However in the software world, the employees are not hamstrung by monetary concerns. Any Joe Programmer can pick up a cheap $200 bare bones PC and a copy of Linux and be programming the next great thing. He doesn't need management to do this. So management, despite its seeming power, does not actually have very much leverage over any IT employee.
Oh, I see, so all unemployed programmers are just hallucinating. All they need is to buy a computer and they can start working again. Problem solved! What's next, Dancin Santa, curing world hunger by reminding people to go to the store? Bah.
Ok, now that I have gotten that off my chest I can perhaps try to talk a bit less confrontationally...
If you are doing the "next big thing", how are you going to sell it? Big companies, do you think they will listen to a single unknown consultant? "Hi, I know you have never heard of me or talked to me before, but I have this great product you are REALLY going to want to buy... when do you want to meet me for a demo? *click* Hello? Hello?"
If you want to go retail, do you think nationwide or international retail stores are going to stock your product? Maybe you are thinking "I'll release this as open source and make a name for myself and then companies will come to me with job offers once I have become famous". That will take a year, minimum, if ever. How are you going to pay the rent and the bills in the meantime, especially if you have a family?
I am a bit ambivalent about unions though, I agree on that topic. I am a member of a union and they have benefited me a lot. First of all I have an unemployment unsurance, for one year I got 80% of my average salary. Second, if you ever get into a conflict with the management, it will be a HUGE relief to have others who are willing to listen to your side of the problem and maybe even fight for your rights. Even if they can't help you from getting fired it is great to feel that you aren't completely on your own.
The possible negative things from unions (at least in Sweden) in my opinion is that they try to set up lots of rules for who can get hired to a specific jobs. It is understandable, they are trying to protect the interest of their members and that includes making companies value their members' competence, but when you are standing on the outside looking in, it can really feel like the "mafia of the employed against the unemployed".
I just spent an exhausting time looking trough 700 or so posts on a 1000+ post topic discussing Kyoto. You were right, few pro-Kyoto posts were modded down. I am however proud to say that to me it seemed to be because they tended were worded fairly reasonably. They are either nicer people, or more clever and subtle trolls. One of the few posts modded down: http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=139641 &cid=11694786
This is almost like a personal vendetta on Microsoft directly from the EU. Noone really cares about the Microsoft anti-trust case in Europe, and the Windows XP 'Reduced Media Edition' is a flop.
It doesn't matter if the average European citizen doesn't care about this, or haven't even heard about it. The European Commission aren't involved in a popularity contest, they are supposed to enforce EU law.
Why would you buy a copy of a 'crippled' XP over a full-featured one.
"Vote Cuthulu. This time, why settle for the lesser evil?"
Its not like you cant just disable the features you don't want in XP (well, for the most part).
It is the "most part" that is a problem. Also, they are using their OS monopoly to also gain a online media monopoly. This is illegal.
Even the biggest Linux Zealot would need to admit they have come a long way since Windows 95 and are making improvements in terms of security, etc...
This is NOT about the quality of the products, this is about predatory business practices designed to enforce an unfair monopoly and kill innovation and competition.
Regardless of theory though, there's a far simpler solution - take a look at the demos. The X-Box:360 demos look good. Great even. They're definitely an incremental improvement over the current generation. The PS3 demos, however, look like something a movie studio rendered. It's like the difference between companies doing better and better stop motion animation and what Weta did with huge numbers of troops in Lord Of The Rings. That is why I'm tending to believe the PS3 claims. They may just be tech demos, not real games. But what tech demos they are.
Great! So we can look forward to another generation of games where all emphasis is on graphics, and development cost keep rising and independent developers get bought up by monsters like EA.
Actually, that was the purpose of the experiment. The drug was a phobia-reducer, the side effects are lowered blood pressure. They just told you it was a blood pressure med so as not to skew the results.
Yes, that is a continuing rumour/joke, especially when you participate in experiments at a psychology department.
However, in this case there are very strict rules for what the company can and can't do, so that is not possible.
Before signing up to the experiment you are provided with a document that describes the exact content of the medication, its intended use, its previous history of testing on human and animal subjects, and all recorded possible side effects with the statistical possibility of them occuring ("One subject in 50 experienced insomnia. One subject in 1000 reported heart palpitations..."), etc.
To participate you have to read it and sign that you have read it, and free the company from liability of ALL side effects of the experiment, known or unknown, present and future.
