Copyright applies to one particular implimentation and derivatives. Clean room works in copyrights because your code is different.
Patents apply to a way of doing something, no matter how it is implimented.
If I build a mechanical machine to decode LZW I've violated the LZW patent even though (to my knowlege) LZW has currently only been implimented in software. After the LZW patent expires all the code is protected by copyright, but my mechanical implimentation is now legal. Note that I can patent my mechanical LZW implimentation if I so desire today, I just can't build it without permission of Unisys.
You have several years of school before you are i the real world. You have some important things to learn. (Amoung them: picking up computer languages quickly is not impressive, someone who can't do so is a poor programmer, but someone who can isn't nessicarly good).
Please get real world expirence. I have no problem with those who want to teach and do research all their lives. However those two areas are far removed from the real world. In the real world small programs consist of 2 million lines of code written by many people not all of whom should write code. There is no way for a human to understand it all and get his work done. Research demands the best coders, and often forces the less good programmers to re-write unreadable code. In the real world if it works we don't break it. (This is both good and bad)
Getting real world expirence means you need to look over the shoulders of your betters. (If only better in expirence, I've learned a lot myself looking over the shoulders of senior engineers who did a bad job, just because their expirence worth learning from even if the code itself was worthless in all respects) There are computer jobs in your area. There are also companies that will bring you overseas and pay you to work for them. Good luck finding them.
When I went to school I knew a couple students who weren't that great (They passed, but mostly Cs) who paid less for school then I did because they found some little known programs and got into them. Study abroad is expensive, but there are orginazations that will pay most of the cost. Find them and get in.
In the US the most desirale engineering studnet for grad school is the white female, followed by the white male. The lease desired is the asian male. Asian Males make up the majority if grad schools in the US. They are getting there somehow, it is up to you to figgure out how.
I wish I could give more definate answers (contact x and volia). The reality is I know several persons who found programs that got them into exactly what you wanted, but I don't know how they got there. Really there is only one definate answer I can give: your professors probably know the people you want to talk to, and the programs you want to get into, so pester them until they remember you when one of those annoying "do you have any students who would be interested in..." calls come in.
Yes, Moon is a Harsh Mitress. I just read it this week.
One thing, the body that repeals laws needs only 1/3rd to agree to get a law repealed. Thus you need 2/3rds support in both bodys to get a bill passed.
The GSM standard appears to require SIM cards. I have never heard of a GSM phone that didn't use a SIM card. I have also never heard of a non-GSM phone that had a SIM card.
Too bad really, SIM cards are a good idea, and there is no technical reason why you couldn't design a (for example) CDMA phone that took a SIM card so that you could use a GSM phone in Europe and then in the US switch to a more popular CDMA system.
I'm assuming your looking at ways to prove the code does what it is supposed to and is bug free. Your question was unclear about what you intended to achive.
Code reviews are a must. Several people who know the product get togather for 1 hour a day to read and understand as much of the code as they can. (Expirence has showen my boss that more then 1 hour at a time is too long, I belive he is right but I've never felt like trying longer) Code reviews are hard work. Everyone in the meeting should have looked over the code first, and they should understand what it should do. (Not nessicarly how, that is what the meeting is for)
6 people seem about right for a code review. The programmer should be there to answer questions, but should otherwise keep his mouth shut (this is hard, but few programmers can resist ~Yeah, I know that is a problem I'll fix it~ which leave open the possibility that it won't be fixed right. You need someone who can record minutes. We use a system of one person attempts to explain the entire program line by line (This can be the programmer), and the rest find fault. The meeting should run according to the needs of the reviewers. Sometimes we get through only 20 lines, sometimes over 1000. Sometimes we start at the top and go down, other times we start at main() and skip around.
This is a technical meeting, not a management meeting. Management should avoid attending, and when they do they should sit in a corner and watch.
Programmers hate doing these reviews and before hand they NEVER recignise the value of them. Afterwords they agree that many problems were found.
We find the best time for a code review as the moment it compiles. That is instead of >make >./a.out We follow up the make with a code review. Yes we find obvious bugs that would be fixed in the first day, but the code review will find several per hour while the normal debugging process can take a day for each.
Finialy, code reviews appear to be what you were asking about. However no amount of code review will solve problems that a poorly run product will do. You will still need to do several layers of test, with internal and external people.
* Horse carriages - well I'm not a big expert here, but I would bet that you can't get as nice ones today as you could 100 years ago.
I'm not an expert either, but I'd be willing to bet that you are wrong. There are currently many people who have taken up horsemanship as a hobby. These are rich folks, who instead of spending weekends in their yacht spend weekends on the horse, many own the horse, and take care of it themselves. (100 years ago a rich person wouldn't think about touching manure if there was a way around it, most of these folks take care of it themselves). They have money, they have an expensive hobby, and they are willing to spend whatever it takes to get the best.
