What individuals have been prosecuted? AFAIK, only companies trying to sell things like DVD jukeboxes were prosecuted. And in those cases, wasn't the real issue the fact that they weren't a CSS licensee but were decrypting CSS streams in violation of the patent?
Other plants aren't quite as gross as that, but even still, they all grow in dirt. Just think about that next time you're having a salad. Would you eat food off the floor? Well, everything in that salad used to be on or in the ground, and the ground is nature's filthy floor that never gets vacuumed!
I know you meant that to be funny, but Isaac Asimov wrote a short story about exactly that. I don't recall the title, but it was set in a futuristic world where all food was synthetic. The protagonist wins a cooking contest by using real, dirt grown garlic (IIRC), which gets him exiled when people find out.
Shortly after that an American friend of discerning taste introduced me to proper chocolate (higher cocoa content) in France and then I realised yup, now I see why these food guys in Belgium and France wouldn't feed their dog on the stuff I've been eating.
As a resident of Chicago and a pizza fanatic, let me assure you that pizza can be very different from one restaurant (even from the same chain) to another.
Style of crust and type of sauce, cheese and meats vary immensely. Sure you've got deep dish, pan and thin crust pizzas, but everyone has their own version of crust. Some use a very airy and flakey thin crust, some use a thicker, chewier bread-like crust, and others have a crispy, butter crust. Some places (like Ranalli's on Oak St.) serve double-decker pizzas with two layers of crust.
Same thing goes for the tomato sauce: some places use a sweet sauce, some use canned or sliced tomatos so you get large pieces, and some places don't even use tomatos instead opting for a cream or pesto-based sauce. Similar deal with meats; one chain (Connie's) had a one-day only special where they topped the pizza with foie gras (to protest the Chicago City Council's ban on the food). Even the particular oven the pizza is baked in makes a huge difference in the end product.
And in case you're wondering, the Lou Malnati's on Wells St., just north of the Merchandise Mart, has the best deep dish pizza in the city. Giordano's is garbage unless you judge deep dish pizza based on how thick of a slab of mozzarella they can put on the thing. For thin crust (American, not Italian style), it's got to be Bricks on Lincoln Ave. just south of Armitage Ave.
Wow, that's seriously messed up. It sounds like they just abuse the kids until they stop resisting authority figures? I hate to think what sort of an adult such a kid could grow up to be.
Also, only 20% of kids "graduate" the program? That doesn't sound like success to me.
Similar story here; I picked up an HP 4550N Color LaserJet on eBay for about $400 IIRC. The thing's a tank, like all of the earlier LaserJet models I've used. The only problem I have with it is that it's big, heavy and noisy.
Based on my prior experience with production quality printers, I think you're correct. The last place I worked at had a Canon CLC 5000 that needed maintenance on a weekly (or more frequent) basis. Typically for chronic paper jams.
I would think that a business that needs a production printer isn't going to want to have to service the thing themselves.
As long as they owe you a refund, nothing bad happens if you file a day late.
What exactly bad happens if you owe the IRS money and file a week late? I'm guessing nothing. I just can't see the IRS going after people for seven days of interest on a $200 payment.
Heck, I've known people that just flat-out did not file taxes for a year or two. Absolutely nothing happened to them.
As for the person asking the question, I don't know about you but I went to a high school where the first thing we were taught is that we are responsible for the information we present in a paper. The student is responsible for citing sources & verifying that the source is reliable. If you can't do that, you're going to end up reading The Onion with either hilarious or catastrophic results. This is a valuable life lesson, let the students learn it early when the consequence is a bad grade instead of a lawsuit.
That reminds of the story about a Chinese newspaper running a story from the Onion:
If you told the students Wikipedia is not a reliable source of information, give them an F if they use one single reference from it. How can they argue with you, the instructor?
Some people say it's not reputable, fine; to block it outright just doesn't make sense though. Wikipedia articles typically have references at the bottom of the page that do lead to reputable sources. Why prevent students from discovering other sources via Wikipedia?
I'm one of the fortunate souls who works for an employer (telecom) that doesn't require me to meet an 8:00 to 5:00, Monday through Friday, in the office standard. If I want to do my work from home one day, or want to leave early to catch a Cubs game, it's not a problem so long as the work's done by the deadline. This has made my life so much more enjoyable: if I'm up late for some reason I can sleep in a bit the next day, if I need to take my car into the shop or run some errands I don't have to schedule a day off, etc.
