I will have to disagree with a lot of what's been said. I started watching the original Star Trek when I was a young kid. My step-mother was a fan, and she turned me into a sci-fi nut introducing me to both Star Trek and Asimov.
When TNG came out, I was pretty disappointed. In fact, I think I skipped the entire first season after Mission to Farpoint.
Something happened in the second season, though. The characters seemed to find themselves and a balance. The stories improved. I was hooked. When I moved to Mexico, I had almost 100 episodes of TNG on video tape with me. I watched at least 3 episodes a week while I was there.
Shortly before I left for Mexico, the first season of Voyager was wrapping up. I had pretty much ignored it until the season finale and the first episode of the second season. Then I was hooked. I'm no catching up on the episodes that I missed while I was in Mexico.
I admit, the season finale was incredibly disappointing. I was pretty put off. Still, though, I enjoy a lot of the rerun episodes that I catch, and I'll continue to watch them while they're on.
I can't say the same for DS9. Something about it just doesn't really do it for me. I can't put my finger on it. I watch it occasionally and even enjoy it occasionally, but TNG and Voyager were by far, superior.
TNG had a great final episode, and I guess that added to the disappointment of Voyager's last episode. What I didn't like about TNG, though, were the motion pictures that followed. The characters, particularly Riker, Data, and Troi, don't seem to take it seriously at all in the motion pictures. It's almost like they're just there to party and get a paycheck. Sorry, that spoils it for me.
I have to say that the premise for Enterprise doesn't really appeal to me. Like Voyager and TNG, I'll probably watch the first episode or two, and then wait for things to come around in the second season.
Maybe I'll be pleasantly suprised, but right now, I'm doubting it... Sorry, but I had to throw in my $0.02.
I've got a cable modem, and my mileage definately varied from yours. Normally, my best download speed is about 150k/sec. I was peaking at 250k/sec and averaging about 200k/sec by the end of the downlaod. That's a pretty significant increase for me. That best download speed of 150k/sec is not very normal and usually peters off on larger downloads, to about 130k/sec.
If more people start using the server, I'll be happy to use it.
Now, that said, I'm sitting here watching my cable modem go nuts and I've got about 40 established connections. I can't really gauge what the throughput is, but it sure looks to be significant.
I leave my machine on all day when I'm at work, though, so that doesn't really matter to me. Activate it before I go to work, build up karma, and then turn it off when I'm at home and not using it. That's cool..
I can't speak for Europe, but I worked in Mexico (a lovely area near the beach, south of Cancun). I just went and eventually got my work visa. It's a pain in the butt, but I would imagine it's easier to do once you're there. I think people would be more inclined to hire you, even if they have to sponsor a work visa, if you're already there.
As someone else pointed out, if you're going to a country where English isn't the native language, you should be able to speak the language, if not fluently, very conversationally. Actually, for technical work, I'd say you'll probably have to speak fluently. Remember, your co-workers are going to talk in their native tongue, and they're going to need to be able to explain fairly advanced concepts and ideas to you.
I speak Spanish well, but I don't think I would have made it as a programmer there. I definately would have had to speak it better. I could discuss regular topics with ease, but discussing programming issues with other programmers in Spanish would have been pretty tough. I would have needed a few months of working there as a programmer to get comfortable with it. (I, obviously, wasn't working as a programmer.)
If you can pull it off, though, do it. It's one of the greatest experiences of my life. I have very fond memories of my two years there and a ton of friends with whom I'm still quite close.
I helped start up an ISP in a small town in Mexico (and still provide tech assistance to the current owner).
First of all, had I known what it was going to be like, I wouldn't have done it. As someone else posted, the newbie questions are a nightmare, and unless you're the only game in town, you're going to have to handle it.
As for equipment, figure on 1 modem for every 5-8 users to start with. You can expand from there. Get an AscendMax for the dial-in stuff (avoid multi-line serial strips and external modems like the plague. These things are a maintenance nightmare). Get Radius or FreeRadius, and some sort of ISP billing software. Not 100% necessary for the billing stuff, but it sure makes life simpler.
Okay, this is VERY, VERY, important for a small ISP with limited bandwidth: If you're running Linux (or another *nix), run Squid... It will save you TONS of bandwidth. We saw a 60% reduction in bandwidth when we installed it. This cuts down on your costs significantly, as you can add more modems with less bandwidth.
