Clearly the breathalyser software (since if faulty it can ruin peoples lives) should be held to a similar standard to safety critical systems.
If failure doesn't kill or injure people, it's not safety-critical. Sorry. And a breathalyzer doesn't find people guilty - that's still the job of a judge or jury.
If you hold any software that could "ruin peoples lives" if faulty to the same standards as software that will kill or maim people if faulty, why don't you start with current operating systems and office software?
The worst coding example I've seen? How about a global variable named "temp", used in about 50 places (including a recursive subroutine) in the software. It shocked me that the software ran at all.
Hey, at least the variable name was four characters long, so you could actually search for it.
Now imagine that global variable being named "i", and occasionally being hidden by definition of a local variable "i", which once in a while also has a different type.
You seem to be forgetting, sir, that USA's justice system is built on the premise that it is better that 10 criminals go free,than that one innocent man is punished.
Judging from the size of the prison propulation, I'd argue that in practice, it works exactly the opposite way.
Well the problem with calculating the averages should honestly be enough to get this tossed.
There's no "problem" with the lowpass filter. The problem is that whoever wrote that article apparently has no knowledge of signal processing, in particular spectra and filter types (FIR/IIR).
There are a lot of tears in this thread, and the previous article, from Americans upset that one of their precious corporations has actually been punished for its transgressions.
And oddly enough, none of this punishment would have happened if it hadn't been for another American company complaining for years to the antitrust authorities.
I would call it more than a minor annoyance. Their 2008 profit was 3.9 billion, this is 27% of that.
So, roughly a quarter of a years worth of profit? And that's for several years worth of unlawful practices that gave the company a huge advantage (->profit)? That's definitely a minor annoyance.
Risky? Courts in the EU are a lot saner than their US counterparts. Don't want to get slapped with antitrust fines? Obey the law. Really. It's not hard. Sell a better product at a lower price, for example.
If I was intel I'd pay my fine and get out.
Good thing you're not Intel. Or running Intel. You would have tried to fix one bad business decision (shady anticompetitive deals) with another really bad business decision (abandoning a significant portion of your market).
Did you know that European Union's main industry consists of hefty fines for American companies?
Err, no? And last I checked, it wasn't the case.
I'm not a big supporter of Intel's practices, and a strong opponent of anything Microsoft does, but come the fuck on! Is that money going to be disbursed to AMD for lost business?
No. Why should it? This isn't a civil suit of Intel vs. AMD. Intel is being punished for breaking the law.
EU anti-trust body has become a sick joke.
Why, because they actually do what they're supposed to be doing? You have an odd definition of "sick joke" there.
Who says the EU plans to stop with just Intel? I suspect they'll be hitting a lot more non-European companies with these fines if the recession continues (European companies will get a free pass, of course).
As they've slapped plenty of EU companies with fines for anticompetitive behavior, your accusations are fairly unfounded.
Without knowing exactly where it goes I can only speculate, but could this fine by so high to help fix European budgets stretched too thin by a weak economy?
No. The fine is a minor annoyance for Intel, and it's a tiny, tiny drop in the bucket compared to the budget holes of most European countries.
As far as I know it is quite normal that an employment contract forbids you to talk negatively about your company in public (during and after your employment). So they have a legal means of firing you if you simply expose corporate malpractice to the public.
They seem to actually CAUSE safty issues as I've seen a red-light camera that resulted in a rear-end collision when someone suddenly stopped on YELLOW because they were afraid of the camera.
No, the red-light camera didn't result in a rear-end collision. The idiot trying to cross the intersection on a yellow light while there's still a fscking car in front of him that had not entered the intersection caused the accident, period. Even more so if he wasn't keeping enough distance from that car. Don't blame cameras for lack of proper driving skills.
If a surgeon doesn't do his job right most likely the person dies.
Err.. no. The human body is amazingly resilient. You have to mess it up really good in order to kill it. Bad surgery will, most likely, result in consequences that are not fatal, but irritating and painful (several more days in hospital due to blood loss, disfigurement, paralysis, etc).
