Yes, it's part of the USPS campaign, although I suppose it does technically qualify as public art. I'm not sure why they're running the campaign now instead of a few years ago.
I've been in the local post office recently and still haven't seen any Star Wars posters; it's all White Sox and Bears stuff. I suppose it has something to do with being on the south side of Chicago?
I could be mistaken, but I thought Connector/J 5.0 supported retrieving BLOBs as streams if you used the MySQL specific API and not just generic JDBC.
The latest production version of the driver is now 50-100 percent faster in most situations than the previous version. It also creates fewer transient objects than before, leading to better performance and even more stability. The driver now also supports "streaming" result sets, which allows users to retrieve large numbers of rows without using a large memory buffer. With newly added large-packet protocol support, the driver can send rows and BLOBs up to 2 gigabytes in size.
A client of mine insists on storing documents as BLOBs rather than simply storing URI's, so being able to stream BLOBs is a big plus for his application.
A few months ago I noticed an R2D2 mailbox standing on the corner. I immediately assumed that it was just a leftover from when the last prequel was released way back in 2005. Then on the news I heard something about these being _new_ mailboxes promoting Star Wars. I was baffled, why spend money on this sort of thing now?
FYI, Jewish people do not have a monopoly on circumcision; christians are pretty dilligent about having their male children snipped.
In any case, I don't believe either Judaism or Christianity requires that males be circumcised. It's just a tradition that was passed down from Abraham (IIRC).
And before anyone thinks the Europeans did this on purpose, let me remind everyone that germ theory came about hundreds of years later.
Are you telling me that giving native americans blankets infested with smallpox was an accident? Or that catapulting plague victims over siege walls was just a way to get rid of the bodies? Europeans had been practicing biological warfare for a long time before arriving in the New World.
There is a clear contract when you sign up for the Xbox Live service. It says, if you mod your box, you are not eligible for the service. Case closed.
I don't believe an EULA dispute has ever made it to court, but I may be wrong. Also, just because there's a contract doesn't mean "case closed". People with contract disputes go to court all of the time.
For a comparison, if you buy a car and you make a modification that is not authorized by the manufacturer, your warranty is null and void. And that is a rule that has been tested many times in the court of law.
I don't believe the situation is a simple as you believe. From what I understand, the manufacturer must show that your modification resulted in the problem that you're trying to have fixed under warranty. For example, I just bought a used Firebird that had after-market exhaust tips installed on it. If I now have engine problems the dealer can't point at the tips and claim the engine's not covered anymore. Now, if I had screwed with the air intake or installed custom headers I'd probably be out of luck.
This does affect people with legitimate copies of games. Just because someone has a modded Xbox doesn't mean they're pirating games.
I don't have an Xbox yet, but I've used game copying software for my PS2; I possess zero illegal copies of games, but have several hundred that I purchased. Copying the games to my hard drive reduces load time, prevents the dreaded "Disc Read Error", allows me to store the original discs in a safe location and has eliminated the need to find and then swap game discs.
Backup software for video game consoles is used for legitimate reasons, not only for piracy.
This is probably a moot point depending on Microsoft's EULA, but I don't believe those agreements have ever been tested in court. At worst people with modded Xbox's will have to simply purchase another one and use the new one to play online.
I'm a UNIX guy but I also have to manage some Windows based networks that are used to host telephony applications. Lately I've been performing application installs on a dozen or so computers every two or three days and am looking to automate the process.
The install process consists of uploading the voice application, uploading the site-specific configuration files and then configuring the speech server. Fairly straightforward stuff. I initially considered using Expect for this, but quickly decided that it's not a very good solution. Sure, it can drive smbclient and push files to the right places, but how do I execute commands on the Windows server? I could enable telnet, but we don't allow non-encrypted channels to be used for administration. I could setup Cygwin and OpenSSH, but that's additional software to install. All things considered, we're probably better off using the native Windows tools (eg. WSH) than trying to adapt the typical UNIX process (cfengine or shell scripts run through SSH) to that environment.
I thought the courts expected litigants to do everything possible to resolve the matter before going to court? Isn't Microsoft obligated to disclose which patents they believe have been violated so that the defendants have an opportunity to remedy the matter?
