Well, yes and no. I do not know all the issues involved, suffice to say it is complex, so if you want a real answer see a lawyer.
That out of the way, the insurance company only owns the wreck until the abandon it. If you try to salvage a wreck and the insurance company can prove they are in the process of trying to get it, then it belongs to them, and they can decide what to pay you for your efforts (read they will screw you).
However if you salavege a wreck long after it happens, and the insurance company has made no effort to get it, then it is assumed the insurance company has decided that the cost to salavage the wreck is greater than the benifits of doing so, and it is yours for the taking.
The key is while the insurance company is making efforts to raise the wreck it belongs to them. I wouldn't start any salavage operation without consulting a lawyer. International waters are a little more tricky, if you can get the loot to the right country you might be able to salvage it from under the insurance company.
Insurance companies generally don't bother with salvage unless they suspect the operation will turn up something other than the loot. Evidence that they don't have to pay the claim due to fraud is worth more than the claim itself if it keeps others from fraud. In minnesota they have divers bring up all outboards dropped overboard even though it often costs more than the claim because it teaches people that throwing a moter overboard will not get them a new one.
Can you impliment a secureId type solution? Person carries a token that identifies themselves to the system. This isn't perfect security, but it is a step above no passwords, and for high security needs is a part of the solution. These can be lost too, but that is a slightly different problem, so you might find it happens less often.
Have you looked at bio type ids? (fingerprint or eye scan?) these are not very good yet, but might be good enough.
Last, ask why users are forgetting thier passwords. I find that when I log onto a system every day I don't forget the password. This even if it changes fairly often. Perhaps you need to impliment a system where all passwords are always in sync so that users only have one password to remember.
Maybe you need to keep statistics that better reflect what is happening. It doesn't sound like your problem, but a small number of password resets is normal, but small when you have a lot of people around can still be a large number out of context.
It is an ecconomic argument. I hold to the side that says" They can do whatever they want, I can't control their behavior. However it is immoral for me to support that in any way, and buying their products counts as supporting them - if nothing else it says "I don't like how you act, but keep the cheap (junk) coming and I'll overlook it."
The other side (which I disagree with) says that spend a lot of money on their stuff, and they will send people over here to build a relation and those people will see our way it better and go home dissatisfied by their goverment. (Obviously I don't buy this arguement so it is hard for me to get it right, hopefully you can see the point)
Re:Biodiesel and fleets
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239 MPG Car
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· Score: 2
Station with a diesel pump? Look closer. I have never in my life seen a gas station without diesel that didn't have a compititor within one block that had diesel. I live in the US, and in a northern state where Diesles have earned a bad reputation of not starting in winter. (And don't try to tell me that it is solved because I know people with modern diesles and they have a hard time starting when it is cold).
Trucks all use diesel. Farmers are switching to it in their trucks and tractors. Many construction trucks use it. Cars don't come in diesel versions, but Ford and Dodge forced Chevy to get a good diesel because so many people refused to buy their work trucks with gas. (The old chevy diesel sucked comprared to the powerstroke or cummins)
There have always been a few diesle cars around. Never enough for gas stations to care about, but the other users of diesel are big players, and station owners want that buisness.
Re:Cost not MPG is what people use.
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239 MPG Car
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· Score: 2
Sure. I don't figgure it every time, but it is the only way to know. Saying I filled my tank for so much money means nothing without knowing the price of gas, and how far I went. So I need to find some way to calculate how my car is doing. When the number changes I know something is wrong.
MPG also is a good comparition. (In Europe l/100km is more common, but the same principal applies) When I say my car gets 22 mpg everyone knows how it compares to theirs. I know some who get 8 mpg, some who get 30mpg. I can go 300 miles on a tank of gas. The 8 mpg truck goes 500 miles, while the car only goes 250 miles. If you compare price to fill the tank that truck looks twice as bad as it is compared to the car. (not that it is good)
I used to spend ~$250/month on gas, just getting to work and back. That is a major part of my paycheck going to fuel. (And I get 22mpg, I don't know how people with 12mpg SUVs with longer commutes can afford it) Not quite enough to make payments and insurance on a high gas milage car, but I calculated it several times. Did I mention that the nearest bus at the time would have saved me about $10 in gas (it was about a mile closer than work), and required a 2 hour ride?
We care about milage. However gas milage isn't the only concern. I'd love to have a Hummer (the original, not the look alike without the abilities of the real thing) that gets 150 mpg, but that isn't feasable with current technology. (someone can do the math, but I think that is more than 100% effecincy)
I instead drive a small 4wd truck, hating the lack of cargo room when I haul things, hating the lack of mileage when I fill it, and hating the handeling when I'm driving without the load. It is a compromise. In no way ideal, but I can get by without a two vechicals, which is a big savings.
