The US government is elected by the US citizens. Corporations have no control over that whatsoever; all they can do is spend money to influence politicians and citizens' views in elections (through PACs and the ads they create), but ultimately it's the People who make the decisions on their voting ballots. So if you're looking for someone to blame about the state of the US government, look at the citizens who elect it.
================= Do you believe your words? You have millions being contributed to the campaign to insure that the wealthy remain wealthy, and that the poor stay decently poor
"our dual mission is to facilitate travel in the United States while we secure our borders, our people, and our visitors from those that would do us harm like terrorists and terrorist weapons, criminals, and contraband,"
Nice sound byte accusing him of being a terrorist without actually saying it.
Every time I see this kind of thing it just confirms that the biggest threat to peace and the ones creating racial intolerance and hatred are the US Government.
=========== Does everyone who dissents from having foreign Drone strikes on his nation/country a terrorist? Perhaps it is the Drone pilot's country that is the terrorist. What a wonderful way to kill oppositions -- leave no traces, no fingerprints, no cars to burn, or spies to worry about. etc. Just a 007 James Bond guy in a foreign city somewhere in the world, doing the dirty work.
Well, if your friend told you so, then by all means you're right to be modded "informative". Although the truth is that only a minority of the people tax evade in Greece. People who are not self-employed or business owners, get their taxes withheld from their monthly salary (and that makes about 60% of the greek workforce). They may or may not pay more or get some money back at the end of the year, depending on their total income/spending.
The are reasons that the view that we shouldn't pay taxes is somewhat more widespread in Greece than in other countries, though. When you have a corrupt government, and a broken down pubic education and healthcare system, you really don't like giving part of the wealth you produce to bankers, weapon dealers and friends of the govenment. Greece was one of the top countries in buying weapons (mainly from the U.S.) before the crisis started, and there were tons of scandals involving greek politicians getting money under the table to close some weapon deals.
Moreover, the greek tax system resembles the way the Mafia works. Every year, for the last ten years, the government makes you an offer. It'll ask for about 500-1000 euros (depending on how much income you actually declared) and in return they promise to never check your books for that year. The more you're tax evading, the more of a bargain this is. If you're not tax evading though, you'll probably take their offer anyway. Why? Because Greece has a very complicated tax system and if they check your tax declarations really close (which they'll do if you don't take their offer) they'll probably find something to fine you for an you'll end up paying more. Although this has slowed down a bit the last 2-3 years, as people don't have 500 euros to pay to the IRS anyway.
Oh, and the Olympics did not bankrupt the government because of tax evasion. They bankrupted the government because the construction companies in greece are in bed with the governement (the same ppl own the media and most of the banks). The government paid huge amounts for the olympic works to the construction companies. I still recall the case of a stadium that was to be renovated for a budget of a million euros. We ended up paying 20.
The money that greece is being given now (as debt), move in two directions: most of them, repay previous loans (so they go to banks), and some of them go directly to the greek banks. So, the german taxpayer loans money to the greek government. The money go straight to the greek and foreign banks and the greek people now have a debt towards the german (and the rest of the EU) people. It's not fair for the greek people and it's not fair for the german people.
The greek media all support the current status quo and for a good reason. There are no greek media that are economically succesfull. They have never been, not for one year. They survive with loans. The only reason that banks loan money year after year to the greek media although they know that they're not going to get paid back, is that the media in return support the current situation.
============= Are you wrining about Greece, or Quebec Canada. No matter! I bet the same practice takes place in your Republican Back Yards
In short, you pretend to be the cell network and pass communication through. The handsets generally don't care or warn the user, you can issue all kinds of instructions to the handsets, it doesn't take a whole lot of gear, and you're now the network before the network.
=============== All that is going to happen is that communications will be encrypted on the device before being transmitted. With this mode, stingray operations will intercept encrypted data.
US might not have a monopoly on intelligent people, but Iran has no intelligent people at all. Indeed, no people at all in general, only garbage.
============= I presume you are in jest.
The president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a Doctorate in Science but is under control of the Ayatolah and is told what to do. Iranians have very intelligent people, but the religious zealots have control of the army, police and secret service. So, these intellectuals are held semi-captive and prevented from leaving the country.
The Iranians can destroy the US internet if they desired. They have drones, they have spied on their neighbors with these drones, and for all you know, they could actually be using a drone within the USA borders.
So Iran now has the capabilities of an angsty 13yr old script kiddy with a remote control helicopter from the sharper image. OH HIDE YO INTERNETS.
============== Be careful with sarcasm. The United States does not have a monopoly on intelligent people. Iran is probably following the old biblical expression "Do unto others before they do unto you".
Whoever's writing as Cringly is just being racist here. There's no moral wrong when a non-American gets an "American job", whether through immigraiton or offshoring. Everyone deserves to compete for any job, without prefernce given by race or place of birth.
Sure, I'd personally like to see all the cool developer jobs reserved for somewhat overweight middle-aged white guys, but that's because I'm a greedy bastard, not because it would be some kind of moral virtue!
