After reading the above,
I know a lot of good South East Asian programmers, many Indian, and I know a bunch that really suck. This is not a generalization, it is an observation. I also know a whole lot of WASP programmers that rock, and a whole lot that SUCK ASS. There is no doubt that there are companies that scam the H1-B system and that it affects programmers already in the US, but it affects the formerly H1-B programmers as well, so if we're to get some really good insight into this, how many citizens, formerly H1-B, are pissed off about the corruption in the system? And if you can figure a way to stem the corruption, by all means, be about it. More griping on here isn't helping. Write your congress and senate. Organize. Join your local AITP or whatever and do something.
I'm starting to suspect that there may really *be* a subtle conspiracy by the cons to move us closer to fascism and further from democracy. This ain't helping. And just how is the gov't paying qualified people to inspect my PC? Or is the dude with the beepy wand thing going to be running grep scans of my drive?
If you'll go have a look at www.ProClarity.com, you'll see the real damage. M$ has gobbled up yet another small innovative company. They didn't settle the suit, they bought out the litigant. Corporate wars are good us, right?
There are better ways to deal with the issue. It requires a little courage on the part of those who are violated, but it's better than the alternative. Personally, I do think cell phones are way overused and a general nuisance, certainly the way they're used today. But I'm coming out with guns blazing the day I can't get emergency help for me or someone who needs it because some gutless wonder is using one of these devices and my cell phone is rendered more useless than it already is.
first bit: it may take courage, but most of the offenders seem like they might just pull a gun on me or follow me home. That means I need a gun. I'm better off zapping in silence.
second bit: see first bit, substitute knife for gun, substitute "out to the parking lot" for home.
Odd, when I was driving out of Ramstein AFB, while they were using the aux runway, I'd of sworn that was an F-16 doing a vertical over my jeep. But hey, I'm just ex-AF. I might not recognize the diff between a 16 and a 15. Then again, maybe your civilian F-16 performance 'figgers' aren't quite spot on...
It's not the utility of a small, shiny, blue-lit PC doing useful things in my entertainment center that makes it so cool. It's the having of it. So no fancy city-slicker chinese stamped out workaround is going to replace it. Recotons (wireless speakers) are nice, but they're not cool. If it's in the basement streaming media, it is no longer show-off material. Let the Jones' get the silly things; I'll stay geeky.
Now if you can get it to stream media to the entire neighborhood! That would be cool!
Verizon does. I'm currently dealing with Cingular's phatheadedness, since Verizon didn't have the razor initially. I can't wait to go back. Unfortunatley, I can't take my razor with me, because the V-razor and the X-razor are two different animals in the same skin. eBay a black razor anyone?
we'll just build another Fidonet or some sub-signal private network within the ubernet. You can't keep us down when we're the ones that maintain the technology. Foolish fat-cats.
When I was in the USAF, I did a study on data storage just after CD's started becoming popular in computers, around 1991. I don't have the study to post, since it was military, but I do recall most of the findings. This dude is correct to a point. CD's burnt last only a few years. I had one delaminate just the other day that was only a year old. A bit longer for burnt DVDs. Pressed CD's last a loooooong time. We couldn't tell at that time, but our estimate was 10+ years. I've got some CD's approaching 16 now, and they're still fine. Mag tape is where it gets fun. If you use a mag tape with a metal plate, you've got six months max before you see lots of errors, degrading in a year to pretty useless. If you use a non-metal cartridge, you've got 1-2 years. If you use a 9-track, you get 10+ years. Neat. Blackwatch, you guys can kick me back some dough if you start selling more tapes. I was unable to test the modern tapes at the time, since they weren't around, but I doubt it's gotten much better. We just did a DR at my place and half the DLT's had errors. And with tape, the age of the media does affect retention even if the data is fresh. In other words, if you put new data on an old tape, it's just as bad as it was before. Sounds obvious, but you know someone will ask. It's the stretching, warping, etc... Hard drives hold data pretty much in line with mtbf. The main reason I like tape more than and disk format, is the ease of partial recovery. If I've got records on a tape, and records an a CD, and they both break in half, I can recover 99% of the tape with minimal effort, but the disk will have to go to an expensive lab, and I'll probably only get 80-90%.
Anyone seen anything on a piezo generator that works by converting the tension on the kite string into power via some kind of piezoelectric affect? Or maybe tension on a string winding spool, like a reverse spring generator?
In the immortal words of Handy "read a book". This is nothing new on the subject of procrastination. For an excellent overview of the psychology (pop) of the subject, as well as tips on dealing with it, check out The Now Habit by Neil Fiore.
Not sure of the rules up North, but I think handguns are frowned upon. I like my personal defense too much to give it up. Same reason I won't live in Jersey.