I started programming when I was 5 years old thanks to an Apple IIe home computer and have never stopped since.
Wow, same here! I started programming when I was five on a TRS-80 and Apple ]['s. My mother was a teacher, so she was able to bring a computer home during the summer months. At about the same time my father bought a TRS-80 from Radio Shack and I worked on that whenever I was at his house.
The school district I attended (Illinois district 66) had received computer donations from Apple; I was in the gifted education program at my school and we got to use the Apple lab every Monday at the junior high school. The district also had some programming books that one of the high school teachers had written so I was learning LOGO and BASIC programming from them while in the first grade. At some point my mother bought an Apple GS and I was able to work on it at home every evening.
The local public library had also received donations from Apple, and they had setup a computer lab. I can remember going there almost daily for quite a while. The best thing about their lab was that the older kids would go there to play their pirated games so I could usually beg for copies of classics like Karateka, Autobahn, Hard Hat Mac, Castle Wolfenstein, Ultima, and some swordfighting game with pirates. Ah, those were the days!
I also lucked out and got turned onto UNIX (SunOS) during high school. I've been doing software development, database development/administration and system programming and administration ever since.
Unlike the student who was arrested a while ago for completing his essay assignment as sked, these teachers will not be arrested.
FYI, charges were dropped against that student and he was allowed to return to school. Read about officials talking about dropping the charges here and then here for a story about the student returning to school.
The Windows servers on the other side of the datacenter? Holy Cow, did those guys have the drama! Things were crashing all the time (We're back in the early NT days, mind you.) Whole populations of users suffered critical amounts of downtime. The admins put everything back together, of course, and were lauded as heroes because they had fixed the big, bad problems that had killed so many people's productivity for so long. They were HIGHLY visible to management. They got awards for fixing things. They were heroes.
This is the thing that kills me. The guy who put in the crappy software system that breaks if you look at it sideways gets praise whenever he fixes the thing instead of scorn for the problem occuring in the first place. Whereas the guy who puts in a reliable system that never goes down has to defend himself from a manager that thinks he doesn't do anything. WTF?
No one sets out to be a professional systems administrator -- do you ever see kids wearing toy pagers playing sysadmin? For those fluent with computers but uninterested in writing huge software programs, it's a pretty good job. Except for the part where they have to deal with you.
What exactly makes you think that only people who are uninterested in writing software become sysadmins? Frankly I don't know how some can be a competent admin _without_ being able to program. How else can one admin manage hundreds of systems? In my experience it's the developers (lacking admin experience) that are clueless about things like configuration management, logging, security, resource allocation, software build/release process, etc.
Sysadmins are like cats -- he won't acknowledge you, but he's mentally keeping score.
You want to know a secret about cats? They _will_ listen to you if you treat them nicely. If your sysadmin doesn't talk to you it's probably because you did something to piss him off. In general sysadmins are just as friendly as anyone else.
Systems administrators are like firemen and cops. If you don't have a couple of bored ones hanging around, you'll be sorry when there's an emergency.
Just because it looks like a sysadmin's not doing anything doesn't mean he isn't. He most likely stayed after hours for weeks at a time in order to automate things so that he can calmly sit in his office and monitor the network for trouble. One _possible_ sign of bad admins is seeing them run around like chickens with their heads cut off. That typically means they royally fscked something up.
Fill out the stupid request form or other idiotic bureaucratic formality every time the printer jams. If you go directly to Joe Admin for help without putting a request in the system, you'll eventually get him fired. The CEO asks the department head for an automated help desk report to justify headcount, and see? What does that guy do all day? He doesn't even say hi.
You might find those forms idiotic, but they're essential. They ensure that a new hire gets the access and tools he needs and that when someone leaves they no longer have access to company resources. This sort of thing is _required_ of publicly traded companies (Sarbanes-Oxley), but you apparently don't know this. Also, the CEO most certainly does _not_ ask for those sorts of reports. Hell, we don't even _have_ a help desk!
Let him savor the delusion that everyone envies his gig in Operations because he's got all the root passwords and triple-encrypted card keys to the server room.
Why exactly do you think sysadmin have delusions of grandeur? I suppose the green ones might, but it's all business for us experienced guys.