In short, shy comptuer geeks, which is many of the good ones, have little chance. I'm a good programer, but I like to sit in my little corner and program. One day I found myself out of work, and boom, I looked around, and so where most of the people who knew I was a good programer. (My small group)
Mind you, the above story is nothing new. Every shy person faces it everytime we need a new job. I can deal with people, I just prefer not to, and when I have a good job I like to get the job I'm hired to do done.
Maybe you work in a different universe from me or something, but where I've worked the phone has been the highest priority interupt. When the phone rings everything stops. Never mind that something at least as important might be going on.
Sure in theory the call could be an emergency, but in practice that isn't often a problem. First of all, emergencys are rare for most people. (Excectptions know who they are, and generally are paged not called when) Second, what do you do when there is one of these emergencys and you are in the meeting room? How about when you are on a wildreness hike several days from civialization? In other words, sure there are emergencys that come up unannounced, but it isn't a big deal to miss them.
Warning, do not panic over CWD. That isn't to say don't worry about it, because it is potentially serious. However it is not something to panic about.
CWD has been known for 30 years in elk. Someone needed a story for a slow news week. Because of the story people start worring, and getting meat that would not have been tested before tested. Suddenly we find it all over, and conclude it is spreading like wildfire. However there was never a widespread study of where CWD is before this year, so it is incorrect to say it is spreading. Many experts belive (Note, they all admit we know little about this) that it has been everywhere for years. Other experts think that it is spreading. However we do not know.
The key point is we know very little about it. What we do know is bad, but that isn't much. Enough to insite the idiotic masses into panic, but I like to believe the/. readership is smarter than that. Take reasonable precautions, and go on with life.
Everything with a grain of salt. I've left offices when the phone started ringing and the conversation was about the weekend or whatever. However when I'm asking a deep technical question the interuption of the phone causes both of us to lose our train of throught.
If your job descritption includes answering the phone, of course you have to. However most people do not need to anser the phone at work as a part of their job. If it is not a part of your job to answer the phone, and someone is personally asking/advising your on a deep issue, then you are a fool if you answer the phone.
Here is a hint: just because the phone rings does not mean you have to answer it. In fact if there is someone physically in your presense it is IMPOLITE to answer the phone unless you are expecting an emergency. (Your wife could go into labor at anytime, your parent is going in for heart surgery, your kid is late in bad weather. There are others, but those are the big ones)
If I'm in your cube and you answer the phone I will talk to your boss about that, unless you are in customer service they can get voicemail and you will call back.
Many people are surprized that I, a strong introvert like my cell phone. They don't realise that I'm not a slave to the phone, the phone is my slave. If I'm sitting between two beatiful girls and it rings, I hit cancle without even looking at it. (As a geek I've so far had one such opportunity, I might have blown it, but it wasn't by answering the phone) Manytimes when I could answer it I will just look at callerid and send the caller to voicemail.
I typically get 20-30 per day. Often more than the useful email I get.
I am a firm beliver that if people really want to contact me I should not make it hard for them. I have had a few people who I did not know contact me that really should have contacted me. It doesn't happen often.
I'm also looking for a job, posting my resume with contact information uped the number of spams I get. At least the porn is outnumbered by other types of messages now, but that isn't saying much.
I won't dispute that there are legitimate cleanups, but if a developer couldn't do it right the first time, I have my doubts that round two is going to be much better.
I have my doubts that you have ever developed a major program. As Fred Brooks said: "Plan to throw one away, you will anyway." In other words there is no way that we know of to get software right the first time. In reality you write something that sort of work, and then you know enough to say "Okay, now that I understand the problem I know how to do it right."
I'll agree that sometimes the first solution that you wrote up is good enough. However it is ALWAYS hard to maintain. Often there are bugs that the design will not allow you to fix.
Of coruse there is some question of if I was advocating refactoring or re-writing. (And the line is a little fuzzy anyway) However round two will almost always be better than round one for any giving set of requirements. Round three might not be much better, and could be much worse (If you pointlessly refactor to try some new ideas now that round two works good enough).
You should always plan for two rounds on any software that you plan to support for any lenght of time. The first proves it can work, and the second makes sure that whoever has to look at the code in the future can understand it, and fix the bugs.
It cuts many ways. If there is enough problems with crime that they need cameras, then I as a consumer want them to have it because crime makes the prices honest people pay for goods.