Fortune ran an article this month on this very subject. Had a nice scientific angle to it, rather than just an emotional-political bias. Also illustrates that lovely topic "natural selection" or "evolution" to be perfectly rude.
The gist of it is, if you dump Tamiflu into the environment to save a bunch of chickens, which is what the Asian governments are discussing [not, as you might think, to save a few sidereal infected humans] you're going to destroy Tamiflu's effectiveness. To put this in perfect perspective for you, if THEY push Tamiflu into the environment when the virus hasn't even crossed over to a human pandemic state, the virus will adapt, and by the time it's crossed over and YOU are SICK AND DYING, Tamiflu will have zero affect on the virus, and YOU will have no defense, making your chance of death about 25% based on historical projections. So Monday, when you get to work, look around, and imagine 1/4 of those people not there because some fucking QUACK in ASIA had to save some DUCKS.
Some cultural suffering v. My survival = ROAST DUCK
Here's more background material from Foreign Affairs, written by some smart people that may shed additional light on the subject.
Wow. Not one, but two inflamatory opinions backed up with nothing for the reader to reference. Nothing I enjoy better than something that is presented as fact containing only opinion, and best yet, slashdotted to a 5:informative. You raters are not doing your farking yob, you twits. If it's not self supported, and it's not reference supported, it's a gob danged opinion, and opinions are only informative when they do not rely on assumption and speculation. Inconceivable.
All of which makes me wonder if the people bitching about HBO's interference with the [alleged] piracy are the same people bitching that it's not fair they aren't allowed to mail bomb spammers in retaliation.
Odds I'll ever be able to afford a display incorporating this technology, OR have an apartment large enough to install it? Oddly, eerily, a million to one.
Assuming the article is largely a reprint of the complaint filed by the law team at DS&H, I have to wonder where they went to law school. Powerpoint U? I've seen cleaner briefs in my hamper. (and no, I'm not a lawyer, I just work with them...and wash my hands afterwords)
I glanced through the 341 comments and didn't see my response, but my apologies if it's buried in there below my threshold.
The example is contrived, but as some have mentioned, this is already happening. I work in healthcare, and we try to maintain electronic patient information forever, which, unfortunately, is too expensive to do in most cases. This is some of the most important information one can preserve over a person's life span, and yet we are unable to do it due to costs and bureaucracy.
The first problem you must address is media. That's been dealt with elsewhere, so I'll move on to the bigger issue which is exotic hardware. Most people think exotic HW is a mainframe. That's nothing. You can obtain specs on a mainframe. What you can't get specs on is super-proprietary medical systems. By the time we retire a system, it's manufacturer is out of business or has been repeatedly sold and purchased to the point that nobody can do anything except board swap for repairs, and when we sunset a machine, it's because even boardswapping isn't possible anymore.
Now I work at a high end organization, one of the best in terms of digital capability. But we repeatedly have opted to sunset machines and cross our fingers rather than migrate data off to a newer format. It's a simple risk management exercise. What are the odds I'll ever need that data versus the odds of the machine being usable. We might get one or two requests in the decade after sunsetting, and it is unlikely there will be any legal exposure, since all healthcare law requires us to "try really hard" to preserve the data. Only if we were negligent or malicious could it cause trouble, and frankly, that's not going to happen, although the ambulance chasers may try.
Nonetheless, as a 21stCenturyDigitalBoi, I have dealt with this problem in other organizations (i.e.: for profit) and we had little difficulty pulling data from goofy hardware to current media. It can get tricky, but rarely would it exceed $50,000 in T&M. It's just not that big a deal. But in healthcare, you're dealing with people who usually haven't come up as rocket scientists, and are verrrrrrrrrrrrry conservative. So they weigh the perceived risks and make a call that it's not going to happen, we'll just cross our fingers. I will probably die an early death from the frustration this causes, but at least I know my medical records won't be found by my grandchildren in the attic, since they won't last that long.
As with all issues involving judgment calls, it's about education and argument. Anytime you want to spend money for something that's not operational, especially in a not-for-profit, you are going to face the challenges of Hercules to get the bureaucracy to move it's ungainly butt into the current decade.
We've migrated lots of other stuff to keep it up to date, I see no reason why we shouldn't be migrating all the data we want in any industry. I've still got PHRACK issues from way back that went from email to 9-track to floppy to DVD.
So the penultimate point is that this is a management issue. If management doesn't perceive the loss, and doesn't know how to get around the risk, you're going to lose the data.