</rant>
Sorry, I just found his article terribly offensive. I've been programming computers since I was five, doing UNIX admin. work since I was fifteen and professional software development the last ten or so years. I have _never_ experienced the things Paul's talking about.
You think that's bad? In Chicago a new townhouse in University Village will run you close to a million, new condos in Little Italy are going for $350K, and one bedroom lofts in the West Loop start at the low 2's.
I don't know who's buying these places. I suspect that the developers are simply refusing to drop their prices, instead opting to hold onto the units until they can find a buyer at the higher price.
Thanks for the info! I finally got turned on to cars after purchasing a Firebird Formula (upgraded from a Saturn SC2) and am starting to get into SCCA racing. I just picked up "Automotive Technologies" which seems to be a popular textbook for mechanics in training and it talks about the ASE certifications. If I actually stick to it and study, I'll be sure to look into taking the exams.
I do wonder about your salary estimate though. Are you telling me that mechanics typically bring in six-figure salaries?
I agree with you 100%; hold the creditor responsible for their failure to properly confirm the customer's identity.
The typical objections to this solution is that it will cost the industry too much money to do proper identity verification and that it will inconvenience the customer. I don't care if it costs the industry money as they're currently passing these costs along to the public. As for convenience, what's the big deal about having to show up in person to open a line of credit?
I've got a 2001 Saturn SC2 in the garage and I saw similar MPG changes when driving it as you described; from 18 to 22 MPG in my case. With a 10 gallon tank, and assuming $3.00 per gallon of gasoline, a change from 18 MPG to 22 MPG saves you something like $6 in fuel costs per tank.
I typically filled the tank on my SC2 once per week, so I would see about $24 in savings each month. In my case, I'd rather drive the car harder than get an extra $24. If gas were much more expensive, or if I drove many more miles per month, it might be worth the change in driving style.
The interesting thing is that you can sometimes see similar increases in MPG by performing maintenance work on the vehicle. I replaced the original engine ('01 2.2L DOHC) with a similar one that was manufactured one year later and saw a 2 or 3 MPG improvement in my fuel consumption.
I can only assume that automatic transmissions are so prevalent in the United States because most drivers never receive any training on manual transmissions. When I took my driver's education course many years ago, they used automatics exclusively. You received no instruction on manual transmissions. The only reason that I learned to drive stick was because my step-dad had a Nissan 200SX that he let me train with.
Also, from what I can tell, people in the United States switch to a new/different car every few years. There aren't that many people who drive their cars even 100,000 miles so they don't appreciate the fact that a manual transmission is much more reliable and easier to repair than an automatic.
Most of the people that I know who drive stick have either sports or muscle cars. I bought a used '02 Firebird Formula a few months ago and constantly got grief about it being an automatic. I probably would have liked a manual transmission, but they just weren't available when I was looking.
I read the comment but assumed that he could have gotten the same results by simply having his lawyers contact the company. Maybe not.
I'd be afraid of saying something during the interview that could be used against me later, possibly in court. The articles that I've read say don't grant an exit interview unless you think you might want to work for the company again in the future. There's typically no benefit to the employee, but there is possibly a risk.
Anyway, it worked for the guy in question so good for him.
I work for a telecom provider (mostly hosting of SIP apps) and we are not required under CALEA to provide access to law enforcement. Rather, the telco carriers that _we_ use, like AT&T, Qwest, etc. are required to provide access. What that means is that we could offer customers a VPN connection to our network, give them a soft-phone and ensure that their SIP traffic remains encrypted. You'd probably have to do SIP to SIP since I don't know how you'd encrypt the PSTN leg of the call.
Cell phones would be tricky to encrypt since you'd have to run specialized software on the phone. For fixed stations it would be trivial. Setup SIP gateways on both ends, connect the gateways using a VPN and use either a hardware or software based SIP phone. The two parties would then need to physically exchange the encryption keys needed for the VPN. In this sort of arrangement CALEA would not apply and law enforcement would not be able to demand access to the network traffic.
I currently have access to all the necessary software and hardware, but simply haven't have the time to setup an experimental system like the one I described. This sort of system has been technically feasible for over a decade. Perhaps I should start selling all-in-one packages?
My study is lit with three 23-watt CFLs, which provides a really excellent reading light... with the low power consumption, you can use cheapest-available desk lamps to put the bulbs in, and place them wherever's convenient.