You can probably get by with 1 or 2 servers. A small ISP doesn't really need much in the way of processing power. We were running 32 dial-in lines and a couple of 64K leased lines to other ISPs in other towns, over a 512K line to our provider. Our most powerful server was a 300mHz Pentium II, I think. None of the machines ever approached 50% CPU usage.
I don't know what your situation is, logistically, but we did some wireless ethernet stuff as well, but that required getting a license (a real pain in Mexico) and then putting a transceiver on a tower (which we had to buy and have installed). From this we were able to offer up to 1M/sec to some of our clients (Internet cafes).
Most importantly, you ask, is it worth it? Tough question. The tech support is a nightmare. Because of competition, if you have any, you can't price things very high, so it doesn't make you a lot of money unless you're huge. You also need 24hr monitoring of the system, even if it's only a program that can page (via modem) you when there's a problem.
I certainly wouldn't ever do it again, but the guy who's running it now is enjoying it. He hired some other guys to do all the tech support, so that took care of the biggest headache. I doubt he's making much money, though.
My work hours vary greatly. During normal times (no immediate pending deadline), ~40-50 hours a week.
When deadline is pending, ~70 hours a week (7 - 10 hour days). I prefer to work weekends instead of longer days. What can I say? I have no life.
If a company goes out of business simply because 23 people are bad mouthing them, that doesn't sound like a very stable company to me. What a lame attempt to get out of a shareholder lawsuit.
I get on the stock message boards on Yahoo! all the time. People bad mouth stocks or hype the hell out of them constantly. It's been going on for a long time.
It would take a little more evidence than what was presented in this case to have cause to identify the "chatters"
Okay, I just read some physics on this. It makes intuitive sense, but I'm not one to always buy into intuition. Basically, the force is the combination of the force of the particles plus the force of the deflection (somewhat reduced, depending on the effectiveness of the reflecting surface). Anyway, I guess I can buy that. The web page: Tacking Solar Sails has a good description of it.
The cueball analogy works, I suppose, but here's why I didn't buy it. Take the cueball analogy down to the atomic level. The photon is the cueball, and each molecule of the sail is an object ball.
Take any of those object balls and place it mid table, in the center. Now hit it with a cueball, any side, doesn't matter exactly where. Chances are, it's deflected, right? Now repeat this a million times, and take the average of where the object ball ends up. It ends up in the middle of the table. That was my take on it.
Since the deflected photons act as a force in themselves though, that does change things. I just don't really understand how a deflected photon can provide any additional force, since the inertia appears to be transferred at impact. That's my confusion.
I'm not sure if it makes sense to me. The surface has to be reflective. I understand this. If it absorbed the photons, then it would not receive the inertia that the photons impart.
Now, that said, does it receive it's energy from the impact of the photons or the deflection of the photons (similar to say, a rocket engine's exhaust)? It seems to me the actual impact of the photon, combined with the fact that the photon is not absorbed, would provide the inertia. If that's the case, then angle to the sun has no effect.
I'd like to hear what a physicist has to say on the topic. I don't know. I'm just going from my basic understanding of physics.
I don't see how the angle of the sail relative to the sun would have any effect on the direction of the vehicle. It's not a sail boat. The difference between this and a sailboat is that a sail has a rudder which has drag against the water to control direction.
With no atmosphere and no water, a solar sail has nothing to drag against to control direction. It can simply be pushed one way: Away from the sun, and then affected by gravitation of other objects. The angle of the sail to the sun just can't have any effect that I can fathom. Maybe I'm wrong.
You're right, this is undeniably cool. I've heard people complain: "Well, these are all huge planets, nobody could live on them." Sure, but what about the moons? If Titan were in orbit around a planet in the habitable zone, it might be suitable.
There are plenty of moons in our own solar system that, in the right orbit and the right chemical makeup, could be perfectly suitable for habitation. How cool would that be. "Hey, it's a full Saturn tonight. Isn't it beautiful?" Now that would be undeniably cool.
I don't find this remotely depressing. First of all, let's get something straight: A "purpose" in life is not the responsibility of the Universe. The Universe is a thing. It doesn't care if we have a purpose or not. We're simply a small part of it.
Borrowing from Contact (the book, not the movie), there was a great part where the aliens in our galaxy were collaborating with aliens from another galaxy actually creating a new galaxy from raw materials.