The only thing you can get apart from the medicine itself is the placebo, which was given to 50% of the subjects (double blind I think, neither we nor the nurses doing the supervising knew who got them).
I volunteered as a test subject a couple of years ago, several times. Partly because of the money (though you didn't get that much), but also, I guess, for the thrill of it (I wouldn't do it today).
Most of the experiments were totally harmless, but I have a couple of good horror stories. One experiment was a medicine for lowering blood pressure. It worked let me tell you, I almost passed out when running up some stairs the second day, and I'm normally fairly fit. It also contained beta-blockers, which turned out to give me horrible nightmares. Serveral nights I dreamt of being paralyzed, drowning while being tied up, buried alive etc. When waking up from the nightmares I was panicking, but I had problems moving. My body felt sluggish, and my heart was punding very hard but slow, though it *felt* like it should be racing.
A lasting positive effects of the experiments was that I lost my phobia of needles and blood after giving blood samples once every hour for 24 hours.
Thanks for pointing that out. Ok... I really have to check the book again with a more critical eye. I have only had time to do the first couple of chapters, and I really liked them. (Then I had to drop it and quickly read up on other stuff which was more likely to give me a job). It would seem I should have read *all* of the book carefully before praising it.
I knew my understanding of fundamental operating system concepts was weak, that is why I bought the book. Sadly, it seems I'm so ignorant I can't distinguish quality from crap, which is a very disheartening realisation.
I'll buy the Operating System Concepts book instead and read it very carefully when I have the time.
Operating System Concepts (and Operating System Concepts with Java) are both great books. However, I think Gary Nutt's Operating Systems is actually even better. I found it easier to read (or maybe I've gotten better... it was a while since I read OSC). Nutt's book has a lot of interesting lab exercises at the end of each chapter that you can do either on Windows or Unix/Linux. I found this really helps you understand and remember the concepts.
Terrible but true story. In 1997 when I started studying com-sci in Uppsala, one of my classmates told me about working late night with an assignment in the computer lab. He was alone apart from one other student. After a while he had heard the guy giggling. He ignored it for a while, but eventually got annoyed, and when he looked over the guy was sitting surfing porn and jacking off. My classmate just walked away in disgust.
A month later, I saw the guy myself. This time, it was daytime, in a lab full of people. I was walking around, stretching my legs, and I see a guy sitting in front of a computer in the corner, with his fly open and his hand inside, squeezing. He was browsing hard core porn and chatting on sex channels. Totally oblivious to the people around him, occasionally giggling loudly.
I went to the teachers lounge and said that there was a problem. Two of them went back to the lab and asked the guy to come with them. Two minutes a group came into the crowded lab and headed for the only available computer. I told them: "Trust me, you don't want that one. At least switch the keyboard."
The guy must have been suffering from schizofrenia or similar illness.
[...] the simple fact is that PJ stepped up and made herself a public figure in an extremely controversial case. And there is no constitutional or guaranteed right to remain anonymous.
Public figures deal with this kind of poking and prying all the time. Celebrities deal with paparazi. Politicians deal with people digging into every nook and cranny of their life. Innocent, ordinary people who are thrust into the spotlight have all sorts of private details published and pored over.
As others before me have pointed out, there is a big difference between tabloids and reputable newspapers and magazines. I never read tabloids, I find them disgusting stupid garbage. Now, I believed Sys-con to be a company that dealt with serious journalism, but it seems I have been proven wrong. Therefore I have cancelled my subscription to Java Developer Journal.
and to claim her story was a gross violation of journalistic ethics is a biased response. (The Google cache of her story is still available. If you haven't read it, read it yourself.)
I HAVE read it, and it was a breach of journalistic ethics. If you think my opinion is biased, ask Fred Brown, co-chair of the Society of Professional Journalists Ethics Commitee:
James,
I agree with you. That piece by O'Gara definitely is outside the norms of good journalism. It's bullying, insulting and harassing, and I, for one, really don't get the point of it. That's not to say that other journalists are sometimes guilty of those sins, but that still doesn't make it good journalism.
So I don't think you did the wrong thing in using you First Amendment rights to call for O'Gara's ouster or reprimand or whatever. The SPJ Code of Ethics says ethical journalists should "expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media" and "abide by the same high standards to which they hold others."
If Daryl McBride's personal information had been published (and it seems like at some point it was, although I can't find the story now), everyone would be cheering the public's "right to know."
