Gaaah, that took 3 hours out of my evening - and I needed them!!!
Oh well, thanks for the link:) That "A Colder War" story is one of the best stories I've read in the last years. Scary as hell. I read it a few months ago for the first time but it still has a punch, even if you know the ending.
So... not unionizing will make you keep your job because the bosses won't fire you?
Look, "unionizing" means different things to people from different countries so keep in mind that when people say this, they may mean something very different from the actual unions in the US. But "unionizing" basically boils down to cooperating with your fellow workers to defend yourself against pointy-haired evil bosses. That's just being smart because if it's just you against your manager, he's holding all the cards.
But time isn't money. That's a two-hundred year old maxim based on the marxian labor theory of value which should have been thoroughly discredited by now.
Well, it didn't, because "time is money" wasn't in that theory.
Actually, according to http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/10/messages/570.htm the term originates with Antiphon, around 430 BC. Seeing it hasn't been discredited after about two and a half millenia, I'm pretty sure this saying will be with us for quite some time.
If you want disturbing, consider the melting of subsurface methane-ice concentrates. Methane is an excellent greenhouse gas, and a lot of methane is stored in ice. Once that melts, you could have a situation where more and more methane gets into the air, leading to more and more ice melting, until we run out of ice. But by then, we could be in a huge amount of trouble in a very short timeperiod, and not much you can do about it either.
Prevention is half the cure for some ills, but in this case it could well be the entirety of the cure.
However, warming up the oceans sounds even worse to me. Heating up air would probably require less energy than heating up large masses of water, considering the density of both. So if the oceans warm up, it means even more energy than I thought is entering the system. That can't be good.
Small addendum: I just read Joel's article and I agree completely with what he says. But if your boss only got "add new features" out of it, start looking for another company now. Soonest.
Tell your boss (politely!) that if he expects people to work like it's their own company, that really works best if it *is* their own company (at least partially). One of the reasons I'm self-employed (not in the US btw) is that I was expected to work long hours and didn't think I should do that for someone elses money. Yes it's capitalism at work. No I didn't have to play along - I can be a temp worker just as good when I hire myself out to others. And otherwise I can always get a new job. Same for you and your co-workers. If your boss goes under, they can move elsewhere. It's HIS company, it's HIS income and it's HIS problem.
There is no reason anyone should make the company profitable just for someone else. They get paid for their work, and do (I assume) their best. If that's not enough your boss should probably rethink his business model. "Add more features" hardly ever works in my experience, if your base product sucks or isn't marketed well enough. More marketing, now that might work, as long as your product is halfway decent. And lowering everyone's salary by a third (hourly rates in any case) will not help.
Even if everyone thought this was a brilliant idea, in practice 11 hour workdays are no more productive than 8 hour days. Or even 6 hour workdays. Unless you are doing mindless repetitive work, but in creative professions you hit diminishing returns rather fast. So tell your boss to come up with something else, like: A) asking customers their opinion on what you should do in order for them to buy either more licenses or different stuff from you B) better salespeople. You *do* have salespeople, do you? C) more and better marketing. D) stock options (last resort, panic-mode)
I see that Joel thinks marketing and sales are not worth it. He's right about the affiliate thing and others, but he forgets his own huge marketing scheme: his blog. If you don't have something similar, find yourselves someone who understands marketing software, because it *is* important. I completely agree with him on asking your customers what they need. That's the basis of any sale and often overlooked.
Type "global warming" into Wolfram Alpha and limit the graphic to 100 years, 50 years and 10 years. You get an increase of 0.7C, 1.44C and somewhere between -0.8 and +0.6C. Depending on your starting point, the trend may be misleading. The one with a range of 500 years and 100 years are pretty alarming though.
Also, people massively tend to underestimate the amount of energy to warm up an entire planetary atmosphere by this amount. 0.4C looks small, until you calculate the amount of energy necessary to heat up an *entire planet*. It's like a massive juggernaut - once it rolls, it's going to take a lot to stop it.
This sounds like a case of being able to prove anything, as long as your assumptions (you know, those unshakeable things every toddler knows) are in line with the things you'd like to prove. For Ayn Rand certain things were quite basic. I mean, for the ones who are on top in any given society, that society is "natural" or "divine". Those on the bottom may not subscribe to that philosophy.