Slashdot Mirror
After reading the above, I know a lot of good South East Asian programmers, many Indian, and I know a bunch that really suck. This is not a generalization, it is an observation. I also know a whole lot of WASP programmers that rock, and a whole lot that SUCK ASS. There is no doubt that there are companies that scam the H1-B system and that it affects programmers already in the US, but it affects the formerly H1-B programmers as well, so if we're to get some really good insight into this, how many citizens, formerly H1-B, are pissed off about the corruption in the system? And if you can figure a way to stem the corruption, by all means, be about it. More griping on here isn't helping. Write your congress and senate. Organize. Join your local AITP or whatever and do something.
I'm starting to suspect that there may really *be* a subtle conspiracy by the cons to move us closer to fascism and further from democracy. This ain't helping. And just how is the gov't paying qualified people to inspect my PC? Or is the dude with the beepy wand thing going to be running grep scans of my drive?
If you'll go have a look at www.ProClarity.com, you'll see the real damage. M$ has gobbled up yet another small innovative company. They didn't settle the suit, they bought out the litigant. Corporate wars are good us, right?
first bit: it may take courage, but most of the offenders seem like they might just pull a gun on me or follow me home. That means I need a gun. I'm better off zapping in silence.
second bit: see first bit, substitute knife for gun, substitute "out to the parking lot" for home.
We've known about this bug for years. It's how you fingerprint someone's network. N00bs.
Odd, when I was driving out of Ramstein AFB, while they were using the aux runway, I'd of sworn that was an F-16 doing a vertical over my jeep. But hey, I'm just ex-AF. I might not recognize the diff between a 16 and a 15. Then again, maybe your civilian F-16 performance 'figgers' aren't quite spot on...
"Huh. Upgrades." - Neo
Protest should never be attempted by amateurs.
It's not the utility of a small, shiny, blue-lit PC doing useful things in my entertainment center that makes it so cool. It's the having of it. So no fancy city-slicker chinese stamped out workaround is going to replace it. Recotons (wireless speakers) are nice, but they're not cool. If it's in the basement streaming media, it is no longer show-off material. Let the Jones' get the silly things; I'll stay geeky.
Now if you can get it to stream media to the entire neighborhood! That would be cool!
And *really* piss off the MPAA.
I had a highly critical flaw once... My ex-spouse.
Verizon does. I'm currently dealing with Cingular's phatheadedness, since Verizon didn't have the razor initially. I can't wait to go back. Unfortunatley, I can't take my razor with me, because the V-razor and the X-razor are two different animals in the same skin. eBay a black razor anyone?
we'll just build another Fidonet or some sub-signal private network within the ubernet. You can't keep us down when we're the ones that maintain the technology. Foolish fat-cats.
When I was in the USAF, I did a study on data storage just after CD's started becoming popular in computers, around 1991. I don't have the study to post, since it was military, but I do recall most of the findings. This dude is correct to a point. CD's burnt last only a few years. I had one delaminate just the other day that was only a year old. A bit longer for burnt DVDs. Pressed CD's last a loooooong time. We couldn't tell at that time, but our estimate was 10+ years. I've got some CD's approaching 16 now, and they're still fine. Mag tape is where it gets fun. If you use a mag tape with a metal plate, you've got six months max before you see lots of errors, degrading in a year to pretty useless. If you use a non-metal cartridge, you've got 1-2 years. If you use a 9-track, you get 10+ years. Neat. Blackwatch, you guys can kick me back some dough if you start selling more tapes. I was unable to test the modern tapes at the time, since they weren't around, but I doubt it's gotten much better. We just did a DR at my place and half the DLT's had errors. And with tape, the age of the media does affect retention even if the data is fresh. In other words, if you put new data on an old tape, it's just as bad as it was before. Sounds obvious, but you know someone will ask. It's the stretching, warping, etc... Hard drives hold data pretty much in line with mtbf. The main reason I like tape more than and disk format, is the ease of partial recovery. If I've got records on a tape, and records an a CD, and they both break in half, I can recover 99% of the tape with minimal effort, but the disk will have to go to an expensive lab, and I'll probably only get 80-90%.
Anyone seen anything on a piezo generator that works by converting the tension on the kite string into power via some kind of piezoelectric affect? Or maybe tension on a string winding spool, like a reverse spring generator?
Use a magical intelligent compression system and it goes to zero. No intelligent content, nothing compressed.
In the immortal words of Handy "read a book". This is nothing new on the subject of procrastination. For an excellent overview of the psychology (pop) of the subject, as well as tips on dealing with it, check out The Now Habit by Neil Fiore.
Could we concentrate more on educating my 15 year old to a decent level, and less on educating some damn monkey? @#$%ing humans.
This got modded to funny 5? sad.
rolling over laughing in her grave, I'm sure.