When the carriage was the dominate means of transport I'm willing to bet that most folks had a long lasting carraige. Today carriages are still long lasting, but the people who buy them are rich. 100 years ago cheep was the norm beccause poor people were buying carriages. Today rich people buy them and expensive quality carriages are the norm.
Money is what it comes down to. Mechanical watches are expensive today because the only people who buy them are rich (since the quartz watch is cheaper to make in quanity. Thus the cheap watches of yesterday are not made, and so the only ones made (not many) are the works of art. IF the person buying a mechanical watch cares about accuracy, an accurate watch could be made today, since they mostly care looks, the looks are what is made. (Very few people need to know time to withing more then a minute, and 5 mintues off is okay in most cases, those who need better pay for modern clocks with better accuracty then a watch)
Modern lens can be high quality, just ask any astronomer, who pays for it. When I buy a cammera I care about cost, and in most cases the lens on a disposable cammera is plenty good. A quality camera was more expensive in the '70s then it is today. Of course in the '70s you got SLR, and now you get who knows what autofocus with large zooms. Turns out that the cheaper lens takes better pictures for all but experts since few people knew how to focus a cammera properly. In this case need for quality is key.
So if you want qualtiy you can get it, you just pay for it. We can do everything the Romans could, but we have colors they didn't as well so it goes both ways.
Tools (like pliers and such). With cheap manufacturing, tools in the last 50 years are more disposable than they used to be. There seem to be more tools left from before WWII than after, which shouldn't be so.
BUZZ, try again. Tools are of higher quality today then they were 50 years ago. Do not compare the junk of today (Which won't last long before being thrown out) with the quality stuff of yesterday. Rest assured they made junk before WWII just as much as they do today. The junk didn't last and so you don't see it. The quality stuff did last and you can see it today.
Compare a modern Snap-On or Chraftsman wrench with one from 75 years ago and you will be ahrd pressed to find any difference. This is one however: the old tool has sustained some wear which could be measured. (The new tool will do the same them over 75 years)
Likewise for the rest. Modern manufactureing has brought down the price of junk significantly, but the cost of quality hasn't been impacted much. Thus the old Crafdtsmen table saws were expensive but affordable quality compared to junk, but todays chraftsmen table saws are affordable junk while todays much higher quality table saws are expensive but affordable.
There is a saying in third world countries that product most of this junk: Only amercians can afford to buyn junk. Thus the person in those countries who needs a tool is more likely to buy the quality tool (Often made in the US, but not always) or do without.
Okay, I turned Javascript off... Now I can't access my bank (Anouther rant, I used to turn javascript off after their check and everything worked, not nothing works because they changed things for no good reason)
Come to think of it, the only time I'm not using lynx is when the site requires java, javascript, or images. I've accually seen one site that required javascript and could not possibably achive the intended result with out it. (Some sort of reaction time test done by a psycologist). Otherwise images are the only useful thing about netscape.
My local power company replaces their overheard wires every 20 years, (Wires get weak I guess), and since they have crews to do that already the cost to run anouther wire is essentially zero.
Come to think of it, they also run an ISP, but that was mostly just anouther way to make money. None the less they would be failing their customers if they didn't look for solutions that allowed them to achive faster access.
My company has foam ear plugs in the labs, for anyone to take if they are spending time in the lab. Some of us care about our ears enough to use them too. (I find them very handy in the office area for runing everything out once in a while)
Can those of us in the US write our congressmen and have them make it illegal to sell a DVD player in the US that is limited to what zones it can play. Seems like a perfect way to do an end run around all those restrictions. I'm sure smart people on/. can come up with several freedoms that the corporate world is limited unnessicarly with region codes.
Sand has one advantage: cost. Anyone who has been to any sand dunes knows the problems. Sand shifts in the wind. Nobody is really sure the sand pile won't blow away in the future.
The current sarcofagus was never designed to keep things out, only to help contain any radiation. (I'm not sure if it helps). Scientists are (or were, I've not kept up) going in there often to check on the effects of radiation. (unfortunatly including radiation on them). We need to know if species can evolve to withstand high levels of radiation, or at least want to know if only it didn't mean loss of some lives along the way.
Any thing that encases this needs to encase it fully for as long as it is dangerious. That could be a long time, potentially longer then mankind has been on this earth. Even if socity collapsses we would like to be sure that nobody will it up as archiologics tend to do.
Your job is technical. It is up to HR to look at someone and say "They may be good, but they are really here as a theif/spy." It is up to your boss to figgure out if the new guy's style will fit in with the rest of the company. You are not trained in doing their job and should not try to do it. You are an expert in technical issues, they are an expert in people issues. Don't take their job from them, as they are not taking your job from you.