Nevertheless, I certainly wouldn't like to work out of my house every day. I enjoy the people I work with, I have a nice work area in the office (no cube!) and I actually do need hands on access to equipment from time to time.
One of my friends, a core engineer at the company, works from home almost every day. He claims this is because he gets interrupted too much by co-workers if he's in the office. He really likes the setup, but it seems like he's always doing something for work when I stop by in the evenings, or on weekends.
I think the problem is with other peoples' expectations. If you always work from home and people are used to calling you for things, they won't give a second thought to ringing you at 11:00 PM, or on a weekend for some trivial issue. If they're used to stopping by your office, they'll probably leave you alone until Monday.
A GPS is great tool for a traveler. But you don't need it if you just go to the church every other day.
You're correct that I haven't use a GPS device while driving. I'm one of those people who simply drives around town, to and from work and occasionally takes longer trips over routes I'm familiar with. If I'm not familiar with the route I'll check one of the online services before I leave; I also carry a large book of maps with me.
I'm glad to hear that there are some people that actually have a need for a GPS device. It just seems to me that they're being marketed towards people who have no need for them. I suppose that really shouldn't surprise me.
I seem to recall that radios in automobiles used to be illegal for exactly the same reasons that people arguing for the criminalization of operating cellular phones or Blackberries while driving are using. Rather than making these sorts of things illegal, I'd simply like to see fines and penalties increased for those drivers who do get into accidents while distracted.
I agree with you regarding the enforcement of existing laws. I'd be extremely happy if the police started enforcing the laws regarding the use of turn signals when changing lanes, minimum safe following distances and use of the passing lane. I'm pretty sure that people violating these laws cause many more accidents than people chatting on cell phones while driving.
We've got a couple gear-heads here in the office that are into this stuff. One of them is building their own car computer. So far he's got an in-dash LCD touchscreen with an AM/FM/TV tuner that's motorized and retracts into the dash. This is hooked up to a small computer in the trunk running some Linux distribution and a GPS unit so he can track his movements (I don't recall the software program he's running). The company we work for writes and hosts telephony applications so we have access to speech recognition and translation software tools.
This sort of thing can be built fairly easily these days from off-the-shelf components. I'd hate to see what an auto manufacturer would charge for an equivalent system.
I must admit that I don't quite understand all the excitement over things like in-car navigation systems, automatic parallel parking systems, etc. In fact, I would think they would do more harm than good. How hard is it to consult a map or plan your route before taking a trip? I shudder to think of people having to resort to a navigation system for their daily commute. How hard is it to parallel park your car? Yeah, it takes a little bit of practice, but it's not difficult.
Just a head's up to anyone running Red Hat that their DST patch is incorrect. It's switching to Daylight Saving Time two hours earlier than it's supposed to.
CST6DST Sun Mar 11 05:59:59 2007 UTC = Sat Mar 10 23:59:59 2007 CST
isdst=0 gmtoff=-21600
CST6DST Sun Mar 11 06:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 11 01:00:00 2007 DST
isdst=1 gmtoff=-18000
CST6DST Sun Nov 4 04:59:59 2007 UTC = Sat Nov 3 23:59:59 2007 DST
isdst=1 gmtoff=-18000
CST6DST Sun Nov 4 05:00:00 2007 UTC = Sat Nov 3 23:00:00 2007 CST
isdst=0 gmtoff=-21600
Clock's are supposed to roll forward an hour at 1:59 A.M. not midnight.
We're having some fun with these patches. We've got about 400 machines to update (with three people) and are running about two dozen different releases of FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Red Hat Linux, Debian Linux, SCO, Solaris and Windows operating systems. And those are just the production servers; I can't wait until we do desktops.
Okay, I'll admit it. One of the first things I tried after getting the trial version of Opera was viewing some streaming videos along with downloadable content. Sadly, my Wii refused to play WMV, AVI and MPEG content.
I did read the article, but I didn't see any mention of exactly how the Wii is a portal to porn. I suppose you can look at pictures, but the Wii can't currently be used to view videos.
If someone does know of a way of playing video content on a Wii, then please let me know!
