You probably don't have ADHD unless you're a kid. What you have is ADD, the "hyperactivity" nearly always goes away for adults; you learn to sit still even if your mind continues to bounce around a lot. Get a copy of Driven to Distraction; Ratey, the author, has ADD himself and knows what he's talking about. I've found most other books on the topic are full of condescending dreck and not worthy of being catapulted by the boxload into a hurricane.
ADD is weird because the âoesymptomsâ include intelligence and creativity. Youâ(TM)ll find you can use it to your advantage if you manage it properly. The basic problem is a bit like multi-tasking with a computer; we donâ(TM)t task switch like everybody else. The part of ADD everybody focuses on is the underfocus; problems paying attention (especially when things get dull), but there is also an aspect Ratey calls âoehyperfocusâ. There have been times when Iâ(TM)m doing heads-down computer programming when I had to be physically touched for someone to get my attention. I couldnâ(TM)t break focus on what I was doing. Iâ(TM)ve also forgotten to go to lunch and missed meetings. That can actually be useful when youâ(TM)ve got a single task that needs doing, but can also get in the way. My solution to that was to get a PDA (I got a Visor but any PDA should do the trick) and program in alarms for everything I needed to remember.
The other problem is underfocus. The stimulants help here -- I take methylphenidate, the generic version of Ritalin -- but I find itâ(TM)s also helpful to doodle during meetings. It makes me look busy and keeps my mind from wandering off too far. Periodically Iâ(TM)ll write down what people are saying, even if I donâ(TM)t really care. Itâ(TM)s just a way to maintain focus when things really start to drag. Try to stay in the conversation and understand everything thatâ(TM)s going on. Donâ(TM)t babble just to talk, stay with the conversation even if the only thing you can do is to ask for explanations. What you need to avoid is those situations when the meeting wanders off onto other topics and your mind wanders off in a different direction. The danger is that the topic wanders back to stuff youâ(TM)re supposed to know about, and that someone will ask your opinion. Then youâ(TM)ll be in the embarrassing position of having to ask whatâ(TM)s going on. I hate it when that happens.
Also, lose the scraps of paper you have everywhere. I know youâ(TM)ve got âem; we all do. Get a set of hanging files and a filing cabinet. Every piece of paper needs to be either filed, digitized or pitched. If you want to keep it, label a hanging folder (and no fair making a âoeMiscellaneousâ folder) and keep it on file. If itâ(TM)s something you need on hand, it goes into the PDA (and back that thing up, youâ(TM)re life is going to be in it). Otherwise, it goes into the recycle bin.
Finally, I never tell anybody about my ADD. It's nobody else's business but my own and it's up to me to manage it. I don't want people to be guessing how they can help or what they can do. If you have a close friend, you might want to ask him to clue you in if he sees problems (that's Ratey's suggestion). Don't ask a spouse to do it. That just begs for trouble since it becomes fodder for any marital strife you may experience.
I have to wonder why IBM hasn't taken the opportunity to annihilate SCO's case by now. Are the lawyers just waiting for this thing to reach a courtoom to unleash the legal nuclear weapons?
Of course. They've already said that they have no intention of answering SCO outside of a courtroom and no intention of settling. Their lawyers have been quiet, but I doubt they've been idle. I expect fireworks as soon as SCO steps into a courtroom, including (but not limited to):
Motion to dismiss due to SCO not "limiting damages" by releasing the dubious code.
Motion to dismiss because SCO already knowingly distributed the same code under GPL.
Countersuit for slander and/or libel.
Motions for more information which will keep SCO photocopiers smoking for a year.
Most damning will be a comparison between SCO's "intellectual property" and what is already in the public domain and/or GPL. Once you take SCO's UNIX and carve out all those which parts which exist elsewhere, there will be precious little left for SCO to sell.
In order to sue someone, you must prove that YOU were wronged by that person . . . Does anyone out there know any ways around this?