Your job is to assess technical knowlege. He should be asking the questions. Since you are leaving make it clear! Hint strongly that this interview could easially be the guys last chance to figgure out how the system is run. That is when he starts he will get a slip of paper (that you wrote just before you left) with the root password(s), nobody else in the company will know anything abouyt the comptuers. The right guy will respond by grilling you to get all the details. Look for things like "I would have done y instead", but some people are shy about criticising so that might not happen even though it is good.
Have your boss get a non-disclousre if needed so you can take the canidate on a tour of the machine rooms and wiring closets. Ideally you can spend cpend a couple hours doing an overview. (Use judgement, any canidate that is obviously unqualified shouldn't waste your time, but your replacement will appreciate the time spent showing him around. You will appreciate not getting a personal call next month asking questions about the system.
Interviews are a two way process, not only is the company assessing the canidate, but the canidate is assessing the company. You are the expert on the company and the job. Be more prepared to answer questions then ask them!
That is a generalization of people that has always been true about all socities. From the days of Homer (who may or may not have been a musician setting the Odyisey to music) on today most people do not make their own music, they listen to music others create. We all need enertainment, some like it more then others. Some feel compelled to create it. The best of those make money at it. (Homer probably made his money going village to village singing the same song/stories, spreading news. Of course he wasn't paid in money so much as food, shelter and other necessities.
Today some people feel compelled to make music for their own enjoyment. Some familys still gather in the living room at least weekly for their family jam sessions. (I've knowns such folks but they are closed sessions and i'd have to marry into the family to join). Others have open Jams with friends. Some put on a concert for friends/family, some put on a public concert (generally for money).
It has never been true that the majority of people have every done everything. Go look at metalwork news groups (rec.crafts.metalworking amoung others) and see the cirticism about people who do not know how to fix things in general. Check out the wood working news group and you will find people who can't understand why anyone would buy a bookshelf (either junk from walmart of a quality model) when they can make their own. They don't pause to consider many of them make book shelves for others. Those who take part in the above two groups have favorite clothing they like to wear (xyz make better welding gloves then abc), but none of them even consider butchering their cow (which they don't have anyway) to get leather to make their own welding gloves.
Or to put it anouther way: I'm ccapable of doing many things, but I don't have time to learn how to do them all. I can paint a house, but a professional painter can do the same job in 1/4th the time, and make less of a mess. I can do a, I can do b, or I can do c; however the time it takes to learn each means I cannot do a, b, and c. At best I might live to be 110, and be healthy along the way, and so perhaps I could do a and b, but I still won't have time to learn c. Now add in the fact that c bores me and suddenly it makes sense why I wouldn't do it.
My grandpa doesn't care about comptuers except as it relates to keep our family tree. He uses the web for research, email to contact relatives in the old country. He has a specialized genology program that he enters all that data into, which is much nicer then his files that he used to keep pre computer. (He started this hobby long before computers existed, he is making progress much faster now) When he has problems with the computer he calls me. When I want to know where in Germany my ancestors imigrated from I call him.
use a 750ghz bewolfe to heat your office building!
A few years ago in Minneapolis a company (Honeywell?) decided to shut down their old mainframe because they discovered they only had one job still running on it, eaisally ported to new machines. The day before the final shut off the janitors discovered that the building was built without heaters because the comptuer gave off enough heat to need cooling even in the coldest Minnesota winter. They ended up selling time on the mainframe (for peanuts, not even recovering energy costs) for 2 more years until they could install a heater.
I work for STK, the king of high end tapes. Most of our customers report that the majority of their tapes are less then 30% full. Unix can use a tape drive only for backup, the big money in tapes is in the mainframes which uses tape for a lot more. To a mainframe you use cheap tape (and when your data center houses 300+ terrabytes tape is significantly cheaper then disk) to store data for user programs without hitting disk. Not in all cases of course, some things need high speed access to everything, but those jobs that you don't need to quickly generally use tape for their storage.
Becuase tape is generally unformated there is a much higher bit density, but there is no random seak on write. You can write the whole tape, or you can advance well byond the end of the last data section to make sure you don't over wright something. Because of the danger of starting before the end of the last section few people bother to write two different data sets to a single tape.
Don't overlook access time either. Tape is liniear, if you need something at the very end of the tape you need to read the whole tape to get to it, with small tapes that can already take several minutes. Do you really want to wait? Are you sure? Backups are nice and all, but if you don't restore from them what is the point? If a single tape that holds a terabyte would work for you, then so would a good RAID-5 (or mirroring) Disk system. If you want your backups to not only deal with disk crash, but also human error deletin a needed file, then tape is the solution, and smaller tapes make it eaiser and faster to get to the one accidently deleted file.