If a bridge falls apart most likely people die.
Possibly. But bad civil engineering doesn't require bridges to collapse. It can just result in increased costs for maintenance, buildings that have to be torn down, etc.
When most software breaks there is a minor inconvenience or perhaps Amazon is down for the day. Not a big deal in comparison to the surgeon or civil engineer's disaster.
When the wrong kind of software breaks, then life-supporting machines fail; planes, rockets, cars and trains crash; people get fatally irradiated/mangled/etc.
People got angry because there was no person who could testify that they had run a redlight.
No, people got angry because they got caught breaking traffic rules. Then they came up with the harebrained "accuser" argument.
There is this idea in America that people have the right to confront their accuser, and the cameras would not comply with subpoenas and would not break even when jailed for contempt.
Apparently, some people aren't smart enough to understand the difference between evidence and an accuser. The camera and its recordings are the former, the cop or prosecutor who shows up for the trial is the latter.
If you have a positive mass and a negative mass, the gravitational force between them will be repulsive. Instead of pulling each other, they'll push each other.
Err... maybe not. Let me try:
A positive mass is going to create gravity that will attract other positive masses, i.e. a force vector that points towards the positive mass.
A negative mass is going to create gravity with the opposite sign, i.e. a force vector that points away from the negative mass.
Then you have three cases:
1. Two positive masses will attract each other (their gravity "pulls" the other positive mass, which responds by accelerating in same direction as the force vector).
2. Two negative masses will attract each other (their gravity "pushes" the other negative mass, which responds by accelerating in the opposite direction of the force vector).
3. A negative and a positive mass will repel each other (the positive mass "pulls" the negative mass, which responds by accelerating in the opposite direction, and the negative mass "pushes" the positive mass, which responds by accelerating in the same direction).
Slashdot Mirror
Clearly the breathalyser software (since if faulty it can ruin peoples lives) should be held to a similar standard to safety critical systems.
If failure doesn't kill or injure people, it's not safety-critical. Sorry. And a breathalyzer doesn't find people guilty - that's still the job of a judge or jury.
If you hold any software that could "ruin peoples lives" if faulty to the same standards as software that will kill or maim people if faulty, why don't you start with current operating systems and office software?
Hey, at least the variable name was four characters long, so you could actually search for it.
Now imagine that global variable being named "i", and occasionally being hidden by definition of a local variable "i", which once in a while also has a different type.
The quote is from 1766. Franklin visited France for the first time in 1767, and Ireland in 1771.
Yes. But that was a decade after the quote in question (which is from 1766).
The quote is from 1766. Benjamin Franklin didn't visit France until one year later.
You seem to be forgetting, sir, that USA's justice system is built on the premise that it is better that 10 criminals go free,than that one innocent man is punished. Judging from the size of the prison propulation, I'd argue that in practice, it works exactly the opposite way.
Well the problem with calculating the averages should honestly be enough to get this tossed.
There's no "problem" with the lowpass filter. The problem is that whoever wrote that article apparently has no knowledge of signal processing, in particular spectra and filter types (FIR/IIR).
A whole two of them.
Why don't you just do what any sensible man would?
Yes. Nuke them from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.
And oddly enough, none of this punishment would have happened if it hadn't been for another American company complaining for years to the antitrust authorities.
So, roughly a quarter of a years worth of profit? And that's for several years worth of unlawful practices that gave the company a huge advantage (->profit)? That's definitely a minor annoyance.
Risky? Courts in the EU are a lot saner than their US counterparts. Don't want to get slapped with antitrust fines? Obey the law. Really. It's not hard. Sell a better product at a lower price, for example.
If I was intel I'd pay my fine and get out.
Good thing you're not Intel. Or running Intel. You would have tried to fix one bad business decision (shady anticompetitive deals) with another really bad business decision (abandoning a significant portion of your market).