The problem is that it puts a net drain on the local market, both in terms of skilled workers and in terms of money. An H1-B takes a low paying job that would traditionally go to an entry-level local worker, works for several years, and returns home with enough money live on comfortably for the rest of his life due to the exchange rate. This means that the local entry-level worker can't find a job and becomes disenfranchised, and a total loss of ~50k * 3 yr = $150k is permanently removed from the local economy. Now maybe this is not ethically wrong, but it is not in the best interests of the local economy or the national economy.
=========== Not all H1B visas are for lower salaried people. Rarely are there unqualified Americans, the problem is a) We need them now, whereas the American is finishing off a contract and cant accept the position b) He wants to be home weekends to tend to family -- wife,children,himself,shopping,grandparents, etc.
The H1B person can work 6 days per week. He has no family to contend with. c) There is always a question of moraity. Do you keep staff, and have a smaller dividend for yourself, or do you dump them because it is more profitable. And when you need a recall, you can't get them back.
If I was a true blood American, I would say f**k the shareholders, keep the employees working, so they can spend and maintain the economy by spending. (Kensian economics basics). If you need to, pay them for 4 days per week, until the economy revives. Banks today have so much debt because of high director salaries and, foreclosures on houses, and hedgefund losses, that they will not lend money if there is any risk involved. They have so tightened credit and loan approvals, that the company has no choice but to go offshore for H1B technocrats.
Here is what I see as a rule for H1Bs. Have the company show proof of advertising for the position to be filled. This advert must have been posted for a minimum of 180 days. Company to show proof via headhunters, newspapers, corporate website, etc. that they have in fact done a proper search. If after that time, with no results, then then allow the H1B for a that project.
No, just seems like they are trying to phase out older OSes faster and keep people current.
There may be another reason.... The staff used for w7 support was moved across to support the new toy and W8. MS is not as profitable as before, and they feel that the existing software that looks at patches works just fine if you start from a vanilla DVD installation or from the W7 version that comes with your computer.
I worked in banking for more than 20 years. You cannot imagine the fraud that occurs, that becomes part of the institutions losses. As we close loopholes, others open up.
From my experience, the only thing I allow is for my pension cheques to be direct-deposited into my account. I have no online accesses to accounts, even though my account level is relatively low, I rarely do internet purchases with a high limit credit card. I shun ebay with Paypall, Amazon, and other big retailers. You can scan facebook, linked in, slashdot, twitter, or other place and you will not see my ssn, or any fragment of a credit card number. If I need to purchase something substantial, I make a large deposit to the credit card account, and subsequently do the purchase. This happens once in a year. I send cheques as I have some doubts about the security of certain vendors.
When man in the middle attacks can be fully blocked, when I can pre-encrypt information before transmission, and have the host do the decryption after reception, as a standard method to do business, I will reconsider.
Actually, the Libertarians are having a strong effect on the Republican party. You'll notice that Ron Paul debated on the stage with the other Republican candidates, and got a strong response. The effect is usually sneered at as "The Tea Party". But if you look at any candidate labeled as a Tea Party candidate, you'll see a strong libertarian streak.
Furthermore, it's worth noting that, just before the Civil War, the Republicans WERE the 3rd party. The bad thing about a 2-party system is that, no matter who the 3rd-party is, if they get strong they eventually become one of the 2. The good thing about a 2-party system is that some fringe group (like the Greens or Austria's Freedom Party) can't hold the coalition government model hostage in order to advance their narrowly-supported agenda.
============ I beg to differ. In Canada we have had more collation parties than ever. The result was cleaner government, more open debate and good resolution about issues, and a great benefit to our population.
Currently we have a majority Conservative government, and instead of bringing out individual bills about important issues, they package them in an omnibus bill of 2-3 thousand pages, and want a vote of yes/no. Since they are the majority, it became mute, and democracy is badly endangered, if not lost.
So, if republicans or democrats become the majority in a two house system, the majority party does not have to do other than produce omnibus bills and screw the minority party. You get faster results with more serious problems with government by a two party system.
Tablet fads have come and gone... the iPad has actually done really well this time around, but I remember how the 486 tablets (that did all the same stuff at much lower resolution) were going to make PCs obsolete... sure they did.
Due to e-readers, I think this time around tablets might actually settle into a durable niche of their own. But a lot of people (such as myself) will never really have a use for one.
----------- My grandkids take their ipads to bed under the covers. They were not able to do that with laptops.
Exactly. I can do mouse operations 10x faster than a 3 year old so since the UI is about 10x slower and less efficient, that brings us back down to the same level. I keep telling everyone their UI is designed like a tablet for 8 year olds but I may have to drop it to 3.
Shut up and use the CLI like a man.
============== This is what I know. Three year old brains are like wicks in an oil lamp. They suck up information faster than you can blink, and they retain it forever. So it is no surprise that the three year old can do better at mazes than can an adult. Is it fair to call W8 a maze?
Second point. All my grandkids know three languages (two of them fluently), they are aged 8, 7 and 5. English is spoken at home. Their schooling is in French immersion until grade 4, with gym and lunch-break in English. In grade 4, it is almost the reverse. They get more English than French. From Kindergarten to grade 4, even maths (arithmetic) was in French. They did not have any problem transitioning from English to French or vice-versa. At home, my wife speaks Spanish to her sisters. Via osmosis the grandkids have picked up spoken Spanish.