If you are having problems manageing your tapes, our salesmen will be happy to sell you a multi-million dollar robotic library. You should be investigating these systems as the better solution to your problem. I would guess that a smaller system would serve your needs just as well, from either us or our compitition.
In other words I think you are solving the wrong problem, and so you have come up with the wrong solution.
You do not become an expert speaker of French in a moment. They do not become na expert speaker of English in a moment. You will have to face the fact that there will always be difficulties.
That said, you should work on your french. Make it a point to talk to everyone in French, (if the other guy knows it) whenever possibal. If nessicary switch to english. It will take a few years (Thats right, years not internet seconds like many people want today) to elarn, but eventially you can learn.
Knowning a foreign language is a good thing. Most people I know (I live in the US) have no oppertunaty to use one. Nearly everyone I know took a foreign language in high school or college, it is a requirement (despite jokes about someone who speaks only one language being an american, most americans have a second language) to learn one. However with no reason or oppertunity to use it they soon become unable to use it. Come to think of it you might soon be able to turn the old joke around: "What do you call someone who only speaks one language? A Frenchmen."
The UK is a republic, similear to the US. (Different in many fundamental ways, but you still get to elect someone to represent you). Talk to whoever is your elected official and suggest that because BT is doing such a bad job that the UK remove their license to do buisness, and require their phone system to be sold off. This would result in a few months of difficulties as you have no land line phone service, but in the end there would be much gain. Most people in Eurpoe have a cell phone, and those would not be affected to you would still have phone service.
Remember you have fight BT on many levels, from their management, to the regulator, to your goverment, or just bypass them all with a cell phone. Pick the best part from everyone else's sytems (ie, the US has free local where local is at least your city, and often several). Others have other good points. Start demanding them.
Of course land line phone service in the US sucks too. Thats why my only phone is a cell phone (and ISDN cause like you I can't get DSL and cable modems are not here yet)
There is a big difference between what is right and what we do. When I left my house this morning I locked the door behind me. The right thing to do however would be to leave the door unlocked so that if my neighbor ran out of sugar in her baking she could walk in and get it. I know she will return the favor next time I'm short and egg for my morning omlet.
An open mail server is likewise a nice thing to provide for those people who have unreliable internet connections. I temparly store mail on your server until my buddy gets online, and then you send it while my server is offline.
Trust for your fellow man should be the normal way of dealing with things. Locks should be to prevent kids from playing with balsting caps, not to keep theives out. Fraud and abuse should be completely unknown.
No I agree admins should lock down their mail servers. However everyone should feel very bas about having to do it. Locking down a mail server says bad things about socity.
IANAL, but I just talked to the corporate patent lawyer. Get your own lawyer for legal adivce.
In the US you have one year from the time an invention is first published to file for a patent. In every other country you must file before publication. I'm unclear if by filing after publication you no longer have rights to the patent in other countries.
If you get a patent in the US, every other country will honor the date of filing for a patent when you go to file in their country, meaning that if someone in Germany violates a US patent you can file for a German patent, and then once it is granted sue the German company. If nobody in Germany violates your patent you don't need to file for one there. NOTE that not all countries honor patents.
Since I run strickly openSource stuff I never agree to a license agreement.
When I install something on a friends comptuer I always get his kid over to do the install. Children cannot agree to a contract, so they can click I agree and it means nothing. I'm not sure if this would accually hold up in court, but I can at least point out that I a) had no idea what the agreement said, b) typiucally disagree with obviously unreasonable portions, and c) didn't agree to them. It can't hurt and might help.
I don't think so. Patents still have to be useful. A bug is not useful, and so it is fairly easy to argue that they not patentable. Of course I can't afford a lawyer to defend myself so I guess the patent holds until soemone with deep pockets decided to sue.
Sure, filtering could solve the problem. So could changing attitudes so that nobody does DDoS attacks. As could... As could changing IP so that the mac of all recived from hosts are appended to the headers. As could...
There are many solutions. Odds are however that nobody will impliment any. The problem is people who want to attack others. (For whatever reason generally silly ones that don't stand up to logic though)
And how do you know the suspect is using PGP since you do not have a warrent for wiretapping. If they have a warrent to do wire tapper, lawfully and correctly obtained (even if it turns out to be based on what turns out to be a false lead), then they should be able to bug the keyboard. Otherwise they do not have that right.
Suspicious activity is not reason for a warrent, unless a crime has been comitted. Planning to comit a crime is not a crime, but commiting the crime is. (And when a plan can be shown then the crime is generaly greater)
Slashdot Mirror
Clean room applies to copyrights, not patents.