May I ask which brand, style and color of bulb you're using?
I replaced three 90W Halogen bulbs in my kitchen (15' ceilings) with some CFLs from Home Depot and really did like the results; the light was fairly white and less harsh on the eyes. My only issue is that one of the bulbs makes a low volume, high-pitched noise; I'm guessing the bulb's faulty.
I tried the same thing in my office; I was replacing a fixture that used two 60W incandescents with two CFLs. This time I used the "daylight" color which I thought would be closer to, well daylight, but it ended up being very blue. It wasn't noticeable when the sun was coming in the window, but at night it was just unbearable and I ended up putting the old bulbs back in. Why can't the CFL manufacturers indicate the color of light that's emitted on the packaging?
I also did a double-take when I saw the mercury warning on the packaging as I was disposing of it. I couldn't help but wonder if it was such a good idea to bring that into my apartment.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, it's part of the USPS campaign, although I suppose it does technically qualify as public art. I'm not sure why they're running the campaign now instead of a few years ago.
I've been in the local post office recently and still haven't seen any Star Wars posters; it's all White Sox and Bears stuff. I suppose it has something to do with being on the south side of Chicago?
I could be mistaken, but I thought Connector/J 5.0 supported retrieving BLOBs as streams if you used the MySQL specific API and not just generic JDBC.
A client of mine insists on storing documents as BLOBs rather than simply storing URI's, so being able to stream BLOBs is a big plus for his application.
A few months ago I noticed an R2D2 mailbox standing on the corner. I immediately assumed that it was just a leftover from when the last prequel was released way back in 2005. Then on the news I heard something about these being _new_ mailboxes promoting Star Wars. I was baffled, why spend money on this sort of thing now?
FYI, Jewish people do not have a monopoly on circumcision; christians are pretty dilligent about having their male children snipped.
In any case, I don't believe either Judaism or Christianity requires that males be circumcised. It's just a tradition that was passed down from Abraham (IIRC).
Are you telling me that giving native americans blankets infested with smallpox was an accident? Or that catapulting plague victims over siege walls was just a way to get rid of the bodies? Europeans had been practicing biological warfare for a long time before arriving in the New World.
I don't believe an EULA dispute has ever made it to court, but I may be wrong. Also, just because there's a contract doesn't mean "case closed". People with contract disputes go to court all of the time.
I don't believe the situation is a simple as you believe. From what I understand, the manufacturer must show that your modification resulted in the problem that you're trying to have fixed under warranty. For example, I just bought a used Firebird that had after-market exhaust tips installed on it. If I now have engine problems the dealer can't point at the tips and claim the engine's not covered anymore. Now, if I had screwed with the air intake or installed custom headers I'd probably be out of luck.
This does affect people with legitimate copies of games. Just because someone has a modded Xbox doesn't mean they're pirating games.
I don't have an Xbox yet, but I've used game copying software for my PS2; I possess zero illegal copies of games, but have several hundred that I purchased. Copying the games to my hard drive reduces load time, prevents the dreaded "Disc Read Error", allows me to store the original discs in a safe location and has eliminated the need to find and then swap game discs.
Backup software for video game consoles is used for legitimate reasons, not only for piracy.
This is probably a moot point depending on Microsoft's EULA, but I don't believe those agreements have ever been tested in court. At worst people with modded Xbox's will have to simply purchase another one and use the new one to play online.
Swashbuckler was the game I was thinking of. Didn't you end up fighting pirate skeletons (or is that skeleton pirates?) in the later levels?
I'm a UNIX guy but I also have to manage some Windows based networks that are used to host telephony applications. Lately I've been performing application installs on a dozen or so computers every two or three days and am looking to automate the process.
The install process consists of uploading the voice application, uploading the site-specific configuration files and then configuring the speech server. Fairly straightforward stuff. I initially considered using Expect for this, but quickly decided that it's not a very good solution. Sure, it can drive smbclient and push files to the right places, but how do I execute commands on the Windows server? I could enable telnet, but we don't allow non-encrypted channels to be used for administration. I could setup Cygwin and OpenSSH, but that's additional software to install. All things considered, we're probably better off using the native Windows tools (eg. WSH) than trying to adapt the typical UNIX process (cfengine or shell scripts run through SSH) to that environment.
