An antivirus company saying that Windows in insecure would be like BP saying that we should all switch to solar power and stop using oil.
Not to excuse the cretins that set up the circumstances for the current mess in the Gulf, but BP actually is a strong proponent of solar usage. At least in the States, their Arco stations are (where practical) using solar power as much as possible.
Did they engage in defamation? Yes. Is defamation legitimate grounds for suspension? No.
That is untrue. It is absolutely grounds for suspension. I was a high school teacher for five years and dealing with discipline amongst the students is paramount
As another has commented, if the defamation occurs on school grounds, while the student is in your charge, suspension might be appropriate. If you wish to have the authority to impose discipline for a students actions, you have to be prepared to take the responsibility that goes along with it.
You are free to pursue civil charges against the student (and their lawful guardian), but you are not free to insert yourself into such actions.
As a teacher you've got to stand in front of 30 (ish) teenagers and teach. Many of them don't want to be there, some of them have decided that they hate you personally over some personal slight from six months ago (ie: telling them they must complete their assignment rather than playing flash games, or it seems an issue with uniform as in the article).
And if you are not prepared to handle it or incapable of doing so, you are in the wrong profession. What you describe is specifically related to your ability as a teacher.
Inside or outside of school is irrelevant (though is it the case that the speech that is accessible in school is speech in school?)
It does not matter that the "speech" is "accessible in school (although your school might want to look at it's policies), it is that it is not expressed on school grounds.
Leaving discipline choices up to the good parents is fine, leaving discipline choices up to bad parents is disaster.
And who left it up to you to decide who is a good parent? Do you have that list of qualities to judge by? Or are you just advocating something similar to Mr. Justice Stewart regarding pornography: "I know it when I see it"?
At the end of the day, the punishment of suspension is about teaching them right from wrong, and a page calling your teacher a pedophile is wrong.
You seem to think that your job is simply teaching morals. Your job is not to decide what is right and what is wrong (especially when the conduct is out of your sight and control). You are not the keeper of the compass.
If you are wronged in any fashion, there are legal remedies. You seem to advocate bypassing them and acting as the arbiter of morals, even when you are not given such authority.
The student should have definitely been sued, and I'm disappointed the ACLU is defending them, because if their defense is successful my kids will be going to school with teachers and principals that are pedophiles, rapist, murders and drug dealers... or at least that's what it says when I do a google search if the ACLU gets their way.
The ACLU is not defending their actions, they are defending them against inappropriate punishment. There is a difference.
Had the school referred the matter to the parents, or the "injured party" filed a civil act against them, the ACLU would not have been involved. Instead, the school instituted an administrative punishment, which affected the student at school, for actions that were not taken within the school's jurisdiction.
For those who do not understand the difference: You leave work (where your boss is a Carrie Nation fan*). You stop for a libation on the way home. You are then docked half a day's pay for that action. If you are not on call (and therefore not on the company's time), should you pay the penalty?
*For those who don't understand the reference, think "Prohibition".
If you need to upgrade all the computers in the department, you can't choose Linux, because it will mean rewiting a bunch of internal VBA / IE6 ActiveX apps
The fact that it exists, and that name wasn't used, pretty much confirms for me that it's not a legit story at this time.
Ever think about the possibility that what Google is using internally is a custom spin? It would be logical that they would have a standard set of packages (no flame wars please) to support their business.
Since you are looking at 10K or more systems, no business in their right mind would use only the recommended packages from any one vendor. Add to that the support requirements and you are looking at a sophisticated configuration.
They've gone out of their way not to actually mention any figures in their public statements. All the 5k barrels / day numbers come from people like the Coast Guard and NOAA.
Except for the one where they admitted that the pipe they attached was drawing 5K barrels/day into the ship with no visible decrease in the leak rate. That one did come from BP.
Does it provide video of enough quality that it would stand up in court as reliable evidence of the creeps who might break into my house again this summer?
It depends on the jurisdiction. For plain "see judge, this is what I saw" (as a backup to a witness), probably. As standalone evidence, probably not.
The reason for this is that, unlike film cameras, the computer based pictures are discrete pictures that can be edited easily by any of a number of video editors. Commercial grade (Sony, AXIS, Panasonic) IP Video Surveillance products are generally combined with software that includes embedded time stamps and other features that lessen the probability of a faked image.
That said, for home usage such as you suggest, the home variety should do the trick. Of course, you could also plant big signs in your yard that say "Video Surveillance in Progress" and hope they read better than some that I have caught.
Which is why I'll probably get hate for asking this, but it is something I have just never understood about Linux: What is up with the rushing new versions out the door?
As well you should. Even though a new version comes out somewhat regularly, there is no requirement that you upgrade. I know people that are still running FC5&6, because they work for them.