People understand that very well.
As in, everything sold by intel in effect passes the cost of this judgment to the people buying the product.
And since people aren't forced to buy Intels products, they can look at less expensive alternatives.
Err, no? And last I checked, it wasn't the case.
I'm not a big supporter of Intel's practices, and a strong opponent of anything Microsoft does, but come the fuck on! Is that money going to be disbursed to AMD for lost business?
No. Why should it? This isn't a civil suit of Intel vs. AMD. Intel is being punished for breaking the law.
EU anti-trust body has become a sick joke.
Why, because they actually do what they're supposed to be doing? You have an odd definition of "sick joke" there.
As they've slapped plenty of EU companies with fines for anticompetitive behavior, your accusations are fairly unfounded.
Good. Very good. They will be selling less of their CPUs and motherboards, and their competition will be selling more.
Yes. Just like breaking a few legs is a necessary part of running a protection racket.
Without knowing exactly where it goes I can only speculate, but could this fine by so high to help fix European budgets stretched too thin by a weak economy?
No. The fine is a minor annoyance for Intel, and it's a tiny, tiny drop in the bucket compared to the budget holes of most European countries.
Are you trying so say, 'until what range does the .223 Remington maintain it's muzzle velocity?'
No, GGP isn't trying to say anything like that. But you're saying that you desperately need to have a look at a dictionary:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/range
As far as I know it is quite normal that an employment contract forbids you to talk negatively about your company in public (during and after your employment). So they have a legal means of firing you if you simply expose corporate malpractice to the public.
I wonder how that would work.
No, the red-light camera didn't result in a rear-end collision. The idiot trying to cross the intersection on a yellow light while there's still a fscking car in front of him that had not entered the intersection caused the accident, period. Even more so if he wasn't keeping enough distance from that car. Don't blame cameras for lack of proper driving skills.
You are calling the current Labour government liberal?
So? GP is probably from the US. There, they also think that the Democrats are "liberal", "socialist" and "left-wing".
If a surgeon doesn't do his job right most likely the person dies.
Err .. no. The human body is amazingly resilient. You have to mess it up really good in order to kill it. Bad surgery will, most likely, result in consequences that are not fatal, but irritating and painful (several more days in hospital due to blood loss, disfigurement, paralysis, etc).
If a bridge falls apart most likely people die.
Possibly. But bad civil engineering doesn't require bridges to collapse. It can just result in increased costs for maintenance, buildings that have to be torn down, etc.
When most software breaks there is a minor inconvenience or perhaps Amazon is down for the day. Not a big deal in comparison to the surgeon or civil engineer's disaster.
When the wrong kind of software breaks, then life-supporting machines fail; planes, rockets, cars and trains crash; people get fatally irradiated/mangled/etc.
People got angry because there was no person who could testify that they had run a redlight.
No, people got angry because they got caught breaking traffic rules. Then they came up with the harebrained "accuser" argument.
There is this idea in America that people have the right to confront their accuser, and the cameras would not comply with subpoenas and would not break even when jailed for contempt.
Apparently, some people aren't smart enough to understand the difference between evidence and an accuser. The camera and its recordings are the former, the cop or prosecutor who shows up for the trial is the latter.
Err ... maybe not. Let me try:
A positive mass is going to create gravity that will attract other positive masses, i.e. a force vector that points towards the positive mass.
A negative mass is going to create gravity with the opposite sign, i.e. a force vector that points away from the negative mass.
Then you have three cases:
1. Two positive masses will attract each other (their gravity "pulls" the other positive mass, which responds by accelerating in same direction as the force vector).
2. Two negative masses will attract each other (their gravity "pushes" the other negative mass, which responds by accelerating in the opposite direction of the force vector).
3. A negative and a positive mass will repel each other (the positive mass "pulls" the negative mass, which responds by accelerating in the opposite direction, and the negative mass "pushes" the positive mass, which responds by accelerating in the same direction).