they exist! (which, even the Verizon idiots are succeeding at)
That relies on the assumption that there's a need to "sell" a product rather than only producing things people want/need. There are businesses that do extra-ordinarily well without advertising or other forms of marketing, purely because they're "needs based" only. Examples include the market for non-fiction books, non-speciality bread, and electricity providers in areas where you have no choice. The purpose of marketing a product is to make your po
It's the kind of thing that can come back and haunt you months or years later.
But ONLY in the puritanical society described. If it wasn't a big deal to begin with, then it also wouldn't be a big deal to be able to "come back and haunt you".
As an aside, my brain is certainly restricted to a single task, since I'm an aspie.
The prevalence of people who claim to have Aspergers on geek related web sites like Slashdot tends to very high. I think there are a few reasons for this.
One is that people with Aspergers are more likely to be driven to a geekier lifestyle; another is the perception by many non-aspie geeks that having Aspergers wouldn't really be such a bad thing (there are several positives associated with it as well as the negatives). The most interesting reason for me though is that I don't really think of Aspergers (or even complete autism) as being a fundamentally different thing to being "normal". From everything I've seen and read about it (which admittedly is less than most medical professionals that focus on it, but significantly more than most laymen) I would consider there to be various mental factors that have a range of possible states. To keep it easy, let's start with one: Empathy. If a normal person has an empathy value of "50", and a complete sociopath has an empathy value of "0", I would put myself somewhere around 10. Another factor may be "external awareness" (how much priority your brain puts on actually processing the signals coming in from your senses). Again, we'll say a normal person has a value of "50", and in this example, someone with extremely serious Autism may have a value around "5". My value is probably around 40.
Slowly but surely getting to my point here... Let's say we define a good hundred or so of these things. Chances are, we'll find correlations pretty quickly that show many of them are related - for example, people with lower external awareness also tend to have lower empathy. I would consider Aspergers to be a significant lowering of some of these factors. But people who are above this line, and below normal, tend to just be "socially awkward geeks" (such as myself - borderline aspie by symptoms but never diagnosed as such and generally don't refer to myself as such at all... quite happy with just saying "socially awkward geek").
Now... I'm not saying here that you do or don't have Aspergers - that's actually beside my point... Whether you do by a formal definition or not, you're probably somewhere in these "lower values" that I've described, and so from my point of view, any formal definition is fairly irrelevant (I'm sceptical of the mental health field in general, as there's a lot of quackery that clouds the real science being studied and even professionals seem to get mixes of both). The entire point of describing all of this is to suggest something that helps me greatly to understand my own mind: LSD. It's also very likely to help you multitask in your own brain for a bit, which would probably be a novel experience for you... it definitely was for me the first time. The best "multitasking" experience I ever had involved performing no physical tasks whatsoever, but with one part of my mind I was intensely focused on some music, picking out each instrument and each note that it played, savouring it in fine detail and then moving on to the next (which in reality was taking tenths of a second at longest, but the amount of time was meaningless... it was enough to fully savour each note), with another part of my mind I was finding geometric patterns in the stucco on my wall, and finally with yet a third part I was intensely aware of my left leg (no idea why only my left...) and the minute amount of pressure pressing down on each hair of that leg from the weight of my trouser leg. Being able to focus in great detail on these three things simultaneously is definitely WELL beyond my capabilities when not under the influence of LSD (other hallucinogens I've tried have had mild effects like this (even with stronger other effects such as visual distortions) but never to the level that a high dose of LSD (around 5 to 8 tabs) gives (although if you're new to it, I wouldn't recommend more than 2 tabs until you're comfortable and then build up from there over the course of a year or so)).
Sorry to hear that. Mine used to be too - then I started using QT and QtCreator for my main project. Bliss!
I'm honestly jealous... while I don't dislike C#, I'm definitely not a huge fan of it. I started my "serious" programming life with C++ (although dabbled in many other languages before that), so I'd love to go back if I could. Sadly, for my day job at least, I'm at the mercy of the parent company on this...
Finally I am able to easily write apps that will run on multiple platforms, but still has a rich library of UI controls ( widgets) and plenty of abstract data types.
About 75% of everything I do for work has to be cross platform under mono. The "core" of all of my apps is therefore always specifically designed with this in mind. I DO re-write all of the GUI though for any app that has one (using WinForms on Windows, GTK# on Linux, and Cocoa# on MacOS if I have to target that also). That really is a complete PITA, but if kept in mind from the start it generally only adds an extra 2 to 3 days on any project I do. I could be lazy and just use GTK# on all three, but it looks pretty ugly on both MacOS and Windows, so I prefer to take the time for a "native" look and feel.
Only down side I had initially to moving to QT was getting my head around how QT form designs and widget layouts work compared to how forms work in C#
I haven't looked at QT much, but the small amount I did, it sort of reminded me of a really hyped up version of "MUI" on AmigaOS from the layout perspective. If my impression was correct, I probably wouldn't have too many migration pains were I try.
I'm not forking out $15,000 for the team edition to get a profiler.
One advantage of working for a huge multinational I guess... For Microsoft stuff at least, I just log on to MSDN and download pretty much anything I want/need (including the "Team Edition"). I certainly can't imagine actually PAYING for Visual Studio (or Windows, or Office, etc etc)...
most people don't upgrade until necessity forces it on them.