However you need to ask yourself if you really want to be in a place with enough of a crime problem that they can justify cameras, since a store without cameras could in theory lower prices. (Which would likely amount to a penny on just one item, but the theory stands)
If I'm a crime victom though, I would love to have someone nearby have it on videotape, and I don't care why they were taping, just so long as the police/courts get a copy.
Then again, it all cuts into privacy. I like to be ananymous.
Look closely at airports, most are built with some form of open area at the end of the runway. That is for single engine planes to land on should an engine fail right after takeoff. It doesn't take long after takeoff to reach an altitude where you can turn around and land on the runway you just took off from, but for the cases where you can't turn around there is a place to land. (As they say, when an engine fails in a single the insurance company buys the plane, but the pilot needs to get to the ground with no loss of life)
For multi-engine planes, the FAA requires them to be able to take off and climb with one engine down. This is extreemly difficult, and pilots who fly those planes get a lot of training with an engine down.
A friend of mine was getting his multi-engine insterment certification one day at MSP, when the instructor failed the left engine on a touch and go (land, and then take off without stoping). He touched down normally (not an easy task!) when the instructor said "now look out the left window". There were a few hundred faces looking out the window at his plane with one stoped propeller. He managed to take off like that.
In most cases an airplane without power will still fly and land normally. Their a fields, golf courses, and so on all over, a good pilot should normally be able to get the plane there and land safely without the parachute.
Unfortunatly I cannot say all cases. If a wing falls of you have no choice where you land for instance because you have no control. I suppose their could be control failures where you have no control either, but I'm not sure.
Still a pilot should normally be able to recover. If I was an insurance company adjuster in a case where an engine failed and the parachute was used for recovery I'd refuse all payment for damage because there is never a reason to pull the chute when an engine failes. The plane will still glide for some distance without an engine, there should be no problem finding a place to land safely in most places.
OTOH, as a person who rides in airplanes I'd like the plane to have a parachute for the cases where a wing falls off, no matter how rare that is.
Sure, a 386 could do vioce recignition, but it required a special card that not only had higher quality sound inputs, but also had some DSPs to do the hard work. When IBM put voice recignition in OS/2 they warned you that a a 486 was not enough. (Several people tried it anyway, and it worked only within narrow limits)
To emulate a DSP required a lot of floating point math. Most PDAs do not have floating point in the CPU because nothing would use it. The few times it is needed emulation is easy enough, just very slow. No problem though because as I said floating point math isn't much used.
Don't forget that PDA cpus are not designed for speed above all else. They are designed for low power, which means they have to compromise something and require extra CPU cycles to get something done.
Finially don't forget power requirements. When doing normal use the CPU is shut down most of the time, and drawing essentially no power. Voice recignition would change that, and your battery life would suffer drasticly.
I'd love to give you a big glass of water. However I have caught (kids mostly) people ordering a glass of water, and then taking it elsewhere (bathroom?) and dumping it, coming back 2 minutes latter for thier free refill of soda. So now I give water in those little cups, which look nothing like our soda cups. We know not to give refills on those, even the normal idiots who will work fast food.
Re:That gives me an idea...
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Fun With Wine
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· Score: 2
No, wine is NOT an emulator. Wine is an implimentation of all the windows libraries, plus an extention to linux that allows windows programs to run. In effect a windows program running under Wine is just as native to linux as a Gnome program. Both use external libraries to make themselves work. (Note, the only flaw in this argument is linux doesn't know how to directly execute windows programs, but that is trivial to solve if anyone wants to do it) There is no theroretical difference between a windows program calling Wine libraries, and a Gnome program calling GTK libraries. (Theory often differes from reality though)
An emulator is different. Bochs, virtualPC, and similear prodcuts are emulators, and benifit from compiling to native code. Windows programs are already native X86 programs, and that is where the benifit of compiling comes from.
I think the key is What did you do for them? answer simple "Do you remember how this worked?" type questions, or did you diagnose and fix the problem for them.
It is fair to call up with simple questions that are just a matter either "No, I don't recall that", or "It worked like this...". They must be simple questions where you do not have to think. (If you are doing noting else at the time you might hold the line while their experts think out the problem, but don't think for them).
If they want you to think out the problem, you need to charge for services. Be reasonable, but remember you know the system so you are better than the average expert off the street!
P.S. If you are asked simple questions DO NOT think for them. I have been gotten in trouble because of this. In that case I went to my mentor with a simple question that was in his area of expertise, and he took the problem from me, and then complained to the boss that I left all the work for him. (I was asked to leave over that issue, so of course I'm ticked)
I supported my self through school as a fast food manager. I recall one night when all the registers went down, at 8:00pm. I put in a priority one call to support (Although I might have figgured it out on my own that is not a good idea, expirence has proven I make mistakes that the system cannot handle, so it is better to let it be their mistake for blame purposes. besides I had a buisness to run) They finially called me back at 1:30am, and it took two hours to fix the problem.