Copyright applies to one particular implimentation and derivatives. Clean room works in copyrights because your code is different.
Patents apply to a way of doing something, no matter how it is implimented.
If I build a mechanical machine to decode LZW I've violated the LZW patent even though (to my knowlege) LZW has currently only been implimented in software. After the LZW patent expires all the code is protected by copyright, but my mechanical implimentation is now legal. Note that I can patent my mechanical LZW implimentation if I so desire today, I just can't build it without permission of Unisys.
You have several years of school before you are i the real world. You have some important things to learn. (Amoung them: picking up computer languages quickly is not impressive, someone who can't do so is a poor programmer, but someone who can isn't nessicarly good).
Please get real world expirence. I have no problem with those who want to teach and do research all their lives. However those two areas are far removed from the real world. In the real world small programs consist of 2 million lines of code written by many people not all of whom should write code. There is no way for a human to understand it all and get his work done. Research demands the best coders, and often forces the less good programmers to re-write unreadable code. In the real world if it works we don't break it. (This is both good and bad)
Getting real world expirence means you need to look over the shoulders of your betters. (If only better in expirence, I've learned a lot myself looking over the shoulders of senior engineers who did a bad job, just because their expirence worth learning from even if the code itself was worthless in all respects) There are computer jobs in your area. There are also companies that will bring you overseas and pay you to work for them. Good luck finding them.
When I went to school I knew a couple students who weren't that great (They passed, but mostly Cs) who paid less for school then I did because they found some little known programs and got into them. Study abroad is expensive, but there are orginazations that will pay most of the cost. Find them and get in.
In the US the most desirale engineering studnet for grad school is the white female, followed by the white male. The lease desired is the asian male. Asian Males make up the majority if grad schools in the US. They are getting there somehow, it is up to you to figgure out how.
I wish I could give more definate answers (contact x and volia). The reality is I know several persons who found programs that got them into exactly what you wanted, but I don't know how they got there. Really there is only one definate answer I can give: your professors probably know the people you want to talk to, and the programs you want to get into, so pester them until they remember you when one of those annoying "do you have any students who would be interested in ..." calls come in.
Yes, Moon is a Harsh Mitress. I just read it this week.
One thing, the body that repeals laws needs only 1/3rd to agree to get a law repealed. Thus you need 2/3rds support in both bodys to get a bill passed.
The GSM standard appears to require SIM cards. I have never heard of a GSM phone that didn't use a SIM card. I have also never heard of a non-GSM phone that had a SIM card.
Too bad really, SIM cards are a good idea, and there is no technical reason why you couldn't design a (for example) CDMA phone that took a SIM card so that you could use a GSM phone in Europe and then in the US switch to a more popular CDMA system.
I'm assuming your looking at ways to prove the code does what it is supposed to and is bug free. Your question was unclear about what you intended to achive.
Code reviews are a must. Several people who know the product get togather for 1 hour a day to read and understand as much of the code as they can. (Expirence has showen my boss that more then 1 hour at a time is too long, I belive he is right but I've never felt like trying longer) Code reviews are hard work. Everyone in the meeting should have looked over the code first, and they should understand what it should do. (Not nessicarly how, that is what the meeting is for)
6 people seem about right for a code review. The programmer should be there to answer questions, but should otherwise keep his mouth shut (this is hard, but few programmers can resist ~Yeah, I know that is a problem I'll fix it~ which leave open the possibility that it won't be fixed right. You need someone who can record minutes. We use a system of one person attempts to explain the entire program line by line (This can be the programmer), and the rest find fault. The meeting should run according to the needs of the reviewers. Sometimes we get through only 20 lines, sometimes over 1000. Sometimes we start at the top and go down, other times we start at main() and skip around.
This is a technical meeting, not a management meeting. Management should avoid attending, and when they do they should sit in a corner and watch.
Programmers hate doing these reviews and before hand they NEVER recignise the value of them. Afterwords they agree that many problems were found.
We find the best time for a code review as the moment it compiles. That is instead of
>make
>./a.out
We follow up the make with a code review. Yes we find obvious bugs that would be fixed in the first day, but the code review will find several per hour while the normal debugging process can take a day for each.
Finialy, code reviews appear to be what you were asking about. However no amount of code review will solve problems that a poorly run product will do. You will still need to do several layers of test, with internal and external people.
* Horse carriages - well I'm not a big expert here, but I would bet that you can't get as nice ones today as you could 100 years ago.