Yes it was, I have seen it posted on Slashdot by ACs on serveral occasions. Guess what, it wasn't cheered as the public's right to know, it was modded down to -1 on all occasions I saw, and people who replied and said that this was wrong tended to be modded up.
If you choose to put yourself in the spotlight, you can expect to have the press breathing down your neck. You don't have to like it but you might as well get used to it. It's a part of American life. It's the obverse side of the "freedom of the press" coin. Would you really prefer to live in a place where the press is constrained?
I believe you are presenting a false dichotomy here. You essentially say: Either we are against freedom of the press and pro-censorship, or we should shut up about this case. I haven't seen one post here advocating censorship. We are expressing our own DISLIKE of these tactings, and say that we choose to not buy Sys-con products in the future. Big difference.
Apart from these things I agree with your article. Foul tactics should always be fought against. You must be careful that you don't become the thing what you hate.
e still doesn't seem to understand what he did wrong.
I think this is an ongoing trend. In Sweden, as in most of the western world, there has been a number of scandals in politics and business lately. Every time the people in charge claim to apologize, you see that what they are actually saying is "We are sorry this came to public attention."
They might be willing to remove someone lower down. However, when you look closely you almost always see that the person was given an equally prestigious position somewhere else in the political/business hierarchy. Andn the management or political leaders who let all this happen, they refuse to accept any guilt for what happened on their watch.
I'm beginning to wonder if most positions of leadership is occupied by sociopaths. Hitting them in the wallet seems to be the only thing they understand, therefore, from now on I will boycott Sys-con until this editor is sacked and management clearly distance themselves from this kind of behaviour in the future.
This was very unfortunate. I was glad to be offered a free subscription for Java Developer Journal just a day ago. I accepted, but after reading this interview I sent a polite mail asking to cancelling it.
Oh joy, more hilarious french bashing by anglos. He did this before. In his otherwise good wine-school program for TV, he put on an "outrrrrrrrageuos" phony french accent when he was talking about the terribly wine snobbery that existed.
I remember when Cleese jokes were daring and original, and not just easy crowd pleasing by pandering to popular prejudices. Sorry to be harsh, but like Clive Barker, he seems to have lost his creativity and originality when he moved to the US. Or maybe it's just age.
Why shouldn't he? When was the last time exactly we were at the focus of internatinal government cooperation and made a big article in the New York Times and the Front Page of/.?
Yes, but on the other hand he got famous for being stupid enough to get caught.
A nice paradox summed up in the movie Young Poisoner's Handbook. Our anti-hero has decided to become the world's greatest poisoner. But the greatest poisoner can't get caught, so how is he going to get famous?
The suspect is a 16 year old boy from Uppsala, Sweden, my hometown. I bet he doesn't feel as clever now as he used to.:-)
I look forward to Maureen O'Gara's next scoop though: "He came from Uppsala, the headquarter of famous open source company mySQL AB! Also the place where Vikings once slaughtered Christians in pagan rituals! All a coincidence? I think not!!"
The people who do so are not whining, or demanding, and they aren't being rude ASSHOLES
It is if they are spreading FUD, and a lot of people here are. "Undocumented Sun only Java libraries" my ass. The code is open for anyone to look at. See what Kaffe, GCJ or Harmony is missing and implement that instead of wasting time bashing Sun.
Since all responses so far have been very reasonable ("if you think it is a problem, do your own version then and don't bash Sun"), I predict the trolls will try to change the discussion to "I hate Java and it sucks compared to my favourite language X", or "Java vs Mono", with inflammatory posts.
Yes, unfortunately it is a technology that is possible to abuse, but what technology isn't? The Internet was developed in close collaboration with the US military, but nevertheless it became a world wide technology that benefits all of mankind. Linux might be used to guide missiles, does that make it evil?
With the large number of libertarian and conservative pundits and lobbyists who are claiming that environmentalism is rubbish (Lomborg for instance...), I welcome more hard data to refute them with. ...or the data could refute my beliefs of course, which will be a blow to my ego in the short term, but in the long term will make me sleep better at night.:-)
The threat to withhold the final paycheck is, of course, illegal. The way to deal with this is to politely remind the boss of that fact. If that produces more outbursts, then you should take it to the HR department, and maybe your boss's boss, both of whom will be quite concerned at the legal exposure such a threat creates. Or, if the boss is also the proprietor, you should talk to the state employment commission.