Make sure you find out how support is handled, and what the longest wait time is. I know that it was a busy night for them at support, but my priority one call needs to be delt with now, even if there are other priority one calls in the system. Will you get the support you need? Remember you are a comptuer person, the manager might (or might not) be smart, but either way has no time to figgure out how to fix problems.
Only tool? There was a time when assembly was not avaiable. I know more than on person who has manually entered the boot code into the front panel of a computer. Several of them modified that code in some way.
No abstractions? Assembly is an abstracction for the BINARY that the computer runs. I have worked with comptuers for which my assembler was buggy (There were better ones, but I couldn't afford them), so I brought out my reference manual and programed directly in binary. It was painfully beat into me at that time that a simple JMP is an abstraction for as many have 7 different binary codes, depending on exactly what is going on. You don't know if you end up with a long or short JMP in most cases. (You know about register or memory stored locations)
Speaking of memory, you don't know where each byte is in your program in assembly. You don't to a JMP to location 0xdeadbeef you do a JMP to a label which just happenes to map to that location, but the assembler figgures out that details.
Open souce is not the issue. It can be closed source, so long as everyone can verify that their vote was counted. The easiest way to do that is if you don't trust the results demand a hand recount.
Consider this: open source polling software. I become an election judge, and as a computer savy person I am put in charge of making sure the software is loaded correctly. (Very likely since I have a CS degree, and many people are intimidated by computers). Now I take the open source software, load it, but with a modification:
if (random(SOMEVALUE)/(SOMETHING_ELSE))
recordedVote = vote;
else
recordedVote = "My Canidate";
Simple for any programer, and open source makes it easier. And I just load the code to each booth, and then delete it. Sure it is open source, except that it isn't the same source you saw. (Note, the random above is so that the rebublicrates don't get suspicious when they get zero votes, and I would do some adjustment to make sure my canidate just barely wins)
You should not leave the polling booth without a slip of paper which you verify has everyone you voted for. If there is any question about the machine's results a hand recount of all slips is easy.
Re:From now on, we'll all travel in TUBES!
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Pipeline Mass Transit?
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· Score: 1, Offtopic
sure, but I just lost my job a few months back. Now I don't have a job, I also don't have a place to live. Oh, and because I don't have a job none of the few places left to rent living space will rent to me, so I'm homeless.
It is hard enough to keep my house payments up without a job (only for a few months, though I'm still looking for a good job if your hiring programers). It would be worse if I had to find new temperary living quarters until I got that job. Oh, did I mention that nobody wants to rent to me even with money because in a short time I plan to have a new job. Seems the landlords prefer to have some income for long enough that they can pay for all the improvements they had to do to make the apartment livable after the last guy left.
Did I mention that I'm a country kid? I'd love to walk to work every day, but I don't like to see my neighbor's houses. My ideal house would be on 6000 acres of land. (I don't want to farm however, and there is no way I could afford that much, not to mention the impractability of everyone living on that much land.
I know people that work long hours on weekends. Are you saying they shouldn't vote? In any case sunday is a bad day, many religions have a (ignored) policy that sunday is the sabbith and no work (unnessicary) should be done. Voting would count as work to these and they would protest. Many polls are in churches because those are one of the few buildings that can handle a crowd that are normally empty on tuesdays, they would all become unavaiable if elections were sunday.
You don't ID people? I've been refused to vote because my ID didn't match my residence. (I lived at school, but my ID had my parents' address) I was told then that either I needed the right ID, or someone who would vouch for me. There are serious pentiltys for vouching for someone unless you know they are a resident.
Who freed the slaves anyway? Lincon did in the rebal states by about as much as Gore created the internet. Lincon did nothing to free slaves in the border states that didn't join the confederacy.
Most quizes suffer from problems like the above. It would be really easy to design a quiz that seems honest enough to the rebucrats, but forces third party voters to answer against their philiphosical beliefs. And getting a quiz question right proves nothing about your ability to vote for the right person. Kennidy won against Nixon because he looked better on TV, (I'll ignore rumors of fraud) according to everyone who remembers voting then. Looks, and I would assume many intelligent people voted, they just didn't care to think about who would be better. (Of course as it turns out Nixon won latter and proved to do some stupid things) You need to measure not intelligence, but if the voters have thought about how the canidate will do if ellected. There is a reason most of the litature canidates are sending me have more information about the politition's family than how the man stands on issues, most people are voting for a nice guy, not someone who will do a good job.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, yes and no. I do not know all the issues involved, suffice to say it is complex, so if you want a real answer see a lawyer.