I'm not an expert either, but I'd be willing to bet that you are wrong. There are currently many people who have taken up horsemanship as a hobby. These are rich folks, who instead of spending weekends in their yacht spend weekends on the horse, many own the horse, and take care of it themselves. (100 years ago a rich person wouldn't think about touching manure if there was a way around it, most of these folks take care of it themselves). They have money, they have an expensive hobby, and they are willing to spend whatever it takes to get the best.
When the carriage was the dominate means of transport I'm willing to bet that most folks had a long lasting carraige. Today carriages are still long lasting, but the people who buy them are rich. 100 years ago cheep was the norm beccause poor people were buying carriages. Today rich people buy them and expensive quality carriages are the norm.
Money is what it comes down to. Mechanical watches are expensive today because the only people who buy them are rich (since the quartz watch is cheaper to make in quanity. Thus the cheap watches of yesterday are not made, and so the only ones made (not many) are the works of art. IF the person buying a mechanical watch cares about accuracy, an accurate watch could be made today, since they mostly care looks, the looks are what is made. (Very few people need to know time to withing more then a minute, and 5 mintues off is okay in most cases, those who need better pay for modern clocks with better accuracty then a watch)
Modern lens can be high quality, just ask any astronomer, who pays for it. When I buy a cammera I care about cost, and in most cases the lens on a disposable cammera is plenty good. A quality camera was more expensive in the '70s then it is today. Of course in the '70s you got SLR, and now you get who knows what autofocus with large zooms. Turns out that the cheaper lens takes better pictures for all but experts since few people knew how to focus a cammera properly. In this case need for quality is key.
So if you want qualtiy you can get it, you just pay for it. We can do everything the Romans could, but we have colors they didn't as well so it goes both ways.
BUZZ, try again. Tools are of higher quality today then they were 50 years ago. Do not compare the junk of today (Which won't last long before being thrown out) with the quality stuff of yesterday. Rest assured they made junk before WWII just as much as they do today. The junk didn't last and so you don't see it. The quality stuff did last and you can see it today.
Compare a modern Snap-On or Chraftsman wrench with one from 75 years ago and you will be ahrd pressed to find any difference. This is one however: the old tool has sustained some wear which could be measured. (The new tool will do the same them over 75 years)
Likewise for the rest. Modern manufactureing has brought down the price of junk significantly, but the cost of quality hasn't been impacted much. Thus the old Crafdtsmen table saws were expensive but affordable quality compared to junk, but todays chraftsmen table saws are affordable junk while todays much higher quality table saws are expensive but affordable.
There is a saying in third world countries that product most of this junk: Only amercians can afford to buyn junk. Thus the person in those countries who needs a tool is more likely to buy the quality tool (Often made in the US, but not always) or do without.
Okay, I turned Javascript off... Now I can't access my bank (Anouther rant, I used to turn javascript off after their check and everything worked, not nothing works because they changed things for no good reason)
Come to think of it, the only time I'm not using lynx is when the site requires java, javascript, or images. I've accually seen one site that required javascript and could not possibably achive the intended result with out it. (Some sort of reaction time test done by a psycologist). Otherwise images are the only useful thing about netscape.
My local power company replaces their overheard wires every 20 years, (Wires get weak I guess), and since they have crews to do that already the cost to run anouther wire is essentially zero.
Come to think of it, they also run an ISP, but that was mostly just anouther way to make money. None the less they would be failing their customers if they didn't look for solutions that allowed them to achive faster access.
My company has foam ear plugs in the labs, for anyone to take if they are spending time in the lab. Some of us care about our ears enough to use them too. (I find them very handy in the office area for runing everything out once in a while)
Can those of us in the US write our congressmen and have them make it illegal to sell a DVD player in the US that is limited to what zones it can play. Seems like a perfect way to do an end run around all those restrictions. I'm sure smart people on /. can come up with several freedoms that the corporate world is limited unnessicarly with region codes.
Sand has one advantage: cost. Anyone who has been to any sand dunes knows the problems. Sand shifts in the wind. Nobody is really sure the sand pile won't blow away in the future.
The current sarcofagus was never designed to keep things out, only to help contain any radiation. (I'm not sure if it helps). Scientists are (or were, I've not kept up) going in there often to check on the effects of radiation. (unfortunatly including radiation on them). We need to know if species can evolve to withstand high levels of radiation, or at least want to know if only it didn't mean loss of some lives along the way.
Any thing that encases this needs to encase it fully for as long as it is dangerious. That could be a long time, potentially longer then mankind has been on this earth. Even if socity collapsses we would like to be sure that nobody will it up as archiologics tend to do.
Your job is technical. It is up to HR to look at someone and say "They may be good, but they are really here as a theif/spy." It is up to your boss to figgure out if the new guy's style will fit in with the rest of the company. You are not trained in doing their job and should not try to do it. You are an expert in technical issues, they are an expert in people issues. Don't take their job from them, as they are not taking your job from you.