If you lived in Europe, the first step would probably be to talk to your union, and/or an ombudsman.:-)
A popular modern fantasy series primarily directed at children but with appeal for adults as well is Philip Pullmans His Dark Materials.
Surprisingly negative portrayal of organised religion, especially Catholisism, in the third book, and I say this despite being an atheist. Still, a breath of fresh air from the religious stuff in Lewis work.
Seconded... I really liked Thief 3 and thought it was on par with the earlier ones though.
If you are trying System Shock 2, try downloading the System Shock Rebirth mod which creates higher quality meshes for many objects/opponents but doesn't change gameplay. Very nice.. except maybe the midwife which I thought was scarier in the original, and has gratuitous bare brests in the remake.
The only game that has scared me so much I had to sleep with the lights on. "Babies must sleep... babies must rest... why do you disturb us?"
Better bring new gameplay elemenets... or its just the same game we've already played, with nicer moving pictures. Just once, i would like to see an FPS multiplayer online game that takes into account good animation and movement. I want to see cool stuff while i play, not just run around and see others running simply with silly guns we've all played with a thousand times already.
Id software is the LAST company you should look to for this. They haven't even done it in single player game. For over ten years now they have basically done the same game over and over again, and I think they are the most overrated game company in existance. Ok, Doom3 actually had a few stabs at developing characters and plot... by taking just about everything from System Shock 2.
Keep you eyes open for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. It just might have what you are looking for.
Rather than worrying so much about WMDs and other minutiae,
Minutiae? It was the reason they wanted you to go to war, remember? No, I guess you don't, you are an expert on doublethink.
There is no such thing as "the right to enslave."A nation can do it, just as a man can become a criminal - but neither can do it by right.It does not matter, in this context, whether a nation was enslaved by force, like Soviet Russia, or by vote, like Nazi Germany.
Or by capitalism, like in the US?
Dictatorship nations are outlaws. Any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany and, today, has the right to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba or any other slave pen.
I submit, that by Rand logic, any country has the moral right to invade the US based on how they treat the people enslaved in Guatanamo bay.
Slashdot Mirror
However in the software world, the employees are not hamstrung by monetary concerns. Any Joe Programmer can pick up a cheap $200 bare bones PC and a copy of Linux and be programming the next great thing. He doesn't need management to do this. So management, despite its seeming power, does not actually have very much leverage over any IT employee.
Oh, I see, so all unemployed programmers are just hallucinating. All they need is to buy a computer and they can start working again. Problem solved! What's next, Dancin Santa, curing world hunger by reminding people to go to the store? Bah.
Ok, now that I have gotten that off my chest I can perhaps try to talk a bit less confrontationally...
If you are doing the "next big thing", how are you going to sell it? Big companies, do you think they will listen to a single unknown consultant? "Hi, I know you have never heard of me or talked to me before, but I have this great product you are REALLY going to want to buy... when do you want to meet me for a demo? *click* Hello? Hello?"
If you want to go retail, do you think nationwide or international retail stores are going to stock your product? Maybe you are thinking "I'll release this as open source and make a name for myself and then companies will come to me with job offers once I have become famous". That will take a year, minimum, if ever. How are you going to pay the rent and the bills in the meantime, especially if you have a family?
I am a bit ambivalent about unions though, I agree on that topic. I am a member of a union and they have benefited me a lot. First of all I have an unemployment unsurance, for one year I got 80% of my average salary. Second, if you ever get into a conflict with the management, it will be a HUGE relief to have others who are willing to listen to your side of the problem and maybe even fight for your rights. Even if they can't help you from getting fired it is great to feel that you aren't completely on your own.
The possible negative things from unions (at least in Sweden) in my opinion is that they try to set up lots of rules for who can get hired to a specific jobs. It is understandable, they are trying to protect the interest of their members and that includes making companies value their members' competence, but when you are standing on the outside looking in, it can really feel like the "mafia of the employed against the unemployed".
I just spent an exhausting time looking trough 700 or so posts on a 1000+ post topic discussing Kyoto. You were right, few pro-Kyoto posts were modded down. I am however proud to say that to me it seemed to be because they tended were worded fairly reasonably. They are either nicer people, or more clever and subtle trolls. One of the few posts modded down:1 &cid=11694786
1 &cid=11687957
1 &cid=11688518 1 &cid=11688935 1 &cid=11696011 1 &cid=11690049 1 &cid=11689558 1 &cid=11688712 1 &cid=11688702 1 &cid=11688562 1 &cid=11688363 1 &cid=11688363 1 &cid=11688363
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13964
Compare this with the tone of some anti-Kyoto people who WERE modded down:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13964
Several anti-Kyoto posts were modded up:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13964
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13964
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13964
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13964
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13964
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13964
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13964
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13964
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13964
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13964
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13964
In summary: Quit yer whining. If karma is that important to you, your "side" should learn to argue better.