A few million years from now, there's no reason why we might not have that kind of technology (assuming we survive the millions of years). Assuming an ever-expanding Universe, I would imagine that our goal as a species would be to take a few galaxies that we would engineer to stay in a group as the Universe as a whole expands. From the dying stars, we would somehow break the fused elements back down into hydrogen to create new stars in and new galaxies, so that we could continue to exist.
It's an optimistic outlook, but certainly a goal and a purpose to strive for. If the Universe collapses into a new big bang, our only purpose could be to survive until then, at which point, we'd be destroyed. I don't particularly like that. That seems more pointless.
I don't believe in any single development methodology. It depends on the group and sometimes even the project.
I am the director of development where I work. We are currently working on the release of a product, but shortly after the release, I plan on overhauling the development methodology. What we do works well, but it could be better. I think that's really the secret. Keep going back and examining what worked for you, and what didn't, and fix the stuff that didn't work.
I see some serious flaws in our existing methodology. I have nobody to blame but myself. I was mostly responsible for creating it and I endorsed it in the end.
After this round, the developers and I will take a couple days to go over what worked and what didn't work and look for alternatives. Among them, aspects of Extreme Programming. I'm a big believer in the pairing up aspect. There are a few really good things that come with this:
1: Developer is less likely to goof off
2: Second set of eyes can check for errors while one is coming up with the actual code
3: Different people have different strengths. In this situation, you get the combined strengths of both developers.
We will examine other areas of Extreme Programming as well, but this is definately one of my favorite aspects.
Actually, it wasn't my copyright that was in violation, it was the other guy's copyright. He negotiated with Intel for quite some time. He lives in England. The logistics of a lawsuit would have been a nightmare, not to mention, Intel could drag on a lawsuit until the guy was broke and in debt up to his ears.
It's not that he didn't try. There's just no way to take on a big company unless you're talking about tens of thousands of dollars+ and you can find a lawyer who will take it on contingency. It's a very unlikely proposition.
According to copyright law, you don't have to have a registered copyright to protect your work (this was pre-DMCA days). You shouldn't have to, either. It's stupid. If you can prove that you're the original author, which would have been simple in this guy's case, you're completely protected. My book came out more than a year before their software. My book credited him as author. I would think that's evidence enough that he was the original author. Not to mention I had had his code for at least 6 months before the book came out, so that's roughly a year and a half before Intel produced the software.
As for the other reply which said "It's not theft." Actually, it is. Theft is a crime of property. They made money off of something that belonged to someone else. That's theft. If you write a book and someone else takes your manuscript and goes and sells it to a publisher under their name, without your permission, what is that? That's theft. They stole your manuscript and made money off of your original work. It's against the law. You can't defend it. Software is no different. It's an original work and unless you expressly give someone the right to go out and sell it without paying you, it's against the law for them to do so.
All the numbers except the fax # appear to be slashdotted. As the original poster said, please voice your support. Since the phone lines are down, fax 'em.
Don't just send it to sales@ariston.com. Send it to:
sales@ariston.com
sales_boston@ariston.com
support@ariston.com
webmaster@ariston.com
postmaster@ariston.com
etc...
Let your message be heard.
In a book I wrote years ago, I included code for, basically, extracting information about Windows VxDs from the binaries. I got this code from another developer who had placed copyright restrictions on the code. I included those restrictions along with the book and credited him for the code.
A few years later, Intel released a product for profiling software. In that software, they used the code from my book without my permission, nor the permission of the original author, who clearly stated that the code could not be used in for-profit software.
Being a small developer, and not having a registered copyright, there was nothing he could do. He certainly couldn't afford to take on the likes of Intel.
It's sad that companies with such large budgets and such talented programmers, have to resort to theft of code. And companies complain about piracy and intellectual property rights. They're a bunch of hypocrites and theives themselves.
What if your goal is not to bed a really attractive girl? Or, what I mean is, what if physical attractiveness is not your number one goal? A lot of geek guys would probably prefer to find someone who is intelligent and interesting and just plain nice to look at.
That's fine, but the article is correct. It will attract good looking women as well as mediocre and even ugly women. The principles work. I could kill myself for having the lack of confidence that I did when I was younger. Man, if I had just bought the fact that all I had to do was pretend to be confident, I would have been a much happier younger guy. Fortunately, it didn't take forever to learn.
I don't just use it to get laid (though I have, and have no regrets for it), I've used it to meet really attractive, smart women, with whom I've had very fulfilling relationships.