IANAL, but I think IBM has the best bet. You can bet they're looking the whole thing over very carefully for any hint of a countersuit. SCO says IBM's backing of Linux undermines their UNIX. Maybe IBM can counter that the lawsuit is baseless and undermines IBM's Linux business, or that the charges amount to libel. Once SCO's code is opened, maybe some AIX code wandered into SCO UNIX.
Maybe someone else has standing as well (were those intimidation letters legal?) but I suspect the interesting stuff won't happen until IBM's lawyers start speaking up. They're suspiciously quiet at the moment.
Re:SCO still packs a punch?
on
SCO SCO SCO!
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They field lie after lie and watch their stock price shoot through the roof.
If so, they're playing a dangerous game. Knowingly manipulating stock prices with false information is fraud. If they are not careful they would face at least shareholder lawsuits from shareholders who bought stock on the understanding the SCO held defensible intellectual property. At worst, they could face an SEC investigation and criminal charges.
Good idea. Hook the thing up to a bio-fuel cell to convert the alcohol to the electricity that runs the thing. Loser buys the beer, so -- as the night wears on -- the machine becomes more efficient and the human less so.
This is SCO's admission that Novell owns Unix System V, all revisions - that's what they mean by "SVRx", and pays Novell 95% of the royalties. SCO gets to keep 5% as administrative agent.
Interesting. IANAL, but I think you need to prove that you have been damaged for the dollar amount you are suing for. If they're hitting IBM for a billion dollars for the "damage" they've done to SCO's UNIX biz, that would mean they're projecting $20 billion in revenues. Quite a step up for a company which has never been near even one percent of that figure.
Contracts are what you use against parties you have relationships with . . . SCO's lawsuit against IBM does not involve patents or copyrights. SCO's complaint specifically alleges breach of contract
So IBM's big mistake was doing business with SCO in the first place. Tells you something, doesn't it?
The only thing I can think is that its shareholders must be among the most powerful people on the face of the planet.
Not the shareholders. If the shareholders had any usable clout, they would make MS pay out a respectable dividend rather than pour profits down the rathole of projects like Bob or the X-Box.
I'm pretty sure SCO's plan A was to extort a buyout from IBM. Threaten to sue, but allow themselves to be bought out. But their latest temper tantrum doesn't seem in line with that. I've been trying to figure out what (if anything) SCO is thinking and I have a theory.
IBM doesn't look like it's interested in buying SCO out. It looks like their lawyers have determined that there is little risk in court and have decided to go to war. Now they need a Plan B, but they've alienated the entire Linux community with Plan A and are rapidly running out of options.
Perhaps Plan B is to court Microsoft for a buyout. The new wording they're using for the copyright issues matches up exactly with Microsoft's current line of FUD. Theoretically, they could go to MS with a line like, "Gee, we'd really like to proceed with this case to kill off Linux, but we don't have the cash."
If that's Plan B it's as boneheaded as Plan A. MS probably loves the fact that SCO is parroting their line, but it's only helpful because it sounds like someone other than MS is saying this. If MS bought them out, it would lose the appearance of an independent voice.
If SCO was distributing Linux which contained SCO's intellectual property, aren't they then bound by the conditions for distributing Linux saying that their contributions to the code are now part of Linux and, as such, freely available?
Lets make a special tax just for companies based in our state! And if they don't take the hint we can go and beat them around the head and shoulders with two-by-fours.
Don't try to sell them on open-source. That's just a technical detail that doesn't interest most managers. Pick a distro -- like Red Hat -- that offers 24x7 support for a price. Then compare the cost for one copy of distro plus the cost of tech support against what they would pay for the cost of support plus per seat licenses for the competing product. That turns it into a bang-for-the-buck proposition that can be cost-justified.
On a number of points the author dismisses points a "myths" in the header only to allow that they are at least partly true in the body of the text. What he should be saying is that these things are "exaggerations", which isn't the same thing. Calling them "myths" sounds cooler, like he found some big coverup, but it doesn't serve the readers to put up a sensationalist header when all he's really calling for is for the person considering switching to Linux to do their homework.