My "day job" is C#, using Visual Studio, and yes, I'd agree with this in general. Not exactly for the reasons you mention, but close enough to it. My job is basically maintaining and extending an SDK that's handed down from our parent company and then handing it over further to third party development companies (plus a bit of in-house coding ourselves, using the same SDK) and providing code level support for them. The current release of our SDK is entirely .NET 2.0 with VS2005 solution files. We've only just very recently started releasing demo applications for the third parties with VS2008 solution files. It'll be a very long time before we even think about touching VS2010 outside of my "playground" Virtual Machines, since any upgrade we do, we're essentially forcing on several hundred other companies...
Teaching kids to drink in moderation is prevalent in France, where kids are allowed to drink wine with the family at dinner from a teenagehood. Coincidentally (sarcasm), binge drinking in France is FAR less prevalent than it is in the U.S. or U.K.
What I like is that in large parts of Europe, the age to drink alcohol is either non-existent, or somewhat lower than the age to purchase it. This encourages much safer practices in general. Take a look at the Wikipedia entry for legal drinking ages.
Somewhat of a tangent, but I also like that in most of Europe it's lower than the age for driving a motor vehicle. In countries where you can drive younger than you can drink, the incidence of driving while dangerously intoxicated seems to be much higher than in countries where you can drink younger than you can drive. I personally believe (although have no evidence to back this up) that people learn the effects of alcohol, then when they finally get behind the wheel of a car are already familiar enough with how alcohol affects them and make they well reasoned decision that being in that condition while in control of a vehicle would be a very bad thing indeed.
but this important work of fiction is very much in favor of marital sex, and doesn't exactly frown on extramarital sex either.
The problem is that that's where a lot of the confusion comes in. In many cases (in the old testament at least), the simple act of having sex was what made you "married". There was simply no distinction made between the two things in many of the cultures that are described. About the only times that sex wasn't considered the same was in deliberate violent rape (noting that many "forced marriages" would be what we'd call rape these days, but it did fall short of the "hold them down, get yourself off, and then slit their throat" approach)
It gets murky and difficult because many of the books are from different cultures and different times, where there'd be varying degrees of distinction made between the two concepts.
Can't speak for many other countries, but here in Germany at least, each of those has a well reasoned and easy answer to avoid a conflict:
You are 61 miles away from the courthouse, are due in court in 1 hour, and the speed limit is 60 miles per hour. You are either going to break the law by speeding, or break the law by missing your appointed court time.
If it's your own fault that you're late, then yes, you will break one of those two laws. However, if you were engaged in something at the requirement of the government (e.g. were currently being held in custody for a crime you committed (whether related to your court appointment or not)), then you could not be held responsible for missing the court appointment and it would have to be rescheduled.
A person who has taken out a restraining order on you is standing in the only exit from a private building from which you have been asked to leave. Remaining inside is trespassing. Walking past that person is a violation of the restraining order.
The person asking you to live the private premises would be required to ask the other person to move if they wished to enforce their eviction of you. There's no requirement for that person to move, and if they don't, the law will protect you for your continued trespass as you had no legal avenue to leave.
You discover that a bag you recently picked up is full of cocaine. Continuing to hold onto it is a felony. Dropping it is anywhere from a weak misdemeanor (littering) to a felony (various unlikely scenarios).
Continuing to hold on to the bag is not a crime of any kind if you can demonstratably prove that you are actively endeavouring to bring it to the proper authorities.
Perhaps North American gut bacteria are more efficient at digesting high fructose corn syrup
That was an attempt at humour, but you may be at least partially right... I'm a European that feels horribly sick if he consumes too much HFCS (one bottle of US produced Coca Cola will do it), whereas I can chow down on basic Fructose and Sucrose all day long with no ill effects (other than getting fat and having rotten teeth). HFCS just makes me queasy. I don't really think it's specifically to do with the ability to digest it, but something in the manner of processing/tolerance is definitely different.
It is an obvious PC pretending to be an appliance.
I can see where you're coming from, but can't agree still. My day job is as a software developer. I write code that runs on devices you'd probably NEVER think of as "general purpose computers", but in fact are. Specifically, print devices. The print controller of a modern MFP tends to have ASICs for image processing that aren't dissimilar to mid-range graphics chipsets, intel processors, SDRAM, IDE HDDs, and so on. Many run Linux (about 20% of the ones I work with (75% are VxWorks, and the remaining 5% are "misc")) and some even run Windows (last one of those I worked with was XP Embedded). If you work in a corporate office, chances are you've used these things on a daily basis without ever even considering it as a "general purpose PC" - it is for all intents and purposes an appliance.
I'll grant that the iPad is middle ground there between the two, but the target audience of it is definitely NOT the likes of you or I. It's targetted at people that WANT a "multi purpose appliance", without it being a real PC.
To be honest, I am actually quite disappointed in it, since I am still waiting for a really nice tablet to come along that I'd be happy using, and had hopes that this might be it until the announcement of the OS and details about it. But I don't get annoyed about these deliberate limitations - they are what they are, and for better or worse it's what Apple decided to do. They don't get you or I as a customer out of it, but I assume they've got a bunch of marketing guys sitting around who knew that people like us wouldn't be interested, and weighted that as a lower value than the number of people they thought the iPad WILL appeal to.
I certainly would, if my TV, microwave, or dishwasher had hardware capable of general purpose computing.
Your microwave and dishwasher probably don't, but if your TV is a relatively modern high-end model, then it almost certainly does.