This is almost like a personal vendetta on Microsoft directly from the EU. Noone really cares about the Microsoft anti-trust case in Europe, and the Windows XP 'Reduced Media Edition' is a flop.
It doesn't matter if the average European citizen doesn't care about this, or haven't even heard about it. The European Commission aren't involved in a popularity contest, they are supposed to enforce EU law.
Why would you buy a copy of a 'crippled' XP over a full-featured one.
"Vote Cuthulu. This time, why settle for the lesser evil?"
Its not like you cant just disable the features you don't want in XP (well, for the most part).
It is the "most part" that is a problem. Also, they are using their OS monopoly to also gain a online media monopoly. This is illegal.
Even the biggest Linux Zealot would need to admit they have come a long way since Windows 95 and are making improvements in terms of security, etc...
This is NOT about the quality of the products, this is about predatory business practices designed to enforce an unfair monopoly and kill innovation and competition.
Regardless of theory though, there's a far simpler solution - take a look at the demos. The X-Box:360 demos look good. Great even. They're definitely an incremental improvement over the current generation. The PS3 demos, however, look like something a movie studio rendered. It's like the difference between companies doing better and better stop motion animation and what Weta did with huge numbers of troops in Lord Of The Rings. That is why I'm tending to believe the PS3 claims. They may just be tech demos, not real games. But what tech demos they are.
Great! So we can look forward to another generation of games where all emphasis is on graphics, and development cost keep rising and independent developers get bought up by monsters like EA.
Only half joking.
Actually, that was the purpose of the experiment. The drug was a phobia-reducer, the side effects are lowered blood pressure. They just told you it was a blood pressure med so as not to skew the results.
Yes, that is a continuing rumour/joke, especially when you participate in experiments at a psychology department.
However, in this case there are very strict rules for what the company can and can't do, so that is not possible.
Before signing up to the experiment you are provided with a document that describes the exact content of the medication, its intended use, its previous history of testing on human and animal subjects, and all recorded possible side effects with the statistical possibility of them occuring ("One subject in 50 experienced insomnia. One subject in 1000 reported heart palpitations..."), etc.
To participate you have to read it and sign that you have read it, and free the company from liability of ALL side effects of the experiment, known or unknown, present and future.
The only thing you can get apart from the medicine itself is the placebo, which was given to 50% of the subjects (double blind I think, neither we nor the nurses doing the supervising knew who got them).
I volunteered as a test subject a couple of years ago, several times. Partly because of the money (though you didn't get that much), but also, I guess, for the thrill of it (I wouldn't do it today).
Most of the experiments were totally harmless, but I have a couple of good horror stories. One experiment was a medicine for lowering blood pressure. It worked let me tell you, I almost passed out when running up some stairs the second day, and I'm normally fairly fit. It also contained beta-blockers, which turned out to give me horrible nightmares. Serveral nights I dreamt of being paralyzed, drowning while being tied up, buried alive etc. When waking up from the nightmares I was panicking, but I had problems moving. My body felt sluggish, and my heart was punding very hard but slow, though it *felt* like it should be racing.
A lasting positive effects of the experiments was that I lost my phobia of needles and blood after giving blood samples once every hour for 24 hours.
Yikes!!
Thanks for pointing that out. Ok... I really have to check the book again with a more critical eye. I have only had time to do the first couple of chapters, and I really liked them. (Then I had to drop it and quickly read up on other stuff which was more likely to give me a job). It would seem I should have read *all* of the book carefully before praising it.
I knew my understanding of fundamental operating system concepts was weak, that is why I bought the book. Sadly, it seems I'm so ignorant I can't distinguish quality from crap, which is a very disheartening realisation.
I'll buy the Operating System Concepts book instead and read it very carefully when I have the time.
Operating System Concepts (and Operating System Concepts with Java) are both great books. However, I think Gary Nutt's Operating Systems is actually even better. I found it easier to read (or maybe I've gotten better... it was a while since I read OSC). Nutt's book has a lot of interesting lab exercises at the end of each chapter that you can do either on Windows or Unix/Linux. I found this really helps you understand and remember the concepts.