That out of the way, the insurance company only owns the wreck until the abandon it. If you try to salvage a wreck and the insurance company can prove they are in the process of trying to get it, then it belongs to them, and they can decide what to pay you for your efforts (read they will screw you).
However if you salavege a wreck long after it happens, and the insurance company has made no effort to get it, then it is assumed the insurance company has decided that the cost to salavage the wreck is greater than the benifits of doing so, and it is yours for the taking.
The key is while the insurance company is making efforts to raise the wreck it belongs to them. I wouldn't start any salavage operation without consulting a lawyer. International waters are a little more tricky, if you can get the loot to the right country you might be able to salvage it from under the insurance company.
Insurance companies generally don't bother with salvage unless they suspect the operation will turn up something other than the loot. Evidence that they don't have to pay the claim due to fraud is worth more than the claim itself if it keeps others from fraud. In minnesota they have divers bring up all outboards dropped overboard even though it often costs more than the claim because it teaches people that throwing a moter overboard will not get them a new one.
Can you impliment a secureId type solution? Person carries a token that identifies themselves to the system. This isn't perfect security, but it is a step above no passwords, and for high security needs is a part of the solution. These can be lost too, but that is a slightly different problem, so you might find it happens less often.
Have you looked at bio type ids? (fingerprint or eye scan?) these are not very good yet, but might be good enough.
Last, ask why users are forgetting thier passwords. I find that when I log onto a system every day I don't forget the password. This even if it changes fairly often. Perhaps you need to impliment a system where all passwords are always in sync so that users only have one password to remember.
Maybe you need to keep statistics that better reflect what is happening. It doesn't sound like your problem, but a small number of password resets is normal, but small when you have a lot of people around can still be a large number out of context.
It is an ecconomic argument. I hold to the side that says" They can do whatever they want, I can't control their behavior. However it is immoral for me to support that in any way, and buying their products counts as supporting them - if nothing else it says "I don't like how you act, but keep the cheap (junk) coming and I'll overlook it."
The other side (which I disagree with) says that spend a lot of money on their stuff, and they will send people over here to build a relation and those people will see our way it better and go home dissatisfied by their goverment. (Obviously I don't buy this arguement so it is hard for me to get it right, hopefully you can see the point)
Station with a diesel pump? Look closer. I have never in my life seen a gas station without diesel that didn't have a compititor within one block that had diesel. I live in the US, and in a northern state where Diesles have earned a bad reputation of not starting in winter. (And don't try to tell me that it is solved because I know people with modern diesles and they have a hard time starting when it is cold).
Trucks all use diesel. Farmers are switching to it in their trucks and tractors. Many construction trucks use it. Cars don't come in diesel versions, but Ford and Dodge forced Chevy to get a good diesel because so many people refused to buy their work trucks with gas. (The old chevy diesel sucked comprared to the powerstroke or cummins)
There have always been a few diesle cars around. Never enough for gas stations to care about, but the other users of diesel are big players, and station owners want that buisness.
Sure. I don't figgure it every time, but it is the only way to know. Saying I filled my tank for so much money means nothing without knowing the price of gas, and how far I went. So I need to find some way to calculate how my car is doing. When the number changes I know something is wrong.
MPG also is a good comparition. (In Europe l/100km is more common, but the same principal applies) When I say my car gets 22 mpg everyone knows how it compares to theirs. I know some who get 8 mpg, some who get 30mpg. I can go 300 miles on a tank of gas. The 8 mpg truck goes 500 miles, while the car only goes 250 miles. If you compare price to fill the tank that truck looks twice as bad as it is compared to the car. (not that it is good)
I used to spend ~$250/month on gas, just getting to work and back. That is a major part of my paycheck going to fuel. (And I get 22mpg, I don't know how people with 12mpg SUVs with longer commutes can afford it) Not quite enough to make payments and insurance on a high gas milage car, but I calculated it several times. Did I mention that the nearest bus at the time would have saved me about $10 in gas (it was about a mile closer than work), and required a 2 hour ride?
We care about milage. However gas milage isn't the only concern. I'd love to have a Hummer (the original, not the look alike without the abilities of the real thing) that gets 150 mpg, but that isn't feasable with current technology. (someone can do the math, but I think that is more than 100% effecincy)
I instead drive a small 4wd truck, hating the lack of cargo room when I haul things, hating the lack of mileage when I fill it, and hating the handeling when I'm driving without the load. It is a compromise. In no way ideal, but I can get by without a two vechicals, which is a big savings.