As for induction, it's a pretty well understood concept in mathematics and in general use in computer science. I always considered it a practical tool after learning it in the "Logic and discrete mathematics" course (1st year course) and thought other sciences used it as well. It was the basis of many computerscience proofs. Generalizing it into a more generally applicable tool sounds like a good idea, but I'm not sure it hasn't been done already.
As for philosophy in general, there are a huge amount of problems in the field. Although the post-modernist have in some cases added quite usefull tools to the field (postmodernist dissection, to name one, which I think was a usefull tool in the arsenal of anyone who wants to criticize hidden assumptions) mainly they've only provided excuses for how the world has been run lately - fullfilling the same role the Catholic church has played in much of Western Europe's history, only not nearly as long-lived or as influential.
And about Paul Feyerabend: if he really equates priests with scientists, he's a fool. The counterargument would be: well, pray for your new bridge to hold - we'll use math to make *sure* it holds. Since he wouldn't be famous if he was as stupid as suggested, I'm going to climb out on a limb here and think that perhaps he's been used as a straw man in this review. Then again, there have been a lot of famous philosophers who *were* fools, and fools who were famous philosophers, so it may be true:)
This seems rather low, and certainly not a record. Unless they compete in a "differently abled" class?
The Nuna 2 solar powered car that won the World Solar Challenge in 2003 had the following stats for the race: Total race time: 31 hr 5 mins. Average speed: 97,02 Km/h Topspeed: 130 km/h Top speed they had during Adante tour in 2004: 145 km/h Link: http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMCCBZO4HD_Benefits_2.html
Keep in mind that this was done by a (Dutch) university team as well.
Considering the fact that the sunswift team wants to compete in the WSC as well - I think they either need to get up to 188 km/h, or throw in the towel. Or perhaps I'm missing something but I did RTA and nothing suggests they really set a new speedrecord, except their own propaganda.
The analogy isn't about stealing stuff. You don't "steal" Photoshop, you copy it.
So do you like to be paid for your work? Yes. You are a business, you are there to make money of the stuff you create. So do the Photoshop developers. That's the analogy, and if you are demanding money for your work you are a hypocrite if you refuse to pay those that enable you to earn it in the first place.
That being said: I don't think I have a big issue with the people using a cracked version at home for their holiday snapshots. Even though I use Paint.NET + plugins for it, I don't particularly care about others using better software (it would be nice if Photoshop had a free version for non-professional home use, though, even if it's just for stuff like lens correction and RAW to JPG conversions).
But seriously: if you're a professional making money using tools, just BUY them. Or give your own stuff away for free as well. Anything less is, IMO, hypocritical.
I've been thinking about an MMO that could be classified 18+. One faction would be dressed in leather, have dungeons and slaves, and generally be able to do what they wanted. The other faction would be knights in shining armor. And they'd get some REALLY COOL perks to compensate. Or I'd make them NPC's from the start, so all PC's would be playing the forces of darkness. I'm not sure it would be something you could actually sell without getting in loads of trouble, but it would at least be something new.
The impression I get is that fertility rates fall with prosperity, as they have done at least from Roman times to the present. If China succeeds in creating general prosperity for its citizens, I wouldn't be surprised if their reproduction regulations become obsolete.
In Shanghai and Beijing, they are already turning around and stimulating some couples to produce more kids. Apparently, they see the trend in the cities towards an ageing population. The huge income disparities between country and city will still hold for now, so out of the city I expect things to remain regulated for now. There is a huge difference between cities where adoptions are now becoming more and more common, and girls are little princesses, and the countryside where the un(der)educated still want a son because of how that works with tradition, inheritance and all. Once *that* mechanism is gone (and it is going, make no mistake, but not very fast) the countryside will face the same issues now facing the cities. Except decades later.
When I studied computer science back in 1989 or so, my professor made a joke. He said that computing power would probably be used only to "draw an animated trashcan" and so we shouldn't be too wildly optimistic about increasing processing power. Ofcourse, we all had a big laugh.
20 years later, the joke doesn't seem so funny anymore.
2010 is one of the three hottest years worldwide since 1850. The decade 2000-2010 is the hottest decade worldwide since recordkeeping on temperature began (which for all practical purposes is the same as "hottest decade ever!"). On what records do you base your statement?