Yah...
Terrible but true story. In 1997 when I started studying com-sci in Uppsala, one of my classmates told me about working late night with an assignment in the computer lab. He was alone apart from one other student. After a while he had heard the guy giggling. He ignored it for a while, but eventually got annoyed, and when he looked over the guy was sitting surfing porn and jacking off. My classmate just walked away in disgust.
A month later, I saw the guy myself. This time, it was daytime, in a lab full of people. I was walking around, stretching my legs, and I see a guy sitting in front of a computer in the corner, with his fly open and his hand inside, squeezing. He was browsing hard core porn and chatting on sex channels. Totally oblivious to the people around him, occasionally giggling loudly.
I went to the teachers lounge and said that there was a problem. Two of them went back to the lab and asked the guy to come with them. Two minutes a group came into the crowded lab and headed for the only available computer. I told them: "Trust me, you don't want that one. At least switch the keyboard."
The guy must have been suffering from schizofrenia or similar illness.
Public figures deal with this kind of poking and prying all the time. Celebrities deal with paparazi. Politicians deal with people digging into every nook and cranny of their life. Innocent, ordinary people who are thrust into the spotlight have all sorts of private details published and pored over.
As others before me have pointed out, there is a big difference between tabloids and reputable newspapers and magazines. I never read tabloids, I find them disgusting stupid garbage. Now, I believed Sys-con to be a company that dealt with serious journalism, but it seems I have been proven wrong. Therefore I have cancelled my subscription to Java Developer Journal.
and to claim her story was a gross violation of journalistic ethics is a biased response. (The Google cache of her story is still available. If you haven't read it, read it yourself.)
I HAVE read it, and it was a breach of journalistic ethics. If you think my opinion is biased, ask Fred Brown, co-chair of the Society of Professional Journalists Ethics Commitee:
http://turner.linuxworld.com/read/1277987.htm
If Daryl McBride's personal information had been published (and it seems like at some point it was, although I can't find the story now), everyone would be cheering the public's "right to know."
Yes it was, I have seen it posted on Slashdot by ACs on serveral occasions. Guess what, it wasn't cheered as the public's right to know, it was modded down to -1 on all occasions I saw, and people who replied and said that this was wrong tended to be modded up.
If you choose to put yourself in the spotlight, you can expect to have the press breathing down your neck. You don't have to like it but you might as well get used to it. It's a part of American life. It's the obverse side of the "freedom of the press" coin. Would you really prefer to live in a place where the press is constrained?
I believe you are presenting a false dichotomy here. You essentially say: Either we are against freedom of the press and pro-censorship, or we should shut up about this case. I haven't seen one post here advocating censorship. We are expressing our own DISLIKE of these tactings, and say that we choose to not buy Sys-con products in the future. Big difference.
Apart from these things I agree with your article. Foul tactics should always be fought against. You must be careful that you don't become the thing what you hate.
e still doesn't seem to understand what he did wrong.
I think this is an ongoing trend. In Sweden, as in most of the western world, there has been a number of scandals in politics and business lately. Every time the people in charge claim to apologize, you see that what they are actually saying is "We are sorry this came to public attention."
They might be willing to remove someone lower down. However, when you look closely you almost always see that the person was given an equally prestigious position somewhere else in the political/business hierarchy. Andn the management or political leaders who let all this happen, they refuse to accept any guilt for what happened on their watch.
I'm beginning to wonder if most positions of leadership is occupied by sociopaths. Hitting them in the wallet seems to be the only thing they understand, therefore, from now on I will boycott Sys-con until this editor is sacked and management clearly distance themselves from this kind of behaviour in the future.
This was very unfortunate. I was glad to be offered a free subscription for Java Developer Journal just a day ago. I accepted, but after reading this interview I sent a polite mail asking to cancelling it.
Oh joy, more hilarious french bashing by anglos. He did this before. In his otherwise good wine-school program for TV, he put on an "outrrrrrrrageuos" phony french accent when he was talking about the terribly wine snobbery that existed.
I remember when Cleese jokes were daring and original, and not just easy crowd pleasing by pandering to popular prejudices. Sorry to be harsh, but like Clive Barker, he seems to have lost his creativity and originality when he moved to the US. Or maybe it's just age.