I thought the courts expected litigants to do everything possible to resolve the matter before going to court? Isn't Microsoft obligated to disclose which patents they believe have been violated so that the defendants have an opportunity to remedy the matter?
Wow, same here! I started programming when I was five on a TRS-80 and Apple ]['s. My mother was a teacher, so she was able to bring a computer home during the summer months. At about the same time my father bought a TRS-80 from Radio Shack and I worked on that whenever I was at his house.
The school district I attended (Illinois district 66) had received computer donations from Apple; I was in the gifted education program at my school and we got to use the Apple lab every Monday at the junior high school. The district also had some programming books that one of the high school teachers had written so I was learning LOGO and BASIC programming from them while in the first grade. At some point my mother bought an Apple GS and I was able to work on it at home every evening.
The local public library had also received donations from Apple, and they had setup a computer lab. I can remember going there almost daily for quite a while. The best thing about their lab was that the older kids would go there to play their pirated games so I could usually beg for copies of classics like Karateka, Autobahn, Hard Hat Mac, Castle Wolfenstein, Ultima, and some swordfighting game with pirates. Ah, those were the days!
I also lucked out and got turned onto UNIX (SunOS) during high school. I've been doing software development, database development/administration and system programming and administration ever since.
FYI, charges were dropped against that student and he was allowed to return to school. Read about officials talking about dropping the charges here and then here for a story about the student returning to school.
You no doubt didn't see the follow-up story. All charges have been dropped and the student has been allowed to return to school.
I submitted the story last week. Oh well.
This is the thing that kills me. The guy who put in the crappy software system that breaks if you look at it sideways gets praise whenever he fixes the thing instead of scorn for the problem occuring in the first place. Whereas the guy who puts in a reliable system that never goes down has to defend himself from a manager that thinks he doesn't do anything. WTF?
<rant>
Fuck you and your condescending attitude.
What exactly makes you think that only people who are uninterested in writing software become sysadmins? Frankly I don't know how some can be a competent admin _without_ being able to program. How else can one admin manage hundreds of systems? In my experience it's the developers (lacking admin experience) that are clueless about things like configuration management, logging, security, resource allocation, software build/release process, etc.
You want to know a secret about cats? They _will_ listen to you if you treat them nicely. If your sysadmin doesn't talk to you it's probably because you did something to piss him off. In general sysadmins are just as friendly as anyone else.
Just because it looks like a sysadmin's not doing anything doesn't mean he isn't. He most likely stayed after hours for weeks at a time in order to automate things so that he can calmly sit in his office and monitor the network for trouble. One _possible_ sign of bad admins is seeing them run around like chickens with their heads cut off. That typically means they royally fscked something up.
You might find those forms idiotic, but they're essential. They ensure that a new hire gets the access and tools he needs and that when someone leaves they no longer have access to company resources. This sort of thing is _required_ of publicly traded companies (Sarbanes-Oxley), but you apparently don't know this. Also, the CEO most certainly does _not_ ask for those sorts of reports. Hell, we don't even _have_ a help desk!
Why exactly do you think sysadmin have delusions of grandeur? I suppose the green ones might, but it's all business for us experienced guys. </rant>
Sorry, I just found his article terribly offensive. I've been programming computers since I was five, doing UNIX admin. work since I was fifteen and professional software development the last ten or so years. I have _never_ experienced the things Paul's talking about.
The Devil Went Down to Georgia
You think that's bad? In Chicago a new townhouse in University Village will run you close to a million, new condos in Little Italy are going for $350K, and one bedroom lofts in the West Loop start at the low 2's.
I don't know who's buying these places. I suspect that the developers are simply refusing to drop their prices, instead opting to hold onto the units until they can find a buyer at the higher price.
Thanks for the info! I finally got turned on to cars after purchasing a Firebird Formula (upgraded from a Saturn SC2) and am starting to get into SCCA racing. I just picked up "Automotive Technologies" which seems to be a popular textbook for mechanics in training and it talks about the ASE certifications. If I actually stick to it and study, I'll be sure to look into taking the exams.
I do wonder about your salary estimate though. Are you telling me that mechanics typically bring in six-figure salaries?