...said that they would consider the US extradiction requests and would probably (not certainly but only *probably* - yeah right) extradite him the second he set foot on Swedish soil.
Apparently, rape charges are not as serious as the request of the US to extradite someone for acts that are legal in the country he lives in at the time, and are legal in Sweden as well.
And in other worldnews, Hungary has passed a law bringing heavy fines into play for any media that is not providing "moral" and "objective" news. Since the judge of that has just been confirmed (for 9 years) by the very conservative government, most people think this *won't* be used against the fascist movement of Jobbik, but probably against people reporting on embarrassing news like Wikileaks cables. Fines can go up to 700000 euro per violation, which is quite a lot compared to the monthly wage in Hungary. Oh, and all media has to register. That includes you, bloggers.
...
People can call Assange whatever they like, and he may be the biggest scumbag in the world, but if you don't see the writing on the wall writ large for freedom of the press, you need glasses.
The reason I want two accounts is that I don't want the situation where someone accidentally drops a huge file in my personal space and I go over my quotum. This would also impact my business because neither myself nor my customers could upload anymore.
I can control this scenario in a business environment by adding a clause in my contracts. I can't control it in my personal space if I share that space with someone else.
So yes, you can do it as you say. But in my case that would be risky - so I want two separate accounts on one computer.
- I have to compile and build my own tool, apparently. - I have two colleagues on the current project and with me included we are using three operating systems (Mac, Linux and Windows). Five if you count the servers (Solaris and W2K8). We use Open Source and free stuff where possible since that usually works on all OSses we have: OpenModelSPhere, Notepad++, SQLDeveloper, etc. However, SparkleShare isn't out for anything except Linux. - I have to find a secure dataserver somewhere. DropBox is SAS 70 type II certified. I'm not sure I can find a cheap replacement with the same security. One of my customers actually needs this type of written guarantee to satisfy the internal auditors. - SparkleShare is v0.2, with serious lack of users and thus testing. I'm using DropBox in a production environment for all my customers. I don't want to be the betatester. - About the agreement: If I need privacy for anything beyond the normal amount, I'll use TrueCrypt disks (supported by DropBox). I can't ever lose files, because they're only synced to the central share, not moved. So what do I care about the agreement? Worst case: I move to a competitor with less features. Big deal.
All in all, there are probably good alternatives out there but SparkleShare doesn't even come close to covering my needs.
We use the same system in The Netherlands. Checks are completely antiquated ofcourse. But you know what? International bank traffic can have the ability to revoke wire transfers as well. So one day the money is in your account and you hand over the carkeys. The next day the car is gone to Poland or Russia and a week later, the wire transfer is cancelled. And if you already spent that money on a new car, the bank will happily put your account in the red with a 19% yearly interest rate attached.
Don't think that wire transfers from dubious banks in Russia or Africa are much better than checks. You could get a very nasty surprise that way.
There exists such a chemical, it's an enzyme it's called telomerase and it is actually active in a significant proportion of cells in the body. Either way the situation is far more nucanced than just the telomeres.
Awwww come ON! I could really use an Elixir of Eternal Youth! Don't give me nuances, give me my elixir!:)
While I'm just as allergic to using the term "Cloud" for everything as most IT-professionals, in this case it's running on Amazon's S3 service. That qualifies as "cloudbased" to me.
As for the FTP, CVS etc.: you're right ofcourse, it all exists in one form or another. However, it's the same in the same sense as the Apple iPhone 4 being just a processor, some RAM, and a miniature radio. Cobbled together, ofcourse.
The point is: the sum of the parts is very much better than all of the parts taken separately. I was reluctant to install yet ANOTHER app but after installing this one I was pretty much hooked on it. It fullfills a pretty specific purpose and does that quite well.
Slashdot Mirror
Gaaah, that took 3 hours out of my evening - and I needed them!!!
Oh well, thanks for the link :) That "A Colder War" story is one of the best stories I've read in the last years. Scary as hell. I read it a few months ago for the first time but it still has a punch, even if you know the ending.
So... not unionizing will make you keep your job because the bosses won't fire you?