Rambus is pretty much screwed because of this. Okay, they still have a few more trials, but my guess is that they're going to lose, and obviously a lot of their investors do to (at this moment, they're down 25%).
Intel has made their intentions clear. They will not be using RDRAM for future chips and will likely not work with Rambus in the future. Intel's not real happy about the lawsuits and they're definately not happy about the price gouging by Rambus. It hurts Intel's business to have to rely on RDRAM. The memory is so expensive, people don't want to use the motherboards.
Rambus has about the worst PR of any tech company because of the suits and because of the prices. Personally, I doubt they'll recover. They've really put themselves into a bad spot and I don't think they can dig out, but that's just MHO.
I've always believed that superstring theory is going to be closer to the truth than the standard model. The standard model doesn't account for gravity, and I find that to be a huge failing. I like to think of standard model and general relativity as good approximations, but I think eventually superstring or maybe some other theory will eventually supplant the two as the unified theory that predicts "everything". I guess we'll see.
I saw the premier in Washington D.C. Cast and crew were there. I was horribly disappointed as were many of the other filmgoers that day.
It's not atypical of the film industry to rush when they think they've got some sort of time frame within which they can maximize their profits. In this case, they *@&#!& the pooch.
Personally, I'm looking forward to the remake, despite the fact that as I learned more about Shatner, the less I can stand the original series and the films with the original crew.
Give me any of the latest ones any day. At least the casts of these are decent human beings.
Okay, I'm wrong. This is a quote from my cousin who is a lawyer. You'll have to excuse the language:
Those are all discrimination cases. If this person is in a protected class (minority, female...) and the company is discriminating against him based upon race, religion, gender, age, disability... then he could have an argument. But if you are just an average white guy, these protections do not apply. In fact, if your boss calls a company wide meeting and fires you in front of everyone screaming that he thinks you are an asshole and he is sick of looking at your ugly face, get your shit and leave right this second or he will have you arrested for being a dick head, you have no employment based claim you can make against him. He can call anyone he wants and say that in his opinion you are an asshole and not worth hiring. You could sue in tort for slander, tortious interference with contract (a good one for this person if he gets fired) or intentional infliction of emotional distress, but he has a right to voice his opinion and fire you. In fact, there is an added protection to speech between employers when it relates to an employee's performance with the prior employer. You might not be able to force them to answer interrogatories or testify in court about such discussions because there is a qualifed privelege involved. The courts feel that the public benefits when employers can speak freely among one another without fear of slander suits. Otherwise, every employer would have a policy of saying "he worked here and that is all we can say."
Sure, how about the Supreme Court Case: Robinson v. Shell Oil Co. (1997), where the Supreme court decided that a former employee can file a discrimination charge claiming that he has been retaliated against by his former employer based on alleged negative job references. This would be considered retaliation in this case.
I have to disagree. By contacting his employer, they are harassing him. Now, they are free to go into a public forum and state that he's wrong, that he talks too much, or whatever. They have no right, however, to contact his employer and jeapordize his job simply because he's exercising his right to free speech. That constitutes harassment and that's illegal.
Now, if his current employer contacts them, and they say that, that's a different thing altogether. If he uses them as a reference and they say that, then he's in trouble, but if they actively seek out to inform his current employer and put his career in jeapordy, simply because they don't like what he's saying, then they're screwed and he can make quite a bit of cash in a lawsuit.
As an ex-employee, without signing anything, you are not legally bound to withhold your opinion. Microsoft has employees sueing them because they feel they were unfairly treated. Microsoft can't sue them for having that opinion and stating it publicly. Your former employer in the same manner has no right to censor your opinion.
That's what freedom of speech is all about. Even if you had signed something with them, I've never heard of any employment agreement that restricts a person's right to publicly speak their opinion about that company.
Now, that said, I don't know what you signed when you became an employee, but my guess is that they have no grounds with which to restrict your speech. I would do the following:
Ask them on what legal basis they believe they have to restrict your speech. Get it in writing.
If they continue to harass you without proof of some legal basis for their actions, send them a letter stating that if they refuse to stop harassing you, you will sue them. Keep a copy of this letter and have it dated.
If the harassment continues. Go to a lawyer. That's what they're there for.
Slashdot Mirror
I will have to disagree with a lot of what's been said. I started watching the original Star Trek when I was a young kid. My step-mother was a fan, and she turned me into a sci-fi nut introducing me to both Star Trek and Asimov.