In short, shy comptuer geeks, which is many of the good ones, have little chance. I'm a good programer, but I like to sit in my little corner and program. One day I found myself out of work, and boom, I looked around, and so where most of the people who knew I was a good programer. (My small group)
Mind you, the above story is nothing new. Every shy person faces it everytime we need a new job. I can deal with people, I just prefer not to, and when I have a good job I like to get the job I'm hired to do done.
Maybe you work in a different universe from me or something, but where I've worked the phone has been the highest priority interupt. When the phone rings everything stops. Never mind that something at least as important might be going on.
Sure in theory the call could be an emergency, but in practice that isn't often a problem. First of all, emergencys are rare for most people. (Excectptions know who they are, and generally are paged not called when) Second, what do you do when there is one of these emergencys and you are in the meeting room? How about when you are on a wildreness hike several days from civialization? In other words, sure there are emergencys that come up unannounced, but it isn't a big deal to miss them.
Warning, do not panic over CWD. That isn't to say don't worry about it, because it is potentially serious. However it is not something to panic about.
CWD has been known for 30 years in elk. Someone needed a story for a slow news week. Because of the story people start worring, and getting meat that would not have been tested before tested. Suddenly we find it all over, and conclude it is spreading like wildfire. However there was never a widespread study of where CWD is before this year, so it is incorrect to say it is spreading. Many experts belive (Note, they all admit we know little about this) that it has been everywhere for years. Other experts think that it is spreading. However we do not know.
The key point is we know very little about it. What we do know is bad, but that isn't much. Enough to insite the idiotic masses into panic, but I like to believe the /. readership is smarter than that. Take reasonable precautions, and go on with life.
Everything with a grain of salt. I've left offices when the phone started ringing and the conversation was about the weekend or whatever. However when I'm asking a deep technical question the interuption of the phone causes both of us to lose our train of throught.
If your job descritption includes answering the phone, of course you have to. However most people do not need to anser the phone at work as a part of their job. If it is not a part of your job to answer the phone, and someone is personally asking/advising your on a deep issue, then you are a fool if you answer the phone.
Here is a hint: just because the phone rings does not mean you have to answer it. In fact if there is someone physically in your presense it is IMPOLITE to answer the phone unless you are expecting an emergency. (Your wife could go into labor at anytime, your parent is going in for heart surgery, your kid is late in bad weather. There are others, but those are the big ones)
If I'm in your cube and you answer the phone I will talk to your boss about that, unless you are in customer service they can get voicemail and you will call back.
Many people are surprized that I, a strong introvert like my cell phone. They don't realise that I'm not a slave to the phone, the phone is my slave. If I'm sitting between two beatiful girls and it rings, I hit cancle without even looking at it. (As a geek I've so far had one such opportunity, I might have blown it, but it wasn't by answering the phone) Manytimes when I could answer it I will just look at callerid and send the caller to voicemail.
I typically get 20-30 per day. Often more than the useful email I get.
I am a firm beliver that if people really want to contact me I should not make it hard for them. I have had a few people who I did not know contact me that really should have contacted me. It doesn't happen often.
I'm also looking for a job, posting my resume with contact information uped the number of spams I get. At least the porn is outnumbered by other types of messages now, but that isn't saying much.
I won't dispute that there are legitimate cleanups, but if a developer couldn't do it right the first time, I have my doubts that round two is going to be much better.
I have my doubts that you have ever developed a major program. As Fred Brooks said: "Plan to throw one away, you will anyway." In other words there is no way that we know of to get software right the first time. In reality you write something that sort of work, and then you know enough to say "Okay, now that I understand the problem I know how to do it right."
I'll agree that sometimes the first solution that you wrote up is good enough. However it is ALWAYS hard to maintain. Often there are bugs that the design will not allow you to fix.
Of coruse there is some question of if I was advocating refactoring or re-writing. (And the line is a little fuzzy anyway) However round two will almost always be better than round one for any giving set of requirements. Round three might not be much better, and could be much worse (If you pointlessly refactor to try some new ideas now that round two works good enough).
You should always plan for two rounds on any software that you plan to support for any lenght of time. The first proves it can work, and the second makes sure that whoever has to look at the code in the future can understand it, and fix the bugs.
It cuts many ways. If there is enough problems with crime that they need cameras, then I as a consumer want them to have it because crime makes the prices honest people pay for goods.