Your job is to assess technical knowlege. He should be asking the questions. Since you are leaving make it clear! Hint strongly that this interview could easially be the guys last chance to figgure out how the system is run. That is when he starts he will get a slip of paper (that you wrote just before you left) with the root password(s), nobody else in the company will know anything abouyt the comptuers. The right guy will respond by grilling you to get all the details. Look for things like "I would have done y instead", but some people are shy about criticising so that might not happen even though it is good.
Have your boss get a non-disclousre if needed so you can take the canidate on a tour of the machine rooms and wiring closets. Ideally you can spend cpend a couple hours doing an overview. (Use judgement, any canidate that is obviously unqualified shouldn't waste your time, but your replacement will appreciate the time spent showing him around. You will appreciate not getting a personal call next month asking questions about the system.
Interviews are a two way process, not only is the company assessing the canidate, but the canidate is assessing the company. You are the expert on the company and the job. Be more prepared to answer questions then ask them!
Americans listen to music; they don't make music
That is a generalization of people that has always been true about all socities. From the days of Homer (who may or may not have been a musician setting the Odyisey to music) on today most people do not make their own music, they listen to music others create. We all need enertainment, some like it more then others. Some feel compelled to create it. The best of those make money at it. (Homer probably made his money going village to village singing the same song/stories, spreading news. Of course he wasn't paid in money so much as food, shelter and other necessities.
Today some people feel compelled to make music for their own enjoyment. Some familys still gather in the living room at least weekly for their family jam sessions. (I've knowns such folks but they are closed sessions and i'd have to marry into the family to join). Others have open Jams with friends. Some put on a concert for friends/family, some put on a public concert (generally for money).
It has never been true that the majority of people have every done everything. Go look at metalwork news groups (rec.crafts.metalworking amoung others) and see the cirticism about people who do not know how to fix things in general. Check out the wood working news group and you will find people who can't understand why anyone would buy a bookshelf (either junk from walmart of a quality model) when they can make their own. They don't pause to consider many of them make book shelves for others. Those who take part in the above two groups have favorite clothing they like to wear (xyz make better welding gloves then abc), but none of them even consider butchering their cow (which they don't have anyway) to get leather to make their own welding gloves.
Or to put it anouther way: I'm ccapable of doing many things, but I don't have time to learn how to do them all. I can paint a house, but a professional painter can do the same job in 1/4th the time, and make less of a mess. I can do a, I can do b, or I can do c; however the time it takes to learn each means I cannot do a, b, and c. At best I might live to be 110, and be healthy along the way, and so perhaps I could do a and b, but I still won't have time to learn c. Now add in the fact that c bores me and suddenly it makes sense why I wouldn't do it.
My grandpa doesn't care about comptuers except as it relates to keep our family tree. He uses the web for research, email to contact relatives in the old country. He has a specialized genology program that he enters all that data into, which is much nicer then his files that he used to keep pre computer. (He started this hobby long before computers existed, he is making progress much faster now) When he has problems with the computer he calls me. When I want to know where in Germany my ancestors imigrated from I call him.
use a 750ghz bewolfe to heat your office building!
A few years ago in Minneapolis a company (Honeywell?) decided to shut down their old mainframe because they discovered they only had one job still running on it, eaisally ported to new machines. The day before the final shut off the janitors discovered that the building was built without heaters because the comptuer gave off enough heat to need cooling even in the coldest Minnesota winter. They ended up selling time on the mainframe (for peanuts, not even recovering energy costs) for 2 more years until they could install a heater.
I work for STK, the king of high end tapes. Most of our customers report that the majority of their tapes are less then 30% full. Unix can use a tape drive only for backup, the big money in tapes is in the mainframes which uses tape for a lot more. To a mainframe you use cheap tape (and when your data center houses 300+ terrabytes tape is significantly cheaper then disk) to store data for user programs without hitting disk. Not in all cases of course, some things need high speed access to everything, but those jobs that you don't need to quickly generally use tape for their storage.
Becuase tape is generally unformated there is a much higher bit density, but there is no random seak on write. You can write the whole tape, or you can advance well byond the end of the last data section to make sure you don't over wright something. Because of the danger of starting before the end of the last section few people bother to write two different data sets to a single tape.
Don't overlook access time either. Tape is liniear, if you need something at the very end of the tape you need to read the whole tape to get to it, with small tapes that can already take several minutes. Do you really want to wait? Are you sure? Backups are nice and all, but if you don't restore from them what is the point? If a single tape that holds a terabyte would work for you, then so would a good RAID-5 (or mirroring) Disk system. If you want your backups to not only deal with disk crash, but also human error deletin a needed file, then tape is the solution, and smaller tapes make it eaiser and faster to get to the one accidently deleted file.