I've never used Workspace Managed Client, but I was involved in a WebSphere deployment before I left my last job. Some of the installers started out as Java Swing applications, but then they'd fire up on old-school Motif installer. I assumed this was due to IBM inheriting the software from Lotus and then not updating the installer (other than with IBM branding). In addition, the user interface typically wasn't coded properly (ie. multi-threaded) so certain installs wouldn't redraw the screen and appeared to hang for an hour or so. All in all, it looked like a disaster to me. I got the impression that once you bought into the product, you were going to be stuck going back to IBM or one of their partners for every little thing. Heck, even the certified partner had a hard time getting things to work properly.
if you have been drinking and the cops go to pull you over you have about equal consequence if you are to pull over and cooperate as you do if you flee from the police, and are picked up much later after the alcohol has left your system
Actually, in some states in the U.S. you're better off refusing to take a breatalyzer or field sobriety test. In Illinois, the penalty for refusing is a six month suspension of your driver's license while a first time DUI conviction will get you up to one year in jail, a one year suspension of your driver's license, 100 hours of community service and a possible fine of up to $2,500.
You're not going to go to jail for refusing a breath test or a blood test or a urine test. You will go to jail if you are found guilty of DUI.
The other problem is we have a ton of primadonas. The ones who sit and basically scoff at their classes and claim to be mad hackers. The thing is they are for the most part pretty damned smart. They are to arrogant to do anything or work with other people and they will manage to get their degree and they won't be able to do jack shit in the real world because they refuse to do the mundane programming. They want glamor. These are guys who are about to graduate.
Don't worry about those guys. Once they get fired a couple of times because they're unable to work with those "beneath them" they'll change.
My fiance can't take the abuse from the corporate types over her which is part of the reason why she fully intends to say "fuck this industry" and become a stay at home mother coding in her spare time for fun and to teach her kids if they're interested.
In the nearly ten years since I left college, I've worked for startups, small businesses and large corporations. I wouldn't say "fuck this industry" so much as "fuck you". Out of all of the places I've worked, I've hated corporations the most. They seems to be the most impersonal, have the most ridiculous policies and the most incompetent management.
If you find yourself in an environment that you simply can't stand, then look elsewhere. There are plenty of computer related jobs in many different industries. It is very easy to fall into the trap of being unhappy with your job day after day if the pay is good enough and the work is easy. It's all too easy to ignore or overlook just how negative an impact your daily working environment is actually having on your life. In my case I was chronically sleep deprived, isolated at work (only real programmer at the office) and eventually began turning to substances to cope with just how much I hated going into the office. It was at that point that I finally decided I needed to take a good hard look at how happy I was with my life in general. I came to the realization that my job was negatively impacting just about everything else in my life and decided to resign.
If you're someone who decided to study computer science in college because it sounded interesting, then you may be content with the typical IT staff position. If you consider yourself a hacker, then stay the hell away from those sorts of jobs. The rigorously enforced policies (you must wear this, be at the office at exactly these hours, etc.) and overall mediocrity of those around you will drive you crazy. I've found that I've been much more likely to find happiness working for a smaller, very technical company (typically in the telecommunications industry, but the financial industry can be good too). Working for startups can also be very liberating as many times you find youself in a consulting position, working out of your house and on your own schedule (usually).
I guess my message is to not let one bad employer, or type of employer, get you down. If you take the time to really define what you want your workday to be like, you can probably find a job to match.
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What individuals have been prosecuted? AFAIK, only companies trying to sell things like DVD jukeboxes were prosecuted. And in those cases, wasn't the real issue the fact that they weren't a CSS licensee but were decrypting CSS streams in violation of the patent?
Sorry, I was being a bit of a smart ass with the whole dog and chocolate thing.
In the U.S. we use pretty much the same phrase, "I wouldn't give that to my dog".
Wow! This guy's a bigger rip-off artist than Carlos Mencia!
I know you meant that to be funny, but Isaac Asimov wrote a short story about exactly that. I don't recall the title, but it was set in a futuristic world where all food was synthetic. The protagonist wins a cooking contest by using real, dirt grown garlic (IIRC), which gets him exiled when people find out.
You mean besides the fact that chocolate is poisonous to dogs?
As a resident of Chicago and a pizza fanatic, let me assure you that pizza can be very different from one restaurant (even from the same chain) to another.
Style of crust and type of sauce, cheese and meats vary immensely. Sure you've got deep dish, pan and thin crust pizzas, but everyone has their own version of crust. Some use a very airy and flakey thin crust, some use a thicker, chewier bread-like crust, and others have a crispy, butter crust. Some places (like Ranalli's on Oak St.) serve double-decker pizzas with two layers of crust.