However you need to ask yourself if you really want to be in a place with enough of a crime problem that they can justify cameras, since a store without cameras could in theory lower prices. (Which would likely amount to a penny on just one item, but the theory stands)
If I'm a crime victom though, I would love to have someone nearby have it on videotape, and I don't care why they were taping, just so long as the police/courts get a copy.
Then again, it all cuts into privacy. I like to be ananymous.
Look closely at airports, most are built with some form of open area at the end of the runway. That is for single engine planes to land on should an engine fail right after takeoff. It doesn't take long after takeoff to reach an altitude where you can turn around and land on the runway you just took off from, but for the cases where you can't turn around there is a place to land. (As they say, when an engine fails in a single the insurance company buys the plane, but the pilot needs to get to the ground with no loss of life)
For multi-engine planes, the FAA requires them to be able to take off and climb with one engine down. This is extreemly difficult, and pilots who fly those planes get a lot of training with an engine down.
A friend of mine was getting his multi-engine insterment certification one day at MSP, when the instructor failed the left engine on a touch and go (land, and then take off without stoping). He touched down normally (not an easy task!) when the instructor said "now look out the left window". There were a few hundred faces looking out the window at his plane with one stoped propeller. He managed to take off like that.
In most cases an airplane without power will still fly and land normally. Their a fields, golf courses, and so on all over, a good pilot should normally be able to get the plane there and land safely without the parachute.
Unfortunatly I cannot say all cases. If a wing falls of you have no choice where you land for instance because you have no control. I suppose their could be control failures where you have no control either, but I'm not sure.
Still a pilot should normally be able to recover. If I was an insurance company adjuster in a case where an engine failed and the parachute was used for recovery I'd refuse all payment for damage because there is never a reason to pull the chute when an engine failes. The plane will still glide for some distance without an engine, there should be no problem finding a place to land safely in most places.
OTOH, as a person who rides in airplanes I'd like the plane to have a parachute for the cases where a wing falls off, no matter how rare that is.
Sure, a 386 could do vioce recignition, but it required a special card that not only had higher quality sound inputs, but also had some DSPs to do the hard work. When IBM put voice recignition in OS/2 they warned you that a a 486 was not enough. (Several people tried it anyway, and it worked only within narrow limits)
To emulate a DSP required a lot of floating point math. Most PDAs do not have floating point in the CPU because nothing would use it. The few times it is needed emulation is easy enough, just very slow. No problem though because as I said floating point math isn't much used.
Don't forget that PDA cpus are not designed for speed above all else. They are designed for low power, which means they have to compromise something and require extra CPU cycles to get something done.
Finially don't forget power requirements. When doing normal use the CPU is shut down most of the time, and drawing essentially no power. Voice recignition would change that, and your battery life would suffer drasticly.
I'd love to give you a big glass of water. However I have caught (kids mostly) people ordering a glass of water, and then taking it elsewhere (bathroom?) and dumping it, coming back 2 minutes latter for thier free refill of soda. So now I give water in those little cups, which look nothing like our soda cups. We know not to give refills on those, even the normal idiots who will work fast food.
No, wine is NOT an emulator. Wine is an implimentation of all the windows libraries, plus an extention to linux that allows windows programs to run. In effect a windows program running under Wine is just as native to linux as a Gnome program. Both use external libraries to make themselves work. (Note, the only flaw in this argument is linux doesn't know how to directly execute windows programs, but that is trivial to solve if anyone wants to do it) There is no theroretical difference between a windows program calling Wine libraries, and a Gnome program calling GTK libraries. (Theory often differes from reality though)
An emulator is different. Bochs, virtualPC, and similear prodcuts are emulators, and benifit from compiling to native code. Windows programs are already native X86 programs, and that is where the benifit of compiling comes from.
I think the key is What did you do for them? answer simple "Do you remember how this worked?" type questions, or did you diagnose and fix the problem for them.
It is fair to call up with simple questions that are just a matter either "No, I don't recall that", or "It worked like this...". They must be simple questions where you do not have to think. (If you are doing noting else at the time you might hold the line while their experts think out the problem, but don't think for them).
If they want you to think out the problem, you need to charge for services. Be reasonable, but remember you know the system so you are better than the average expert off the street!
P.S. If you are asked simple questions DO NOT think for them. I have been gotten in trouble because of this. In that case I went to my mentor with a simple question that was in his area of expertise, and he took the problem from me, and then complained to the boss that I left all the work for him. (I was asked to leave over that issue, so of course I'm ticked)
I supported my self through school as a fast food manager. I recall one night when all the registers went down, at 8:00pm. I put in a priority one call to support (Although I might have figgured it out on my own that is not a good idea, expirence has proven I make mistakes that the system cannot handle, so it is better to let it be their mistake for blame purposes. besides I had a buisness to run) They finially called me back at 1:30am, and it took two hours to fix the problem.