Not sure of the rules up North, but I think handguns are frowned upon. I like my personal defense too much to give it up. Same reason I won't live in Jersey.
Where'd the file go? Link's dead now. Either it's /.dead or they pulled it.
Fortune ran an article this month on this very subject. Had a nice scientific angle to it, rather than just an emotional-political bias. Also illustrates that lovely topic "natural selection" or "evolution" to be perfectly rude.
The gist of it is, if you dump Tamiflu into the environment to save a bunch of chickens, which is what the Asian governments are discussing [not, as you might think, to save a few sidereal infected humans] you're going to destroy Tamiflu's effectiveness. To put this in perfect perspective for you, if THEY push Tamiflu into the environment when the virus hasn't even crossed over to a human pandemic state, the virus will adapt, and by the time it's crossed over and YOU are SICK AND DYING, Tamiflu will have zero affect on the virus, and YOU will have no defense, making your chance of death about 25% based on historical projections. So Monday, when you get to work, look around, and imagine 1/4 of those people not there because some fucking QUACK in ASIA had to save some DUCKS.
Some cultural suffering v. My survival = ROAST DUCK Here's more background material from Foreign Affairs, written by some smart people that may shed additional light on the subject.
Wow. Not one, but two inflamatory opinions backed up with nothing for the reader to reference. Nothing I enjoy better than something that is presented as fact containing only opinion, and best yet, slashdotted to a 5:informative. You raters are not doing your farking yob, you twits. If it's not self supported, and it's not reference supported, it's a gob danged opinion, and opinions are only informative when they do not rely on assumption and speculation. Inconceivable.
All of which makes me wonder if the people bitching about HBO's interference with the [alleged] piracy are the same people bitching that it's not fair they aren't allowed to mail bomb spammers in retaliation.
Odds I'll ever be able to afford a display incorporating this technology, OR have an apartment large enough to install it? Oddly, eerily, a million to one.
Assuming the article is largely a reprint of the complaint filed by the law team at DS&H, I have to wonder where they went to law school. Powerpoint U? I've seen cleaner briefs in my hamper. (and no, I'm not a lawyer, I just work with them...and wash my hands afterwords)
I glanced through the 341 comments and didn't see my response, but my apologies if it's buried in there below my threshold.
The example is contrived, but as some have mentioned, this is already happening. I work in healthcare, and we try to maintain electronic patient information forever, which, unfortunately, is too expensive to do in most cases. This is some of the most important information one can preserve over a person's life span, and yet we are unable to do it due to costs and bureaucracy.
The first problem you must address is media. That's been dealt with elsewhere, so I'll move on to the bigger issue which is exotic hardware. Most people think exotic HW is a mainframe. That's nothing. You can obtain specs on a mainframe. What you can't get specs on is super-proprietary medical systems. By the time we retire a system, it's manufacturer is out of business or has been repeatedly sold and purchased to the point that nobody can do anything except board swap for repairs, and when we sunset a machine, it's because even boardswapping isn't possible anymore.
Now I work at a high end organization, one of the best in terms of digital capability. But we repeatedly have opted to sunset machines and cross our fingers rather than migrate data off to a newer format. It's a simple risk management exercise. What are the odds I'll ever need that data versus the odds of the machine being usable. We might get one or two requests in the decade after sunsetting, and it is unlikely there will be any legal exposure, since all healthcare law requires us to "try really hard" to preserve the data. Only if we were negligent or malicious could it cause trouble, and frankly, that's not going to happen, although the ambulance chasers may try.
Nonetheless, as a 21stCenturyDigitalBoi, I have dealt with this problem in other organizations (i.e.: for profit) and we had little difficulty pulling data from goofy hardware to current media. It can get tricky, but rarely would it exceed $50,000 in T&M. It's just not that big a deal. But in healthcare, you're dealing with people who usually haven't come up as rocket scientists, and are verrrrrrrrrrrrry conservative. So they weigh the perceived risks and make a call that it's not going to happen, we'll just cross our fingers. I will probably die an early death from the frustration this causes, but at least I know my medical records won't be found by my grandchildren in the attic, since they won't last that long.
As with all issues involving judgment calls, it's about education and argument. Anytime you want to spend money for something that's not operational, especially in a not-for-profit, you are going to face the challenges of Hercules to get the bureaucracy to move it's ungainly butt into the current decade.
We've migrated lots of other stuff to keep it up to date, I see no reason why we shouldn't be migrating all the data we want in any industry. I've still got PHRACK issues from way back that went from email to 9-track to floppy to DVD.
So the penultimate point is that this is a management issue. If management doesn't perceive the loss, and doesn't know how to get around the risk, you're going to lose the data.