Look, "unionizing" means different things to people from different countries so keep in mind that when people say this, they may mean something very different from the actual unions in the US. But "unionizing" basically boils down to cooperating with your fellow workers to defend yourself against pointy-haired evil bosses. That's just being smart because if it's just you against your manager, he's holding all the cards.
But time isn't money. That's a two-hundred year old maxim based on the marxian labor theory of value which should have been thoroughly discredited by now.
Well, it didn't, because "time is money" wasn't in that theory.
Actually, according to http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/10/messages/570.htm the term originates with Antiphon, around 430 BC. Seeing it hasn't been discredited after about two and a half millenia, I'm pretty sure this saying will be with us for quite some time.
Bingo :)
All the rest of the bullshit excuses they come up with is just an after-the-fact rationale.
I think they also collaborated with the Sons of the Neon Chrysanthemum (the yakuza), and I'm pretty sure the RIAA is hard at work as we speak :)
Why send ninja's, when you can use the law to accomplish the same purpose?
If you want disturbing, consider the melting of subsurface methane-ice concentrates. Methane is an excellent greenhouse gas, and a lot of methane is stored in ice. Once that melts, you could have a situation where more and more methane gets into the air, leading to more and more ice melting, until we run out of ice. But by then, we could be in a huge amount of trouble in a very short timeperiod, and not much you can do about it either.
Prevention is half the cure for some ills, but in this case it could well be the entirety of the cure.
Good point, and you're right.
However, warming up the oceans sounds even worse to me. Heating up air would probably require less energy than heating up large masses of water, considering the density of both. So if the oceans warm up, it means even more energy than I thought is entering the system. That can't be good.
Small addendum: I just read Joel's article and I agree completely with what he says. But if your boss only got "add new features" out of it, start looking for another company now. Soonest.
Tell your boss (politely!) that if he expects people to work like it's their own company, that really works best if it *is* their own company (at least partially). One of the reasons I'm self-employed (not in the US btw) is that I was expected to work long hours and didn't think I should do that for someone elses money. Yes it's capitalism at work. No I didn't have to play along - I can be a temp worker just as good when I hire myself out to others. And otherwise I can always get a new job. Same for you and your co-workers. If your boss goes under, they can move elsewhere. It's HIS company, it's HIS income and it's HIS problem.
There is no reason anyone should make the company profitable just for someone else. They get paid for their work, and do (I assume) their best. If that's not enough your boss should probably rethink his business model. "Add more features" hardly ever works in my experience, if your base product sucks or isn't marketed well enough. More marketing, now that might work, as long as your product is halfway decent. And lowering everyone's salary by a third (hourly rates in any case) will not help.
Even if everyone thought this was a brilliant idea, in practice 11 hour workdays are no more productive than 8 hour days. Or even 6 hour workdays. Unless you are doing mindless repetitive work, but in creative professions you hit diminishing returns rather fast. So tell your boss to come up with something else, like:
A) asking customers their opinion on what you should do in order for them to buy either more licenses or different stuff from you
B) better salespeople. You *do* have salespeople, do you?
C) more and better marketing.
D) stock options (last resort, panic-mode)
I see that Joel thinks marketing and sales are not worth it. He's right about the affiliate thing and others, but he forgets his own huge marketing scheme: his blog. If you don't have something similar, find yourselves someone who understands marketing software, because it *is* important. I completely agree with him on asking your customers what they need. That's the basis of any sale and often overlooked.
Good luck.
Type "global warming" into Wolfram Alpha and limit the graphic to 100 years, 50 years and 10 years. You get an increase of 0.7C, 1.44C and somewhere between -0.8 and +0.6C. Depending on your starting point, the trend may be misleading. The one with a range of 500 years and 100 years are pretty alarming though.
Also, people massively tend to underestimate the amount of energy to warm up an entire planetary atmosphere by this amount. 0.4C looks small, until you calculate the amount of energy necessary to heat up an *entire planet*. It's like a massive juggernaut - once it rolls, it's going to take a lot to stop it.
This sounds like a case of being able to prove anything, as long as your assumptions (you know, those unshakeable things every toddler knows) are in line with the things you'd like to prove. For Ayn Rand certain things were quite basic. I mean, for the ones who are on top in any given society, that society is "natural" or "divine". Those on the bottom may not subscribe to that philosophy.