Same thing goes for the tomato sauce: some places use a sweet sauce, some use canned or sliced tomatos so you get large pieces, and some places don't even use tomatos instead opting for a cream or pesto-based sauce. Similar deal with meats; one chain (Connie's) had a one-day only special where they topped the pizza with foie gras (to protest the Chicago City Council's ban on the food). Even the particular oven the pizza is baked in makes a huge difference in the end product.
And in case you're wondering, the Lou Malnati's on Wells St., just north of the Merchandise Mart, has the best deep dish pizza in the city. Giordano's is garbage unless you judge deep dish pizza based on how thick of a slab of mozzarella they can put on the thing. For thin crust (American, not Italian style), it's got to be Bricks on Lincoln Ave. just south of Armitage Ave.
Speaking of barbeque, don't forget that Memphis in May is less than two weeks away!
I hear you, and I typically go with Godiva myself, but Cadbury Creme Eggs are awesome!
Wow, that's seriously messed up. It sounds like they just abuse the kids until they stop resisting authority figures? I hate to think what sort of an adult such a kid could grow up to be.
Also, only 20% of kids "graduate" the program? That doesn't sound like success to me.
Similar story here; I picked up an HP 4550N Color LaserJet on eBay for about $400 IIRC. The thing's a tank, like all of the earlier LaserJet models I've used. The only problem I have with it is that it's big, heavy and noisy.
Based on my prior experience with production quality printers, I think you're correct. The last place I worked at had a Canon CLC 5000 that needed maintenance on a weekly (or more frequent) basis. Typically for chronic paper jams.
I would think that a business that needs a production printer isn't going to want to have to service the thing themselves.
What exactly bad happens if you owe the IRS money and file a week late? I'm guessing nothing. I just can't see the IRS going after people for seven days of interest on a $200 payment.
Heck, I've known people that just flat-out did not file taxes for a year or two. Absolutely nothing happened to them.
That reminds of the story about a Chinese newspaper running a story from the Onion:
China Paper Bites on Onion Gag
Beijing Evening News Reprints Article From "The Onion"
Some people say it's not reputable, fine; to block it outright just doesn't make sense though. Wikipedia articles typically have references at the bottom of the page that do lead to reputable sources. Why prevent students from discovering other sources via Wikipedia?
I'm one of the fortunate souls who works for an employer (telecom) that doesn't require me to meet an 8:00 to 5:00, Monday through Friday, in the office standard. If I want to do my work from home one day, or want to leave early to catch a Cubs game, it's not a problem so long as the work's done by the deadline. This has made my life so much more enjoyable: if I'm up late for some reason I can sleep in a bit the next day, if I need to take my car into the shop or run some errands I don't have to schedule a day off, etc.
Nevertheless, I certainly wouldn't like to work out of my house every day. I enjoy the people I work with, I have a nice work area in the office (no cube!) and I actually do need hands on access to equipment from time to time.
One of my friends, a core engineer at the company, works from home almost every day. He claims this is because he gets interrupted too much by co-workers if he's in the office. He really likes the setup, but it seems like he's always doing something for work when I stop by in the evenings, or on weekends.
I think the problem is with other peoples' expectations. If you always work from home and people are used to calling you for things, they won't give a second thought to ringing you at 11:00 PM, or on a weekend for some trivial issue. If they're used to stopping by your office, they'll probably leave you alone until Monday.
You're correct that I haven't use a GPS device while driving. I'm one of those people who simply drives around town, to and from work and occasionally takes longer trips over routes I'm familiar with. If I'm not familiar with the route I'll check one of the online services before I leave; I also carry a large book of maps with me.
I'm glad to hear that there are some people that actually have a need for a GPS device. It just seems to me that they're being marketed towards people who have no need for them. I suppose that really shouldn't surprise me.
I seem to recall that radios in automobiles used to be illegal for exactly the same reasons that people arguing for the criminalization of operating cellular phones or Blackberries while driving are using. Rather than making these sorts of things illegal, I'd simply like to see fines and penalties increased for those drivers who do get into accidents while distracted.
I agree with you regarding the enforcement of existing laws. I'd be extremely happy if the police started enforcing the laws regarding the use of turn signals when changing lanes, minimum safe following distances and use of the passing lane. I'm pretty sure that people violating these laws cause many more accidents than people chatting on cell phones while driving.
We've got a couple gear-heads here in the office that are into this stuff. One of them is building their own car computer. So far he's got an in-dash LCD touchscreen with an AM/FM/TV tuner that's motorized and retracts into the dash. This is hooked up to a small computer in the trunk running some Linux distribution and a GPS unit so he can track his movements (I don't recall the software program he's running). The company we work for writes and hosts telephony applications so we have access to speech recognition and translation software tools.