Printer reviewers need to start reviewing the cartridges with the printers, then publishing the results with their reviews along with a way of estimating your actual cost for the printer/cartridges based on how much printing you do. Once the information is available it's just a case of buyer beware.
My printer? Epson LX-80 dot matrix. It's about fifteen years old and doing just fine, thank you.
The remote-control-via-PDA is a great idea, except that the range on the IR beam from most PDA's is terrible.
Easy to fix. The OmniRemote has a hardware widget that plugs into your PDA to extend the range. You can download a demo version to futz around with your existing hardware, but -- as you pointed out -- the range sucks rocks.
With M$'s army of lawyers, any attempt to organize such a project will quickly be shot down by any one of a number of current laws.
Those laws only apply to the US, which makes it worse. Cracking of the Palladium will occur only in other countries and attempts to discuss how to combat the threat will be quashed in this country since it involves discussing how the system works in the first place.
Maybe you can work out a compromise where you pick a time to do homework that lets you both have fun and get the work done. And maybe work out a compromise where they promise to stop checking up on you if you bring home report cards with some minimum grade point average. Some parents have to worry about there kids. Some (like mine) worried too much. When I was in high school they took me to an educational consultant and his first advice to them was to stop pestering me so much.
As for the lax security, give it time. Sooner or later some nosey neighbor is going to start checking up on other people's kids. If you can get into the next PTA meeting after that, be sure to bring popcorn; there are bound to be fireworks.
There have been about fifty different ways of saying to object first, but to go along with it if management insists. That's really the only answer, but it leaves out the critical point of documenting it. Before going ahead, make sure of stating your point of view -- as clearly and diplomatically as you can -- in an email and send it off to your immediate supervisor. Don't send it off to all the head honcho's; it will look like you're going over your supervisor's head and make you enemies.
The idea is to have a paper trail so you will not be the fall guy when problems occur.
I wonder if they're ramping up the AUTOnomy project ahead of schedule. If they're planning to get their hydrogen vehicle off the blocks and on the road in the next few years, they might not want to confuse the issue by having it compared to the EVI. I can't think of another reason for having the cars destroyed rather than just sold.
In a decent company, the language used is not a management decision; it's a decision that is left to the developer. The developer is (or should be) rewarded on his or her ability to get the job done, not for using this or that skill to do it. Most "scripters" of my acquaintence were hired as "coders" but use their scripting skills whenever it is appropriate. I've never seen a manager upset because a developer used a script instead of code, but I've seen a number impressed by a developer's productivity brought about by savvy use of scripting.
The author completely misses the point of the technology. Retailers love these things because they're a big step up from scanning. You walk through the store throwing stuff into your cart, then you walk through a checkout scanner that scans the whole cart and gives you a total. Swipe your credit card or feed a few dead presidents into the slot and your gone. No lines, no cashiers.
But if that's the case, you can't use the system to track the RFID chips after the sale is complete. You don't want the scanners telling you about the pants the customer bought last week, just the stuff he's buying now.
I start my career in 91 during the last recession and am still doing fine
That makes you a newbie as far as some of us are concerned. I started in '81 doing FORTRAN, moved on to Business Basic, COBOL, Assembler, C++, PowerBuilder, Sybase and now Oracle. Still at it; Java probably comes next.
"Sometimes," the red queen said to Alice, "You must run as fast as you can in order to stay in one place."
Even though the Dark Knight books are on an alternative timeline, the Tower of Babel storyline uses the current DC universe. In it, Ras a Ghul steals Batman's plans for defeating the Justice League (which he came up with "just in case") and manages to take down the whole crew. In a toe-to-toe slugfest, Batman is the weakest of the regular JLA, but he's the best planner and tactician.
By this definition, every search engine that points to that web site in respose to a search for "FARC" would be guilty. It's also assuming that providing information is the same as providing material support. By that logic, every news organization that tried to explain the mindset of a terrorist (including NPR which read a terrorist's statement on the air last week) would be guilty as well.