I mean, say what you want about MSFT (And IMHO anybody who bought Vista should have gotten a free upgrade to 7 for being dumped with that turkey) their support cycles are long enough that by Sp2 most of the nasty bugs are gone and you end up with a pretty stable OS.
And how long was it before SP2 came out for XP? And those bugs that are created by installing updates? Oh, and how about IE6.
But I tried running Ubuntu from 6 to 9.04 because of all the buzz, and it seemed like every release would fix one bug and add three.
In the same package? Or was it some new program that you just had to have? Granted, some things (like wireless and cutting edge video cards) can be dicey, but the mainstream distributors of GNU/Linux don't have the same access to hardware/driver information that Microsoft does.
And of course since a new version came out every 6 months the previous versions never did get fixed, they just got tossed to the side. I even tried the LTS but it didn't seem any better as far as being less buggy, it just ran old software.
And you did provide information to the maintainers of the software, didn't you? "Old software" (aka a few rev's behind bleeding edge) is there because it works. Besides, "less buggy" says absolutely nothing with regards to fixing the problem (software and/or PEBCAK).
So I'm not trying to troll here, I'm just honestly curious as to why the strange behavior.
Wanting to try out the "latest and greatest" is not strange, it's natural. What is strange is the expectation that software will always be bug free coupled with the implied opinion that Microsoft's offerings are in some way superior (after they have gone through countless bug fixes).
This is not virtualization. It is exactly what it says. The product referenced in the article is a separate file system.
The way de-duplication works is the system maintains a hash table for the file system (usually block level). When it detects that two files have a block in common, it sets a flag that says "this block is common to both of these files".
The entry is essentialy an inode entry (linked list) and a reference count.
The effort is more commonly used in virtual tape systems, because you will normally have multiple generations of the same tape file. It is also the way that zones (under Solaris) and virtual systems (under AIX) work, since there is generally a certain amount of static data shared between zones.
It does however have implications for common data between web server instances and/or web+(s)ftp instances. If you should need to restore data to a web server instance where dedup is active, the restore is much faster when you only have to actually write a subset of the data back.
It would be well worth it (if you should have a test system) to experiment with the tech. After all, the product is free.
Look at China. It's own purposes overlap the needs of its people. It needs to artificially manipulate the value of its money for many reasons. Some for its own purposes, some for the betterment of some of the citizens.
And therein lies the problem. It should be for the betterment of all of the citizens.
"ask your doctor if [insert drug here] is right for you".
Even better are the ones that say "Tell your doctor if you have [insert disease here]". Last I knew, since my doctor is supposedly monitoring my health, my doctor should be telling me.
Otherwise, this is a blatant invitation for doctor shopping. If your doctor will not prescribe the medicine du jour, find one that will.
This could improve distribution beyond SuSE into other areas. Then Novell could concentrate on their service line, and perhaps let SuSE die, or release all of the SuSE specific bits to the community, for introduction into other distros. Novell could easily go the IBM path and become a systems integration and management company concentrating on Linux, over being a specific software provider.
For enterprise level systems (think SAN storage), the two major distributions that are supported are RHEL and SLES. At least in the IBM Storage Systems arena, those (along with Windows, AIX and z/OS) are the only platforms that are officially supported. Novell would be insane to forgo that market.
Knuth remarked on that situation in his magnum opus TAOCP vol 3 on sorting and searching. In the part about sorting with tape drives, he remarked that he'd never seen a large computer installation where all the tape drives were working. You'd have a computer with ten tape drives, two of them would be down pending repairs, and you'd use the other eight.
I call bullshit. I maintained large IBM sites for 20 years. I never had 20 percent of my drives down at any time (2401, 2420, 3420, 3480). If you are seeing that sort of service level, change service providers.
True, they shouldn't be compensated for nothing. They should be paid for work they have done and everything else is to take them to a position neutral to what he would have had if the contract had never taken place.
That includes compensation for not pursuing other projects.
I'd be willing to bet that some fair percentage of the people with their hands on the keyboards in NANOG would be able to fire up their HAM (radio) sets if the backbones got so totally overwhelmed that nothing could get through. (edited for clarity)
In the event of a major disaster, Ham Radio (under the auspices of the ARRL) has MORs with FEMA, Red Cross, DOD and most state and local governments. There will not be a total communications breakdown unless FEMA is run by the president of an arabian horse association.
I totally disagree: the NHTSA shouldn't hire engineers. NHTSA should not do the job of Toyota's engineers and testers; they were created to set policy and propose safety laws. The NHTSA should hire economists, policy makers, and maybe some scientists. But the job of ensuring the nuts and bolts of a car are safe should fall on the car-maker, with strict repercussions if they fail.