When TNG came out, I was pretty disappointed. In fact, I think I skipped the entire first season after Mission to Farpoint.
Something happened in the second season, though. The characters seemed to find themselves and a balance. The stories improved. I was hooked. When I moved to Mexico, I had almost 100 episodes of TNG on video tape with me. I watched at least 3 episodes a week while I was there.
Shortly before I left for Mexico, the first season of Voyager was wrapping up. I had pretty much ignored it until the season finale and the first episode of the second season. Then I was hooked. I'm no catching up on the episodes that I missed while I was in Mexico.
I admit, the season finale was incredibly disappointing. I was pretty put off. Still, though, I enjoy a lot of the rerun episodes that I catch, and I'll continue to watch them while they're on.
I can't say the same for DS9. Something about it just doesn't really do it for me. I can't put my finger on it. I watch it occasionally and even enjoy it occasionally, but TNG and Voyager were by far, superior.
TNG had a great final episode, and I guess that added to the disappointment of Voyager's last episode. What I didn't like about TNG, though, were the motion pictures that followed. The characters, particularly Riker, Data, and Troi, don't seem to take it seriously at all in the motion pictures. It's almost like they're just there to party and get a paycheck. Sorry, that spoils it for me.
I have to say that the premise for Enterprise doesn't really appeal to me. Like Voyager and TNG, I'll probably watch the first episode or two, and then wait for things to come around in the second season.
Maybe I'll be pleasantly suprised, but right now, I'm doubting it... Sorry, but I had to throw in my $0.02.
I've got a cable modem, and my mileage definately varied from yours. Normally, my best download speed is about 150k/sec. I was peaking at 250k/sec and averaging about 200k/sec by the end of the downlaod. That's a pretty significant increase for me. That best download speed of 150k/sec is not very normal and usually peters off on larger downloads, to about 130k/sec.
If more people start using the server, I'll be happy to use it.
Now, that said, I'm sitting here watching my cable modem go nuts and I've got about 40 established connections. I can't really gauge what the throughput is, but it sure looks to be significant.
I leave my machine on all day when I'm at work, though, so that doesn't really matter to me. Activate it before I go to work, build up karma, and then turn it off when I'm at home and not using it. That's cool..
I can't speak for Europe, but I worked in Mexico (a lovely area near the beach, south of Cancun). I just went and eventually got my work visa. It's a pain in the butt, but I would imagine it's easier to do once you're there. I think people would be more inclined to hire you, even if they have to sponsor a work visa, if you're already there.
As someone else pointed out, if you're going to a country where English isn't the native language, you should be able to speak the language, if not fluently, very conversationally. Actually, for technical work, I'd say you'll probably have to speak fluently. Remember, your co-workers are going to talk in their native tongue, and they're going to need to be able to explain fairly advanced concepts and ideas to you.
I speak Spanish well, but I don't think I would have made it as a programmer there. I definately would have had to speak it better. I could discuss regular topics with ease, but discussing programming issues with other programmers in Spanish would have been pretty tough. I would have needed a few months of working there as a programmer to get comfortable with it. (I, obviously, wasn't working as a programmer.)
If you can pull it off, though, do it. It's one of the greatest experiences of my life. I have very fond memories of my two years there and a ton of friends with whom I'm still quite close.
I helped start up an ISP in a small town in Mexico (and still provide tech assistance to the current owner).
First of all, had I known what it was going to be like, I wouldn't have done it. As someone else posted, the newbie questions are a nightmare, and unless you're the only game in town, you're going to have to handle it.
As for equipment, figure on 1 modem for every 5-8 users to start with. You can expand from there. Get an AscendMax for the dial-in stuff (avoid multi-line serial strips and external modems like the plague. These things are a maintenance nightmare). Get Radius or FreeRadius, and some sort of ISP billing software. Not 100% necessary for the billing stuff, but it sure makes life simpler.
Okay, this is VERY, VERY, important for a small ISP with limited bandwidth: If you're running Linux (or another *nix), run Squid... It will save you TONS of bandwidth. We saw a 60% reduction in bandwidth when we installed it. This cuts down on your costs significantly, as you can add more modems with less bandwidth.
You can probably get by with 1 or 2 servers. A small ISP doesn't really need much in the way of processing power. We were running 32 dial-in lines and a couple of 64K leased lines to other ISPs in other towns, over a 512K line to our provider. Our most powerful server was a 300mHz Pentium II, I think. None of the machines ever approached 50% CPU usage.