As for induction, it's a pretty well understood concept in mathematics and in general use in computer science. I always considered it a practical tool after learning it in the "Logic and discrete mathematics" course (1st year course) and thought other sciences used it as well. It was the basis of many computerscience proofs. Generalizing it into a more generally applicable tool sounds like a good idea, but I'm not sure it hasn't been done already.
As for philosophy in general, there are a huge amount of problems in the field. Although the post-modernist have in some cases added quite usefull tools to the field (postmodernist dissection, to name one, which I think was a usefull tool in the arsenal of anyone who wants to criticize hidden assumptions) mainly they've only provided excuses for how the world has been run lately - fullfilling the same role the Catholic church has played in much of Western Europe's history, only not nearly as long-lived or as influential.
And about Paul Feyerabend: if he really equates priests with scientists, he's a fool. The counterargument would be: well, pray for your new bridge to hold - we'll use math to make *sure* it holds. Since he wouldn't be famous if he was as stupid as suggested, I'm going to climb out on a limb here and think that perhaps he's been used as a straw man in this review. Then again, there have been a lot of famous philosophers who *were* fools, and fools who were famous philosophers, so it may be true :)
This seems rather low, and certainly not a record. Unless they compete in a "differently abled" class?
The Nuna 2 solar powered car that won the World Solar Challenge in 2003 had the following stats for the race:
Total race time: 31 hr 5 mins.
Average speed: 97,02 Km/h
Topspeed: 130 km/h
Top speed they had during Adante tour in 2004: 145 km/h
Link: http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMCCBZO4HD_Benefits_2.html
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuna_5 for the stats of the Nuna 5.
Theoretical max speed: 175 km/h
Keep in mind that this was done by a (Dutch) university team as well.
Considering the fact that the sunswift team wants to compete in the WSC as well - I think they either need to get up to 188 km/h, or throw in the towel. Or perhaps I'm missing something but I did RTA and nothing suggests they really set a new speedrecord, except their own propaganda.
Well, maybe. I was thinking about something in line with the Dark Moon Chronicles.
The analogy isn't about stealing stuff. You don't "steal" Photoshop, you copy it.
So do you like to be paid for your work? Yes. You are a business, you are there to make money of the stuff you create. So do the Photoshop developers. That's the analogy, and if you are demanding money for your work you are a hypocrite if you refuse to pay those that enable you to earn it in the first place.
That being said: I don't think I have a big issue with the people using a cracked version at home for their holiday snapshots. Even though I use Paint.NET + plugins for it, I don't particularly care about others using better software (it would be nice if Photoshop had a free version for non-professional home use, though, even if it's just for stuff like lens correction and RAW to JPG conversions).
But seriously: if you're a professional making money using tools, just BUY them. Or give your own stuff away for free as well. Anything less is, IMO, hypocritical.
I've been thinking about an MMO that could be classified 18+. One faction would be dressed in leather, have dungeons and slaves, and generally be able to do what they wanted. The other faction would be knights in shining armor. And they'd get some REALLY COOL perks to compensate. Or I'd make them NPC's from the start, so all PC's would be playing the forces of darkness. I'm not sure it would be something you could actually sell without getting in loads of trouble, but it would at least be something new.
The impression I get is that fertility rates fall with prosperity, as they have done at least from Roman times to the present. If China succeeds in creating general prosperity for its citizens, I wouldn't be surprised if their reproduction regulations become obsolete.
In Shanghai and Beijing, they are already turning around and stimulating some couples to produce more kids. Apparently, they see the trend in the cities towards an ageing population. The huge income disparities between country and city will still hold for now, so out of the city I expect things to remain regulated for now. There is a huge difference between cities where adoptions are now becoming more and more common, and girls are little princesses, and the countryside where the un(der)educated still want a son because of how that works with tradition, inheritance and all. Once *that* mechanism is gone (and it is going, make no mistake, but not very fast) the countryside will face the same issues now facing the cities. Except decades later.
When I studied computer science back in 1989 or so, my professor made a joke. He said that computing power would probably be used only to "draw an animated trashcan" and so we shouldn't be too wildly optimistic about increasing processing power. Ofcourse, we all had a big laugh.