No, you do not need people to test all of the various vehicles, but you do need knowledgeable people to design the test protocols.
As long as you allow manufacturers to tell you what tests they are going to run, as opposed to what tests will be acceptable, you have the corporate equivalent of the fox guarding the henhouse.
In a nutshell, Rambus participated in the standards setting process for SDRAM technology without informing any of the other members that they were actively pursuing patents in the technology used to implement the standard. Once the standard was finalized, they disclosed the patents and demanded royalties.
Methinks that Rambus was in the wrong. So does the FTC.
And it can get even stranger. At least in Arizona, your zip code is not an indicator as to the county you live in (not to mention what city). In order to administer collection of sales/use taxes down to the local level (yes, we do have cities that levy sales taxes), you would almost need GPS/GIS information.
If you have a Queen Creek zip code, you might live in Queen Creek, in unincorporated Maricopa county or in unincorporated Pinal county (all at different rates). Which combination of state/county/local sales taxes do you collect?
The same goes for the Pinal/Pima county line (Red Rock and Marana). Once again, one zip code with multiple jurisdictions with different tax rates.
When the politicians say this is an issue of fairness (no sales tax - competitive advantage to online retailers), they somehow miss the other side of the coin. When the brick and mortar stores add handling and delivery charges the online stores should collect sales taxes.
Slashdot Mirror
And if you do that on a production database, you deserve to be:
Repeatedly.
If anybody has other suggestions (as painful as the imagination will allow), please feel free to add them.
Yet they are a perfect example of the schizophrenic nature of our legislators:
Yet,
Imagen how many more cities, counties and states would have to declare bankruptcy if everybody stopped smoking tomorrow.
Not to excuse the cretins that set up the circumstances for the current mess in the Gulf, but BP actually is a strong proponent of solar usage. At least in the States, their Arco stations are (where practical) using solar power as much as possible.
Wrong. The reason for your SSN being collected is Child Support Enforcement.
As another has commented, if the defamation occurs on school grounds, while the student is in your charge, suspension might be appropriate. If you wish to have the authority to impose discipline for a students actions, you have to be prepared to take the responsibility that goes along with it.
You are free to pursue civil charges against the student (and their lawful guardian), but you are not free to insert yourself into such actions.
And if you are not prepared to handle it or incapable of doing so, you are in the wrong profession. What you describe is specifically related to your ability as a teacher.
It does not matter that the "speech" is "accessible in school (although your school might want to look at it's policies), it is that it is not expressed on school grounds.
And who left it up to you to decide who is a good parent? Do you have that list of qualities to judge by? Or are you just advocating something similar to Mr. Justice Stewart regarding pornography: "I know it when I see it"?
You seem to think that your job is simply teaching morals. Your job is not to decide what is right and what is wrong (especially when the conduct is out of your sight and control). You are not the keeper of the compass.
If you are wronged in any fashion, there are legal remedies. You seem to advocate bypassing them and acting as the arbiter of morals, even when you are not given such authority.
The ACLU is not defending their actions, they are defending them against inappropriate punishment. There is a difference.
Had the school referred the matter to the parents, or the "injured party" filed a civil act against them, the ACLU would not have been involved. Instead, the school instituted an administrative punishment, which affected the student at school, for actions that were not taken within the school's jurisdiction.
For those who do not understand the difference: You leave work (where your boss is a Carrie Nation fan*). You stop for a libation on the way home. You are then docked half a day's pay for that action. If you are not on call (and therefore not on the company's time), should you pay the penalty?
*For those who don't understand the reference, think "Prohibition".
You say that like it's A Bad Thing®!
How about "Hide all comments where $UID > $MINE " ?
Ever think about the possibility that what Google is using internally is a custom spin? It would be logical that they would have a standard set of packages (no flame wars please) to support their business.
Since you are looking at 10K or more systems, no business in their right mind would use only the recommended packages from any one vendor. Add to that the support requirements and you are looking at a sophisticated configuration.
Except for the one where they admitted that the pipe they attached was drawing 5K barrels/day into the ship with no visible decrease in the leak rate. That one did come from BP.
It depends on the jurisdiction. For plain "see judge, this is what I saw" (as a backup to a witness), probably. As standalone evidence, probably not.
The reason for this is that, unlike film cameras, the computer based pictures are discrete pictures that can be edited easily by any of a number of video editors. Commercial grade (Sony, AXIS, Panasonic) IP Video Surveillance products are generally combined with software that includes embedded time stamps and other features that lessen the probability of a faked image.
That said, for home usage such as you suggest, the home variety should do the trick. Of course, you could also plant big signs in your yard that say "Video Surveillance in Progress" and hope they read better than some that I have caught.