I don't know what your situation is, logistically, but we did some wireless ethernet stuff as well, but that required getting a license (a real pain in Mexico) and then putting a transceiver on a tower (which we had to buy and have installed). From this we were able to offer up to 1M/sec to some of our clients (Internet cafes).
Most importantly, you ask, is it worth it? Tough question. The tech support is a nightmare. Because of competition, if you have any, you can't price things very high, so it doesn't make you a lot of money unless you're huge. You also need 24hr monitoring of the system, even if it's only a program that can page (via modem) you when there's a problem.
I certainly wouldn't ever do it again, but the guy who's running it now is enjoying it. He hired some other guys to do all the tech support, so that took care of the biggest headache. I doubt he's making much money, though.
My work hours vary greatly. During normal times (no immediate pending deadline), ~40-50 hours a week. When deadline is pending, ~70 hours a week (7 - 10 hour days). I prefer to work weekends instead of longer days. What can I say? I have no life.
If a company goes out of business simply because 23 people are bad mouthing them, that doesn't sound like a very stable company to me. What a lame attempt to get out of a shareholder lawsuit.
I get on the stock message boards on Yahoo! all the time. People bad mouth stocks or hype the hell out of them constantly. It's been going on for a long time.
It would take a little more evidence than what was presented in this case to have cause to identify the "chatters"
Okay, I just read some physics on this. It makes intuitive sense, but I'm not one to always buy into intuition. Basically, the force is the combination of the force of the particles plus the force of the deflection (somewhat reduced, depending on the effectiveness of the reflecting surface). Anyway, I guess I can buy that. The web page: Tacking Solar Sails has a good description of it.
The cueball analogy works, I suppose, but here's why I didn't buy it. Take the cueball analogy down to the atomic level. The photon is the cueball, and each molecule of the sail is an object ball.
Take any of those object balls and place it mid table, in the center. Now hit it with a cueball, any side, doesn't matter exactly where. Chances are, it's deflected, right? Now repeat this a million times, and take the average of where the object ball ends up. It ends up in the middle of the table. That was my take on it.
Since the deflected photons act as a force in themselves though, that does change things. I just don't really understand how a deflected photon can provide any additional force, since the inertia appears to be transferred at impact. That's my confusion.
I'm not sure if it makes sense to me. The surface has to be reflective. I understand this. If it absorbed the photons, then it would not receive the inertia that the photons impart.
Now, that said, does it receive it's energy from the impact of the photons or the deflection of the photons (similar to say, a rocket engine's exhaust)? It seems to me the actual impact of the photon, combined with the fact that the photon is not absorbed, would provide the inertia. If that's the case, then angle to the sun has no effect.
I'd like to hear what a physicist has to say on the topic. I don't know. I'm just going from my basic understanding of physics.
I don't see how the angle of the sail relative to the sun would have any effect on the direction of the vehicle. It's not a sail boat. The difference between this and a sailboat is that a sail has a rudder which has drag against the water to control direction.
With no atmosphere and no water, a solar sail has nothing to drag against to control direction. It can simply be pushed one way: Away from the sun, and then affected by gravitation of other objects. The angle of the sail to the sun just can't have any effect that I can fathom. Maybe I'm wrong.
You're right, this is undeniably cool. I've heard people complain: "Well, these are all huge planets, nobody could live on them." Sure, but what about the moons? If Titan were in orbit around a planet in the habitable zone, it might be suitable.
There are plenty of moons in our own solar system that, in the right orbit and the right chemical makeup, could be perfectly suitable for habitation. How cool would that be. "Hey, it's a full Saturn tonight. Isn't it beautiful?" Now that would be undeniably cool.
I don't find this remotely depressing. First of all, let's get something straight: A "purpose" in life is not the responsibility of the Universe. The Universe is a thing. It doesn't care if we have a purpose or not. We're simply a small part of it.
Borrowing from Contact (the book, not the movie), there was a great part where the aliens in our galaxy were collaborating with aliens from another galaxy actually creating a new galaxy from raw materials.
A few million years from now, there's no reason why we might not have that kind of technology (assuming we survive the millions of years). Assuming an ever-expanding Universe, I would imagine that our goal as a species would be to take a few galaxies that we would engineer to stay in a group as the Universe as a whole expands. From the dying stars, we would somehow break the fused elements back down into hydrogen to create new stars in and new galaxies, so that we could continue to exist.