If you are having problems manageing your tapes, our salesmen will be happy to sell you a multi-million dollar robotic library. You should be investigating these systems as the better solution to your problem. I would guess that a smaller system would serve your needs just as well, from either us or our compitition.
In other words I think you are solving the wrong problem, and so you have come up with the wrong solution.
You do not become an expert speaker of French in a moment. They do not become na expert speaker of English in a moment. You will have to face the fact that there will always be difficulties.
That said, you should work on your french. Make it a point to talk to everyone in French, (if the other guy knows it) whenever possibal. If nessicary switch to english. It will take a few years (Thats right, years not internet seconds like many people want today) to elarn, but eventially you can learn.
Knowning a foreign language is a good thing. Most people I know (I live in the US) have no oppertunaty to use one. Nearly everyone I know took a foreign language in high school or college, it is a requirement (despite jokes about someone who speaks only one language being an american, most americans have a second language) to learn one. However with no reason or oppertunity to use it they soon become unable to use it. Come to think of it you might soon be able to turn the old joke around: "What do you call someone who only speaks one language? A Frenchmen."
The UK is a republic, similear to the US. (Different in many fundamental ways, but you still get to elect someone to represent you). Talk to whoever is your elected official and suggest that because BT is doing such a bad job that the UK remove their license to do buisness, and require their phone system to be sold off. This would result in a few months of difficulties as you have no land line phone service, but in the end there would be much gain. Most people in Eurpoe have a cell phone, and those would not be affected to you would still have phone service.
Remember you have fight BT on many levels, from their management, to the regulator, to your goverment, or just bypass them all with a cell phone. Pick the best part from everyone else's sytems (ie, the US has free local where local is at least your city, and often several). Others have other good points. Start demanding them.
Of course land line phone service in the US sucks too. Thats why my only phone is a cell phone (and ISDN cause like you I can't get DSL and cable modems are not here yet)
There is a big difference between what is right and what we do. When I left my house this morning I locked the door behind me. The right thing to do however would be to leave the door unlocked so that if my neighbor ran out of sugar in her baking she could walk in and get it. I know she will return the favor next time I'm short and egg for my morning omlet.
An open mail server is likewise a nice thing to provide for those people who have unreliable internet connections. I temparly store mail on your server until my buddy gets online, and then you send it while my server is offline.
Trust for your fellow man should be the normal way of dealing with things. Locks should be to prevent kids from playing with balsting caps, not to keep theives out. Fraud and abuse should be completely unknown.
No I agree admins should lock down their mail servers. However everyone should feel very bas about having to do it. Locking down a mail server says bad things about socity.
IANAL, but I just talked to the corporate patent lawyer. Get your own lawyer for legal adivce.
In the US you have one year from the time an invention is first published to file for a patent. In every other country you must file before publication. I'm unclear if by filing after publication you no longer have rights to the patent in other countries.
If you get a patent in the US, every other country will honor the date of filing for a patent when you go to file in their country, meaning that if someone in Germany violates a US patent you can file for a German patent, and then once it is granted sue the German company. If nobody in Germany violates your patent you don't need to file for one there. NOTE that not all countries honor patents.
Since I run strickly openSource stuff I never agree to a license agreement.
When I install something on a friends comptuer I always get his kid over to do the install. Children cannot agree to a contract, so they can click I agree and it means nothing. I'm not sure if this would accually hold up in court, but I can at least point out that I a) had no idea what the agreement said, b) typiucally disagree with obviously unreasonable portions, and c) didn't agree to them. It can't hurt and might help.
I don't think so. Patents still have to be useful. A bug is not useful, and so it is fairly easy to argue that they not patentable. Of course I can't afford a lawyer to defend myself so I guess the patent holds until soemone with deep pockets decided to sue.
Control-V for paste? Isn't that the page down shortcut?
Sure, filtering could solve the problem. So could changing attitudes so that nobody does DDoS attacks. As could... As could changing IP so that the mac of all recived from hosts are appended to the headers. As could...
There are many solutions. Odds are however that nobody will impliment any. The problem is people who want to attack others. (For whatever reason generally silly ones that don't stand up to logic though)
And how do you know the suspect is using PGP since you do not have a warrent for wiretapping. If they have a warrent to do wire tapper, lawfully and correctly obtained (even if it turns out to be based on what turns out to be a false lead), then they should be able to bug the keyboard. Otherwise they do not have that right.
Suspicious activity is not reason for a warrent, unless a crime has been comitted. Planning to comit a crime is not a crime, but commiting the crime is. (And when a plan can be shown then the crime is generaly greater)