Wouldn't that be "Microsoft and God"? You know that Gates and Ballmer hate second billing :-)
As well you should. Even though a new version comes out somewhat regularly, there is no requirement that you upgrade. I know people that are still running FC5&6, because they work for them.
And how long was it before SP2 came out for XP? And those bugs that are created by installing updates? Oh, and how about IE6.
In the same package? Or was it some new program that you just had to have? Granted, some things (like wireless and cutting edge video cards) can be dicey, but the mainstream distributors of GNU/Linux don't have the same access to hardware/driver information that Microsoft does.
And you did provide information to the maintainers of the software, didn't you? "Old software" (aka a few rev's behind bleeding edge) is there because it works. Besides, "less buggy" says absolutely nothing with regards to fixing the problem (software and/or PEBCAK).
Wanting to try out the "latest and greatest" is not strange, it's natural. What is strange is the expectation that software will always be bug free coupled with the implied opinion that Microsoft's offerings are in some way superior (after they have gone through countless bug fixes).
The way de-duplication works is the system maintains a hash table for the file system (usually block level). When it detects that two files have a block in common, it sets a flag that says "this block is common to both of these files".
The entry is essentialy an inode entry (linked list) and a reference count.
The effort is more commonly used in virtual tape systems, because you will normally have multiple generations of the same tape file. It is also the way that zones (under Solaris) and virtual systems (under AIX) work, since there is generally a certain amount of static data shared between zones.
It does however have implications for common data between web server instances and/or web+(s)ftp instances. If you should need to restore data to a web server instance where dedup is active, the restore is much faster when you only have to actually write a subset of the data back.
It would be well worth it (if you should have a test system) to experiment with the tech. After all, the product is free.
Windows->open? Who are you kidding? What gets sent when you start a Windows PC? What goes in the registry that is NOT GUID Based?
Business model not based on data mining? What about Windows (and Office) Genuine Advantage? Just what do they collect from all of those PC's?
No, should automatically reject any proposal simply because abuse and mistakes are PROBABLE.
Three words for you: National Security Letter.
And therein lies the problem. It should be for the betterment of all of the citizens.
Even better are the ones that say "Tell your doctor if you have [insert disease here]". Last I knew, since my doctor is supposedly monitoring my health, my doctor should be telling me.
Otherwise, this is a blatant invitation for doctor shopping. If your doctor will not prescribe the medicine du jour, find one that will.
For enterprise level systems (think SAN storage), the two major distributions that are supported are RHEL and SLES. At least in the IBM Storage Systems arena, those (along with Windows, AIX and z/OS) are the only platforms that are officially supported. Novell would be insane to forgo that market.
I call bullshit. I maintained large IBM sites for 20 years. I never had 20 percent of my drives down at any time (2401, 2420, 3420, 3480). If you are seeing that sort of service level, change service providers.
That includes compensation for not pursuing other projects.
In the event of a major disaster, Ham Radio (under the auspices of the ARRL) has MORs with FEMA, Red Cross, DOD and most state and local governments. There will not be a total communications breakdown unless FEMA is run by the president of an arabian horse association.
No, you do not need people to test all of the various vehicles, but you do need knowledgeable people to design the test protocols.
As long as you allow manufacturers to tell you what tests they are going to run, as opposed to what tests will be acceptable , you have the corporate equivalent of the fox guarding the henhouse.
Before commenting (especially if you are defending Rambus) you might want to do a search on "rambus jedec spec". The google search is:
http://www.google.com/search?q=rambus+jedec+spec&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a/
One of the results is:
http://www.abanet.org/antitrust/committees/intell_property/june21.html/ (FTC Charges Rambus With Abuse of Standard Setting Process).
In a nutshell, Rambus participated in the standards setting process for SDRAM technology without informing any of the other members that they were actively pursuing patents in the technology used to implement the standard. Once the standard was finalized, they disclosed the patents and demanded royalties.
Methinks that Rambus was in the wrong. So does the FTC.
And it can get even stranger. At least in Arizona, your zip code is not an indicator as to the county you live in (not to mention what city). In order to administer collection of sales/use taxes down to the local level (yes, we do have cities that levy sales taxes), you would almost need GPS/GIS information.
If you have a Queen Creek zip code, you might live in Queen Creek, in unincorporated Maricopa county or in unincorporated Pinal county (all at different rates). Which combination of state/county/local sales taxes do you collect?
The same goes for the Pinal/Pima county line (Red Rock and Marana). Once again, one zip code with multiple jurisdictions with different tax rates.
When the politicians say this is an issue of fairness (no sales tax - competitive advantage to online retailers), they somehow miss the other side of the coin. When the brick and mortar stores add handling and delivery charges the online stores should collect sales taxes.