It's an optimistic outlook, but certainly a goal and a purpose to strive for. If the Universe collapses into a new big bang, our only purpose could be to survive until then, at which point, we'd be destroyed. I don't particularly like that. That seems more pointless.
But that's just my opinion.
I don't believe in any single development methodology. It depends on the group and sometimes even the project.
I am the director of development where I work. We are currently working on the release of a product, but shortly after the release, I plan on overhauling the development methodology. What we do works well, but it could be better. I think that's really the secret. Keep going back and examining what worked for you, and what didn't, and fix the stuff that didn't work.
I see some serious flaws in our existing methodology. I have nobody to blame but myself. I was mostly responsible for creating it and I endorsed it in the end.
After this round, the developers and I will take a couple days to go over what worked and what didn't work and look for alternatives. Among them, aspects of Extreme Programming. I'm a big believer in the pairing up aspect. There are a few really good things that come with this:
1: Developer is less likely to goof off
2: Second set of eyes can check for errors while one is coming up with the actual code
3: Different people have different strengths. In this situation, you get the combined strengths of both developers.
We will examine other areas of Extreme Programming as well, but this is definately one of my favorite aspects.
Actually, it wasn't my copyright that was in violation, it was the other guy's copyright. He negotiated with Intel for quite some time. He lives in England. The logistics of a lawsuit would have been a nightmare, not to mention, Intel could drag on a lawsuit until the guy was broke and in debt up to his ears.
It's not that he didn't try. There's just no way to take on a big company unless you're talking about tens of thousands of dollars+ and you can find a lawyer who will take it on contingency. It's a very unlikely proposition.
According to copyright law, you don't have to have a registered copyright to protect your work (this was pre-DMCA days). You shouldn't have to, either. It's stupid. If you can prove that you're the original author, which would have been simple in this guy's case, you're completely protected. My book came out more than a year before their software. My book credited him as author. I would think that's evidence enough that he was the original author. Not to mention I had had his code for at least 6 months before the book came out, so that's roughly a year and a half before Intel produced the software.
As for the other reply which said "It's not theft." Actually, it is. Theft is a crime of property. They made money off of something that belonged to someone else. That's theft. If you write a book and someone else takes your manuscript and goes and sells it to a publisher under their name, without your permission, what is that? That's theft. They stole your manuscript and made money off of your original work. It's against the law. You can't defend it. Software is no different. It's an original work and unless you expressly give someone the right to go out and sell it without paying you, it's against the law for them to do so.
All the numbers except the fax # appear to be slashdotted. As the original poster said, please voice your support. Since the phone lines are down, fax 'em.
Don't just send it to sales@ariston.com. Send it to:
sales@ariston.com
sales_boston@ariston.com
support@ariston.com
webmaster@ariston.com
postmaster@ariston.com
etc...
Let your message be heard.
In a book I wrote years ago, I included code for, basically, extracting information about Windows VxDs from the binaries. I got this code from another developer who had placed copyright restrictions on the code. I included those restrictions along with the book and credited him for the code.
A few years later, Intel released a product for profiling software. In that software, they used the code from my book without my permission, nor the permission of the original author, who clearly stated that the code could not be used in for-profit software.
Being a small developer, and not having a registered copyright, there was nothing he could do. He certainly couldn't afford to take on the likes of Intel.
It's sad that companies with such large budgets and such talented programmers, have to resort to theft of code. And companies complain about piracy and intellectual property rights. They're a bunch of hypocrites and theives themselves.
What if your goal is not to bed a really attractive girl? Or, what I mean is, what if physical attractiveness is not your number one goal? A lot of geek guys would probably prefer to find someone who is intelligent and interesting and just plain nice to look at.
That's fine, but the article is correct. It will attract good looking women as well as mediocre and even ugly women. The principles work. I could kill myself for having the lack of confidence that I did when I was younger. Man, if I had just bought the fact that all I had to do was pretend to be confident, I would have been a much happier younger guy. Fortunately, it didn't take forever to learn.
I don't just use it to get laid (though I have, and have no regrets for it), I've used it to meet really attractive, smart women, with whom I've had very fulfilling relationships.
But that's just me...
Rambus is pretty much screwed because of this. Okay, they still have a few more trials, but my guess is that they're going to lose, and obviously a lot of their investors do to (at this moment, they're down 25%).