Why shouldn't he? When was the last time exactly we were at the focus of internatinal government cooperation and made a big article in the New York Times and the Front Page of /.?
Yes, but on the other hand he got famous for being stupid enough to get caught.
A nice paradox summed up in the movie Young Poisoner's Handbook. Our anti-hero has decided to become the world's greatest poisoner. But the greatest poisoner can't get caught, so how is he going to get famous?
The suspect is a 16 year old boy from Uppsala, Sweden, my hometown. I bet he doesn't feel as clever now as he used to. :-)
I look forward to Maureen O'Gara's next scoop though: "He came from Uppsala, the headquarter of famous open source company mySQL AB! Also the place where Vikings once slaughtered Christians in pagan rituals! All a coincidence? I think not!!"
The people who do so are not whining, or demanding, and they aren't being rude ASSHOLES
It is if they are spreading FUD, and a lot of people here are. "Undocumented Sun only Java libraries" my ass. The code is open for anyone to look at. See what Kaffe, GCJ or Harmony is missing and implement that instead of wasting time bashing Sun.
*What* undocumented features? Can we see any proof please?
Since all responses so far have been very reasonable ("if you think it is a problem, do your own version then and don't bash Sun"), I predict the trolls will try to change the discussion to "I hate Java and it sucks compared to my favourite language X", or "Java vs Mono", with inflammatory posts.
Don't take the bait.
Yes, unfortunately it is a technology that is possible to abuse, but what technology isn't? The Internet was developed in close collaboration with the US military, but nevertheless it became a world wide technology that benefits all of mankind. Linux might be used to guide missiles, does that make it evil?
...or the data could refute my beliefs of course, which will be a blow to my ego in the short term, but in the long term will make me sleep better at night. :-)
With the large number of libertarian and conservative pundits and lobbyists who are claiming that environmentalism is rubbish (Lomborg for instance...), I welcome more hard data to refute them with.
The threat to withhold the final paycheck is, of course, illegal. The way to deal with this is to politely remind the boss of that fact. If that produces more outbursts, then you should take it to the HR department, and maybe your boss's boss, both of whom will be quite concerned at the legal exposure such a threat creates. Or, if the boss is also the proprietor, you should talk to the state employment commission.
:-)
If you lived in Europe, the first step would probably be to talk to your union, and/or an ombudsman.
Ps3 outperforms Xbox2
Thank you, Zymano, reporter from the future!
Nothing smacks more of fanboysim than crowing about which product is best even before it and its competitors have been released.
A popular modern fantasy series primarily directed at children but with appeal for adults as well is Philip Pullmans His Dark Materials.
Surprisingly negative portrayal of organised religion, especially Catholisism, in the third book, and I say this despite being an atheist. Still, a breath of fresh air from the religious stuff in Lewis work.
Seconded... I really liked Thief 3 and thought it was on par with the earlier ones though.
If you are trying System Shock 2, try downloading the System Shock Rebirth mod which creates higher quality meshes for many objects/opponents but doesn't change gameplay. Very nice.. except maybe the midwife which I thought was scarier in the original, and has gratuitous bare brests in the remake.
The only game that has scared me so much I had to sleep with the lights on. "Babies must sleep... babies must rest... why do you disturb us?"
Better bring new gameplay elemenets... or its just the same game we've already played, with nicer moving pictures. Just once, i would like to see an FPS multiplayer online game that takes into account good animation and movement. I want to see cool stuff while i play, not just run around and see others running simply with silly guns we've all played with a thousand times already.
Id software is the LAST company you should look to for this. They haven't even done it in single player game. For over ten years now they have basically done the same game over and over again, and I think they are the most overrated game company in existance. Ok, Doom3 actually had a few stabs at developing characters and plot... by taking just about everything from System Shock 2.
Keep you eyes open for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. It just might have what you are looking for.
Rather than worrying so much about WMDs and other minutiae,
Minutiae? It was the reason they wanted you to go to war, remember? No, I guess you don't, you are an expert on doublethink.
There is no such thing as "the right to enslave."A nation can do it, just as a man can become a criminal - but neither can do it by right.It does not matter, in this context, whether a nation was enslaved by force, like Soviet Russia, or by vote, like Nazi Germany.
Or by capitalism, like in the US?
Dictatorship nations are outlaws. Any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany and, today, has the right to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba or any other slave pen.
I submit, that by Rand logic, any country has the moral right to invade the US based on how they treat the people enslaved in Guatanamo bay.