I agree with you 100%; hold the creditor responsible for their failure to properly confirm the customer's identity.
The typical objections to this solution is that it will cost the industry too much money to do proper identity verification and that it will inconvenience the customer. I don't care if it costs the industry money as they're currently passing these costs along to the public. As for convenience, what's the big deal about having to show up in person to open a line of credit?
I've got a 2001 Saturn SC2 in the garage and I saw similar MPG changes when driving it as you described; from 18 to 22 MPG in my case. With a 10 gallon tank, and assuming $3.00 per gallon of gasoline, a change from 18 MPG to 22 MPG saves you something like $6 in fuel costs per tank.
I typically filled the tank on my SC2 once per week, so I would see about $24 in savings each month. In my case, I'd rather drive the car harder than get an extra $24. If gas were much more expensive, or if I drove many more miles per month, it might be worth the change in driving style.
The interesting thing is that you can sometimes see similar increases in MPG by performing maintenance work on the vehicle. I replaced the original engine ('01 2.2L DOHC) with a similar one that was manufactured one year later and saw a 2 or 3 MPG improvement in my fuel consumption.
I can only assume that automatic transmissions are so prevalent in the United States because most drivers never receive any training on manual transmissions. When I took my driver's education course many years ago, they used automatics exclusively. You received no instruction on manual transmissions. The only reason that I learned to drive stick was because my step-dad had a Nissan 200SX that he let me train with.
Also, from what I can tell, people in the United States switch to a new/different car every few years. There aren't that many people who drive their cars even 100,000 miles so they don't appreciate the fact that a manual transmission is much more reliable and easier to repair than an automatic.
Most of the people that I know who drive stick have either sports or muscle cars. I bought a used '02 Firebird Formula a few months ago and constantly got grief about it being an automatic. I probably would have liked a manual transmission, but they just weren't available when I was looking.
I read the comment but assumed that he could have gotten the same results by simply having his lawyers contact the company. Maybe not.
I'd be afraid of saying something during the interview that could be used against me later, possibly in court. The articles that I've read say don't grant an exit interview unless you think you might want to work for the company again in the future. There's typically no benefit to the employee, but there is possibly a risk.
Anyway, it worked for the guy in question so good for him.
I can't help but to wonder why you granted them an exit interview? From what I've heard, there's absolutely no benefit to the employee.
I work for a telecom provider (mostly hosting of SIP apps) and we are not required under CALEA to provide access to law enforcement. Rather, the telco carriers that _we_ use, like AT&T, Qwest, etc. are required to provide access. What that means is that we could offer customers a VPN connection to our network, give them a soft-phone and ensure that their SIP traffic remains encrypted. You'd probably have to do SIP to SIP since I don't know how you'd encrypt the PSTN leg of the call.
Cell phones would be tricky to encrypt since you'd have to run specialized software on the phone. For fixed stations it would be trivial. Setup SIP gateways on both ends, connect the gateways using a VPN and use either a hardware or software based SIP phone. The two parties would then need to physically exchange the encryption keys needed for the VPN. In this sort of arrangement CALEA would not apply and law enforcement would not be able to demand access to the network traffic.
I currently have access to all the necessary software and hardware, but simply haven't have the time to setup an experimental system like the one I described. This sort of system has been technically feasible for over a decade. Perhaps I should start selling all-in-one packages?
May I ask which brand, style and color of bulb you're using?
I replaced three 90W Halogen bulbs in my kitchen (15' ceilings) with some CFLs from Home Depot and really did like the results; the light was fairly white and less harsh on the eyes. My only issue is that one of the bulbs makes a low volume, high-pitched noise; I'm guessing the bulb's faulty.
I tried the same thing in my office; I was replacing a fixture that used two 60W incandescents with two CFLs. This time I used the "daylight" color which I thought would be closer to, well daylight, but it ended up being very blue. It wasn't noticeable when the sun was coming in the window, but at night it was just unbearable and I ended up putting the old bulbs back in. Why can't the CFL manufacturers indicate the color of light that's emitted on the packaging?
I also did a double-take when I saw the mercury warning on the packaging as I was disposing of it. I couldn't help but wonder if it was such a good idea to bring that into my apartment.