Slashdot Mirror
ADD is weird because the âoesymptomsâ include intelligence and creativity. Youâ(TM)ll find you can use it to your advantage if you manage it properly. The basic problem is a bit like multi-tasking with a computer; we donâ(TM)t task switch like everybody else. The part of ADD everybody focuses on is the underfocus; problems paying attention (especially when things get dull), but there is also an aspect Ratey calls âoehyperfocusâ. There have been times when Iâ(TM)m doing heads-down computer programming when I had to be physically touched for someone to get my attention. I couldnâ(TM)t break focus on what I was doing. Iâ(TM)ve also forgotten to go to lunch and missed meetings. That can actually be useful when youâ(TM)ve got a single task that needs doing, but can also get in the way. My solution to that was to get a PDA (I got a Visor but any PDA should do the trick) and program in alarms for everything I needed to remember.
The other problem is underfocus. The stimulants help here -- I take methylphenidate, the generic version of Ritalin -- but I find itâ(TM)s also helpful to doodle during meetings. It makes me look busy and keeps my mind from wandering off too far. Periodically Iâ(TM)ll write down what people are saying, even if I donâ(TM)t really care. Itâ(TM)s just a way to maintain focus when things really start to drag. Try to stay in the conversation and understand everything thatâ(TM)s going on. Donâ(TM)t babble just to talk, stay with the conversation even if the only thing you can do is to ask for explanations. What you need to avoid is those situations when the meeting wanders off onto other topics and your mind wanders off in a different direction. The danger is that the topic wanders back to stuff youâ(TM)re supposed to know about, and that someone will ask your opinion. Then youâ(TM)ll be in the embarrassing position of having to ask whatâ(TM)s going on. I hate it when that happens.
Also, lose the scraps of paper you have everywhere. I know youâ(TM)ve got âem; we all do. Get a set of hanging files and a filing cabinet. Every piece of paper needs to be either filed, digitized or pitched. If you want to keep it, label a hanging folder (and no fair making a âoeMiscellaneousâ folder) and keep it on file. If itâ(TM)s something you need on hand, it goes into the PDA (and back that thing up, youâ(TM)re life is going to be in it). Otherwise, it goes into the recycle bin.
Finally, I never tell anybody about my ADD. It's nobody else's business but my own and it's up to me to manage it. I don't want people to be guessing how they can help or what they can do. If you have a close friend, you might want to ask him to clue you in if he sees problems (that's Ratey's suggestion). Don't ask a spouse to do it. That just begs for trouble since it becomes fodder for any marital strife you may experience.
Good luck and hope this helps,
Jaywalk
- Motion to dismiss due to SCO not "limiting damages" by releasing the dubious code.
- Motion to dismiss because SCO already knowingly distributed the same code under GPL.
- Countersuit for slander and/or libel.
- Motions for more information which will keep SCO photocopiers smoking for a year.
Most damning will be a comparison between SCO's "intellectual property" and what is already in the public domain and/or GPL. Once you take SCO's UNIX and carve out all those which parts which exist elsewhere, there will be precious little left for SCO to sell.Maybe someone else has standing as well (were those intimidation letters legal?) but I suspect the interesting stuff won't happen until IBM's lawyers start speaking up. They're suspiciously quiet at the moment.
Anyone want to go a few rounds with Bender?
I'm pretty sure SCO's plan A was to extort a buyout from IBM. Threaten to sue, but allow themselves to be bought out. But their latest temper tantrum doesn't seem in line with that.
I've been trying to figure out what (if anything) SCO is thinking and I have a theory.
IBM doesn't look like it's interested in buying SCO out. It looks like their lawyers have determined that there is little risk in court and have decided to go to war. Now they need a Plan B, but they've alienated the entire Linux community with Plan A and are rapidly running out of options.
Perhaps Plan B is to court Microsoft for a buyout. The new wording they're using for the copyright issues matches up exactly with Microsoft's current line of FUD. Theoretically, they could go to MS with a line like, "Gee, we'd really like to proceed with this case to kill off Linux, but we don't have the cash."