Intel has made their intentions clear. They will not be using RDRAM for future chips and will likely not work with Rambus in the future. Intel's not real happy about the lawsuits and they're definately not happy about the price gouging by Rambus. It hurts Intel's business to have to rely on RDRAM. The memory is so expensive, people don't want to use the motherboards.
Rambus has about the worst PR of any tech company because of the suits and because of the prices. Personally, I doubt they'll recover. They've really put themselves into a bad spot and I don't think they can dig out, but that's just MHO.
I've always believed that superstring theory is going to be closer to the truth than the standard model. The standard model doesn't account for gravity, and I find that to be a huge failing. I like to think of standard model and general relativity as good approximations, but I think eventually superstring or maybe some other theory will eventually supplant the two as the unified theory that predicts "everything". I guess we'll see.
I saw the premier in Washington D.C. Cast and crew were there. I was horribly disappointed as were many of the other filmgoers that day.
It's not atypical of the film industry to rush when they think they've got some sort of time frame within which they can maximize their profits. In this case, they *@&#!& the pooch.
Personally, I'm looking forward to the remake, despite the fact that as I learned more about Shatner, the less I can stand the original series and the films with the original crew.
Give me any of the latest ones any day. At least the casts of these are decent human beings.
Pete Davis
Okay, I'm wrong. This is a quote from my cousin who is a lawyer. You'll have to excuse the language:
Those are all discrimination cases. If this person is in a protected class (minority, female...) and the company is discriminating against him based upon race, religion, gender, age, disability... then he could have an argument. But if you are just an average white guy, these protections do not apply. In fact, if your boss calls a company wide meeting and fires you in front of everyone screaming that he thinks you are an asshole and he is sick of looking at your ugly face, get your shit and leave right this second or he will have you arrested for being a dick head, you have no employment based claim you can make against him. He can call anyone he wants and say that in his opinion you are an asshole and not worth hiring. You could sue in tort for slander, tortious interference with contract (a good one for this person if he gets fired) or intentional infliction of emotional distress, but he has a right to voice his opinion and fire you. In fact, there is an added protection to speech between employers when it relates to an employee's performance with the prior employer. You might not be able to force them to answer interrogatories or testify in court about such discussions because there is a qualifed privelege involved. The courts feel that the public benefits when employers can speak freely among one another without fear of slander suits. Otherwise, every employer would have a policy of saying "he worked here and that is all we can say."
Pete Davis
Sure, how about the Supreme Court Case: Robinson v. Shell Oil Co. (1997), where the Supreme court decided that a former employee can file a discrimination charge claiming that he has been retaliated against by his former employer based on alleged negative job references. This would be considered retaliation in this case.
Pete Davis
Just to put a little weight behind what I've said, see the following web pages:
. html h tm
http://www.chasebanksucks.com/workingatchasesucks
http://members.tripod.com/fusa1/examples/321-325.
Clearly these pages wouldn't be around if these companies could do something about it.
I have to disagree. By contacting his employer, they are harassing him. Now, they are free to go into a public forum and state that he's wrong, that he talks too much, or whatever. They have no right, however, to contact his employer and jeapordize his job simply because he's exercising his right to free speech. That constitutes harassment and that's illegal.
Now, if his current employer contacts them, and they say that, that's a different thing altogether. If he uses them as a reference and they say that, then he's in trouble, but if they actively seek out to inform his current employer and put his career in jeapordy, simply because they don't like what he's saying, then they're screwed and he can make quite a bit of cash in a lawsuit.
As an ex-employee, without signing anything, you are not legally bound to withhold your opinion. Microsoft has employees sueing them because they feel they were unfairly treated. Microsoft can't sue them for having that opinion and stating it publicly. Your former employer in the same manner has no right to censor your opinion.
That's what freedom of speech is all about. Even if you had signed something with them, I've never heard of any employment agreement that restricts a person's right to publicly speak their opinion about that company.
Now, that said, I don't know what you signed when you became an employee, but my guess is that they have no grounds with which to restrict your speech. I would do the following:
Ask them on what legal basis they believe they have to restrict your speech. Get it in writing.
If they continue to harass you without proof of some legal basis for their actions, send them a letter stating that if they refuse to stop harassing you, you will sue them. Keep a copy of this letter and have it dated.
If the harassment continues. Go to a lawyer. That's what they're there for.
Good luck.