Make sure you find out how support is handled, and what the longest wait time is. I know that it was a busy night for them at support, but my priority one call needs to be delt with now, even if there are other priority one calls in the system. Will you get the support you need? Remember you are a comptuer person, the manager might (or might not) be smart, but either way has no time to figgure out how to fix problems.
Only tool? There was a time when assembly was not avaiable. I know more than on person who has manually entered the boot code into the front panel of a computer. Several of them modified that code in some way.
No abstractions? Assembly is an abstracction for the BINARY that the computer runs. I have worked with comptuers for which my assembler was buggy (There were better ones, but I couldn't afford them), so I brought out my reference manual and programed directly in binary. It was painfully beat into me at that time that a simple JMP is an abstraction for as many have 7 different binary codes, depending on exactly what is going on. You don't know if you end up with a long or short JMP in most cases. (You know about register or memory stored locations)
Speaking of memory, you don't know where each byte is in your program in assembly. You don't to a JMP to location 0xdeadbeef you do a JMP to a label which just happenes to map to that location, but the assembler figgures out that details.
At this point a link to The Story of Mel is in order.
Open souce is not the issue. It can be closed source, so long as everyone can verify that their vote was counted. The easiest way to do that is if you don't trust the results demand a hand recount.
Consider this: open source polling software. I become an election judge, and as a computer savy person I am put in charge of making sure the software is loaded correctly. (Very likely since I have a CS degree, and many people are intimidated by computers). Now I take the open source software, load it, but with a modification: if (random(SOMEVALUE)/(SOMETHING_ELSE)) recordedVote = vote; else recordedVote = "My Canidate"; Simple for any programer, and open source makes it easier. And I just load the code to each booth, and then delete it. Sure it is open source, except that it isn't the same source you saw. (Note, the random above is so that the rebublicrates don't get suspicious when they get zero votes, and I would do some adjustment to make sure my canidate just barely wins)
You should not leave the polling booth without a slip of paper which you verify has everyone you voted for. If there is any question about the machine's results a hand recount of all slips is easy.
sure, but I just lost my job a few months back. Now I don't have a job, I also don't have a place to live. Oh, and because I don't have a job none of the few places left to rent living space will rent to me, so I'm homeless.
It is hard enough to keep my house payments up without a job (only for a few months, though I'm still looking for a good job if your hiring programers). It would be worse if I had to find new temperary living quarters until I got that job. Oh, did I mention that nobody wants to rent to me even with money because in a short time I plan to have a new job. Seems the landlords prefer to have some income for long enough that they can pay for all the improvements they had to do to make the apartment livable after the last guy left.
Did I mention that I'm a country kid? I'd love to walk to work every day, but I don't like to see my neighbor's houses. My ideal house would be on 6000 acres of land. (I don't want to farm however, and there is no way I could afford that much, not to mention the impractability of everyone living on that much land.
I know people that work long hours on weekends. Are you saying they shouldn't vote? In any case sunday is a bad day, many religions have a (ignored) policy that sunday is the sabbith and no work (unnessicary) should be done. Voting would count as work to these and they would protest. Many polls are in churches because those are one of the few buildings that can handle a crowd that are normally empty on tuesdays, they would all become unavaiable if elections were sunday.
You don't ID people? I've been refused to vote because my ID didn't match my residence. (I lived at school, but my ID had my parents' address) I was told then that either I needed the right ID, or someone who would vouch for me. There are serious pentiltys for vouching for someone unless you know they are a resident.
Who freed the slaves anyway? Lincon did in the rebal states by about as much as Gore created the internet. Lincon did nothing to free slaves in the border states that didn't join the confederacy.
Most quizes suffer from problems like the above. It would be really easy to design a quiz that seems honest enough to the rebucrats, but forces third party voters to answer against their philiphosical beliefs. And getting a quiz question right proves nothing about your ability to vote for the right person. Kennidy won against Nixon because he looked better on TV, (I'll ignore rumors of fraud) according to everyone who remembers voting then. Looks, and I would assume many intelligent people voted, they just didn't care to think about who would be better. (Of course as it turns out Nixon won latter and proved to do some stupid things) You need to measure not intelligence, but if the voters have thought about how the canidate will do if ellected. There is a reason most of the litature canidates are sending me have more information about the politition's family than how the man stands on issues, most people are voting for a nice guy, not someone who will do a good job.