If that's Plan B it's as boneheaded as Plan A. MS probably loves the fact that SCO is parroting their line, but it's only helpful because it sounds like someone other than MS is saying this. If MS bought them out, it would lose the appearance of an independent voice.
If SCO was distributing Linux which contained SCO's intellectual property, aren't they then bound by the conditions for distributing Linux saying that their contributions to the code are now part of Linux and, as such, freely available?
Lets make a special tax just for companies based in our state! And if they don't take the hint we can go and beat them around the head and shoulders with two-by-fours.
Don't try to sell them on open-source. That's just a technical detail that doesn't interest most managers. Pick a distro -- like Red Hat -- that offers 24x7 support for a price. Then compare the cost for one copy of distro plus the cost of tech support against what they would pay for the cost of support plus per seat licenses for the competing product. That turns it into a bang-for-the-buck proposition that can be cost-justified.
On a number of points the author dismisses points a "myths" in the header only to allow that they are at least partly true in the body of the text. What he should be saying is that these things are "exaggerations", which isn't the same thing. Calling them "myths" sounds cooler, like he found some big coverup, but it doesn't serve the readers to put up a sensationalist header when all he's really calling for is for the person considering switching to Linux to do their homework.
Printer reviewers need to start reviewing the cartridges with the printers, then publishing the results with their reviews along with a way of estimating your actual cost for the printer/cartridges based on how much printing you do. Once the information is available it's just a case of buyer beware.
My printer? Epson LX-80 dot matrix. It's about fifteen years old and doing just fine, thank you.
Easy to fix. The OmniRemote has a hardware widget that plugs into your PDA to extend the range. You can download a demo version to futz around with your existing hardware, but -- as you pointed out -- the range sucks rocks.
Those laws only apply to the US, which makes it worse. Cracking of the Palladium will occur only in other countries and attempts to discuss how to combat the threat will be quashed in this country since it involves discussing how the system works in the first place.
As for the lax security, give it time. Sooner or later some nosey neighbor is going to start checking up on other people's kids. If you can get into the next PTA meeting after that, be sure to bring popcorn; there are bound to be fireworks.
The idea is to have a paper trail so you will not be the fall guy when problems occur.
I wonder if they're ramping up the AUTOnomy project ahead of schedule. If they're planning to get their hydrogen vehicle off the blocks and on the road in the next few years, they might not want to confuse the issue by having it compared to the EVI. I can't think of another reason for having the cars destroyed rather than just sold.
In a decent company, the language used is not a management decision; it's a decision that is left to the developer. The developer is (or should be) rewarded on his or her ability to get the job done, not for using this or that skill to do it. Most "scripters" of my acquaintence were hired as "coders" but use their scripting skills whenever it is appropriate. I've never seen a manager upset because a developer used a script instead of code, but I've seen a number impressed by a developer's productivity brought about by savvy use of scripting.
But if that's the case, you can't use the system to track the RFID chips after the sale is complete. You don't want the scanners telling you about the pants the customer bought last week, just the stuff he's buying now.
That makes you a newbie as far as some of us are concerned. I started in '81 doing FORTRAN, moved on to Business Basic, COBOL, Assembler, C++, PowerBuilder, Sybase and now Oracle. Still at it; Java probably comes next.
"Sometimes," the red queen said to Alice, "You must run as fast as you can in order to stay in one place."
Even though the Dark Knight books are on an alternative timeline, the Tower of Babel storyline uses the current DC universe. In it, Ras a Ghul steals Batman's plans for defeating the Justice League (which he came up with "just in case") and manages to take down the whole crew. In a toe-to-toe slugfest, Batman is the weakest of the regular JLA, but he's the best planner and tactician.
By this definition, every search engine that points to that web site in respose to a search for "FARC" would be guilty. It's also assuming that providing information is the same as providing material support. By that logic, every news organization that tried to explain the mindset of a terrorist (including NPR which read a terrorist's statement on the air last week) would be guilty as well.