This sort of thing can be built fairly easily these days from off-the-shelf components. I'd hate to see what an auto manufacturer would charge for an equivalent system.
I must admit that I don't quite understand all the excitement over things like in-car navigation systems, automatic parallel parking systems, etc. In fact, I would think they would do more harm than good. How hard is it to consult a map or plan your route before taking a trip? I shudder to think of people having to resort to a navigation system for their daily commute. How hard is it to parallel park your car? Yeah, it takes a little bit of practice, but it's not difficult.
Just a head's up to anyone running Red Hat that their DST patch is incorrect. It's switching to Daylight Saving Time two hours earlier than it's supposed to.
CST6DST Sun Mar 11 05:59:59 2007 UTC = Sat Mar 10 23:59:59 2007 CST
isdst=0 gmtoff=-21600
CST6DST Sun Mar 11 06:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 11 01:00:00 2007 DST
isdst=1 gmtoff=-18000
CST6DST Sun Nov 4 04:59:59 2007 UTC = Sat Nov 3 23:59:59 2007 DST
isdst=1 gmtoff=-18000
CST6DST Sun Nov 4 05:00:00 2007 UTC = Sat Nov 3 23:00:00 2007 CST
isdst=0 gmtoff=-21600
Clock's are supposed to roll forward an hour at 1:59 A.M. not midnight.
We're having some fun with these patches. We've got about 400 machines to update (with three people) and are running about two dozen different releases of FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Red Hat Linux, Debian Linux, SCO, Solaris and Windows operating systems. And those are just the production servers; I can't wait until we do desktops.
What are the odds that crops, bioengineered to produce pesticides, are to blame?
Okay, I'll admit it. One of the first things I tried after getting the trial version of Opera was viewing some streaming videos along with downloadable content. Sadly, my Wii refused to play WMV, AVI and MPEG content.
I did read the article, but I didn't see any mention of exactly how the Wii is a portal to porn. I suppose you can look at pictures, but the Wii can't currently be used to view videos.
If someone does know of a way of playing video content on a Wii, then please let me know!
I've never used Workspace Managed Client, but I was involved in a WebSphere deployment before I left my last job. Some of the installers started out as Java Swing applications, but then they'd fire up on old-school Motif installer. I assumed this was due to IBM inheriting the software from Lotus and then not updating the installer (other than with IBM branding). In addition, the user interface typically wasn't coded properly (ie. multi-threaded) so certain installs wouldn't redraw the screen and appeared to hang for an hour or so. All in all, it looked like a disaster to me. I got the impression that once you bought into the product, you were going to be stuck going back to IBM or one of their partners for every little thing. Heck, even the certified partner had a hard time getting things to work properly.
http://www.rrstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2 0070218/NEWS/102180045
Don't worry about those guys. Once they get fired a couple of times because they're unable to work with those "beneath them" they'll change.
In the nearly ten years since I left college, I've worked for startups, small businesses and large corporations. I wouldn't say "fuck this industry" so much as "fuck you". Out of all of the places I've worked, I've hated corporations the most. They seems to be the most impersonal, have the most ridiculous policies and the most incompetent management.
If you find yourself in an environment that you simply can't stand, then look elsewhere. There are plenty of computer related jobs in many different industries. It is very easy to fall into the trap of being unhappy with your job day after day if the pay is good enough and the work is easy. It's all too easy to ignore or overlook just how negative an impact your daily working environment is actually having on your life. In my case I was chronically sleep deprived, isolated at work (only real programmer at the office) and eventually began turning to substances to cope with just how much I hated going into the office. It was at that point that I finally decided I needed to take a good hard look at how happy I was with my life in general. I came to the realization that my job was negatively impacting just about everything else in my life and decided to resign.
If you're someone who decided to study computer science in college because it sounded interesting, then you may be content with the typical IT staff position. If you consider yourself a hacker, then stay the hell away from those sorts of jobs. The rigorously enforced policies (you must wear this, be at the office at exactly these hours, etc.) and overall mediocrity of those around you will drive you crazy. I've found that I've been much more likely to find happiness working for a smaller, very technical company (typically in the telecommunications industry, but the financial industry can be good too). Working for startups can also be very liberating as many times you find youself in a consulting position, working out of your house and on your own schedule (usually).
I guess my message is to not let one bad employer, or type of employer, get you down. If you take the time to really define what you want your workday to be like, you can probably find a job to match.