20 years later, the joke doesn't seem so funny anymore.
[citation needed]
2010 is one of the three hottest years worldwide since 1850. The decade 2000-2010 is the hottest decade worldwide since recordkeeping on temperature began (which for all practical purposes is the same as "hottest decade ever!"). On what records do you base your statement?
...said that they would consider the US extradiction requests and would probably (not certainly but only *probably* - yeah right) extradite him the second he set foot on Swedish soil.
Apparently, rape charges are not as serious as the request of the US to extradite someone for acts that are legal in the country he lives in at the time, and are legal in Sweden as well.
And in other worldnews, Hungary has passed a law bringing heavy fines into play for any media that is not providing "moral" and "objective" news. Since the judge of that has just been confirmed (for 9 years) by the very conservative government, most people think this *won't* be used against the fascist movement of Jobbik, but probably against people reporting on embarrassing news like Wikileaks cables. Fines can go up to 700000 euro per violation, which is quite a lot compared to the monthly wage in Hungary. Oh, and all media has to register. That includes you, bloggers.
People can call Assange whatever they like, and he may be the biggest scumbag in the world, but if you don't see the writing on the wall writ large for freedom of the press, you need glasses.
Ah *that* is pretty cool - I didn't know that they had this in Japan. Yes, that makes a lot of fraud much more difficult - good system!
Hi, sorry you're right ofcourse.
The reason I want two accounts is that I don't want the situation where someone accidentally drops a huge file in my personal space and I go over my quotum. This would also impact my business because neither myself nor my customers could upload anymore.
I can control this scenario in a business environment by adding a clause in my contracts. I can't control it in my personal space if I share that space with someone else.
So yes, you can do it as you say. But in my case that would be risky - so I want two separate accounts on one computer.
I'll compare it with SparkleShare:
- I have to compile and build my own tool, apparently.
- I have two colleagues on the current project and with me included we are using three operating systems (Mac, Linux and Windows). Five if you count the servers (Solaris and W2K8). We use Open Source and free stuff where possible since that usually works on all OSses we have: OpenModelSPhere, Notepad++, SQLDeveloper, etc. However, SparkleShare isn't out for anything except Linux.
- I have to find a secure dataserver somewhere. DropBox is SAS 70 type II certified. I'm not sure I can find a cheap replacement with the same security. One of my customers actually needs this type of written guarantee to satisfy the internal auditors.
- SparkleShare is v0.2, with serious lack of users and thus testing. I'm using DropBox in a production environment for all my customers. I don't want to be the betatester.
- About the agreement: If I need privacy for anything beyond the normal amount, I'll use TrueCrypt disks (supported by DropBox). I can't ever lose files, because they're only synced to the central share, not moved. So what do I care about the agreement? Worst case: I move to a competitor with less features. Big deal.
All in all, there are probably good alternatives out there but SparkleShare doesn't even come close to covering my needs.
Heh.
We use the same system in The Netherlands. Checks are completely antiquated ofcourse. But you know what? International bank traffic can have the ability to revoke wire transfers as well. So one day the money is in your account and you hand over the carkeys. The next day the car is gone to Poland or Russia and a week later, the wire transfer is cancelled. And if you already spent that money on a new car, the bank will happily put your account in the red with a 19% yearly interest rate attached.
Don't think that wire transfers from dubious banks in Russia or Africa are much better than checks. You could get a very nasty surprise that way.
There exists such a chemical, it's an enzyme it's called telomerase and it is actually active in a significant proportion of cells in the body. Either way the situation is far more nucanced than just the telomeres.
Awwww come ON! I could really use an Elixir of Eternal Youth! Don't give me nuances, give me my elixir! :)
While I'm just as allergic to using the term "Cloud" for everything as most IT-professionals, in this case it's running on Amazon's S3 service. That qualifies as "cloudbased" to me.
As for the FTP, CVS etc.: you're right ofcourse, it all exists in one form or another. However, it's the same in the same sense as the Apple iPhone 4 being just a processor, some RAM, and a miniature radio. Cobbled together, ofcourse.
The point is: the sum of the parts is very much better than all of the parts taken separately. I was reluctant to install yet ANOTHER app but after installing this one I was pretty much hooked on it. It fullfills a pretty specific purpose and does that quite well.