I love the multiculturalism of Montreal. Even at my 70+ years, I thrive with 3 languages. I sincerely believe and recognize that people with multiple language skills are more creative than those with only one language.
So, the three year old traversing the Windows 8 maze should not amaze you.
Overcharging, potentially illegal actions? Pfft, who cares.
Whats that, you say its bad at displaying maths and science? Someone get the firing squad.
Seriously, what on earth do its shortcomings have to do with whether the government needs to take action?
================== Overcharging in Montreal became a big Corruption scandle. It seems that municipal contracts had 2.5%ers and 3% ers in the approval chain. The result was about 50% higher than estimates for jobs done. One person responding in a commission for fraud indicated that over 6 years he pulled in $700k. The suppliers gave out 10% but jacked up the costs 50%. Pfft you say?
Publishers insisting on DRM, engaging in infighting, and pushing multiple incompatible standards have given Amazon a device monopoly just like music publishers gave Apple. It's stupidity because they had five years to see what was coming. It's publishers monopolistic greed that enabled Amazon's position, and Jeff Bezos is laughing all the way to the bank.
============ For technical books of any value, I first read take them out from the library and if I like, I buy them.
Because I have problems reading e-material, I use post-it's to book mark pages that I need to refer to often.
I am semi-retired, and do a lot of driving the wife shopping, and I do a lot of waiting. I often sit in a daylight sunlit waiting room, and every e-device in that room, because panels are just not bright enough, becomes an eyestrain to read. Our taxes are applied after purchases. VAT in Canada varies by location.
I agree that it's not a magic bullet. The point is, however, that the overall throughput of the network was increased by better usage of the available resources! If the *effective* available bandwidth is increased, then the performance of everyone "nibbling" on that network will *also* presumably increase.
Also, think how much more money carriers may be able to squeeze out of users without needing to invest more in infrastructure! [/sarcasm]
==================== on hard disks and server memories, we have ecc correction. A bad bit can be recalculated. If one uses a form of xor chain encoding, I believe that any block with a neighbor on each side can be used to construct a damaged or missing block. One has to appreciate XOR use
I've been in [personal] computers over 40 years, seeing them from the kilobyte/kiloflop era to the threshhold of the terabyte/teraflop era. There have been both surprises and disappointments at every turning. I dont see why this would not continue for another 40 or 100 years.
My two biggest mispredictions were:
(1) In the mid 70s I wounder why anyone would buy a store-made computer. They were so fun to solder together yourself.
================ Here I am again with analogies. Up until the 1960's or so, your car needed a lot of service. You may have changed the oil yourself, added anti-freeze and brake fluid, and regapped the valves, changed plugs, batteries etc, clutches, transmission fluid etc.. As cars evolved, we do none of this anymore. The transmission is sealed, rarely fails before 200k clicks. Batteries are sealed, -- no adding water, and essentialy, what I am saying is that the car is a closed device. You need a computer readout to do repairs.
OK, so what. Well, the PCs of today, the cellphones and tablets of today are just beginning to move to be appliances. There will be programmers, but one specialist will satisfy a nation with his software and deliverables. There will be machines (devices) for ERP, for Home use, robotics, etc. We are moving into the "There is a box for every need". The future is on the wall. We will not need the tens of thousands of programmers either.
So, bring on the tablets. Bring on the Work stations, etc. Be prepared to own many boxes. Prices are coming down, and there is no reason why we cant have move than a few. ================== (2) The sudden rise of the world wide web in 1993. Everyone knew cycberspace would eventually happen, but probably another decade or so. That was a huge victory for open source: thanks Tim!
First, I am no fan of patent trolls. However, both the article's headline and the slashdot headline are misleading.
The article claims "the numbers don't lie." The "numbers" it speaks of are basically the results of a survey in which one researchers polled a few startups and asked them if patent trolls were an issue. Quite a few said yes.
But the number is entirely without context. To use a slashdot favorite, the existence of cars also puts buggy whip manufacturers out of business and "costs them jobs." Just because something has an adverse effect on somebody's business.. or in this case somebody's potential business doesn't make it bad for the economy. in fact, taken as a whole you'd be hard pressed to find a legitimate study (not some boldrine and levine ass-pulled crapola) that suggests that patents taken as a whole are bad for an economy and for r&d - quite the opposite, taken as a whole, they're very very good. are there rough edges in patent regimes? of course. but i'd argue that patent trolls aren't really the problem. the real problem is the granting of patents unnecessarily for obvious bullshiat. if that goes away, then the sort of patent trolls that peopel complain about go away.
i have no problem with legitimate patent trolls, by which i mean some small company has made some innovation and then sues the hell out of some large company who simply ignores the small company's prior art. too many of you on slashdot are ironically too pro big business by proposing systems by which big companies could more easily do just that. legitimate holders of worthy ideas who lack the resources to turn those ideas into products have a financial incentive to license or transfer the ideas to those who can. and if they do get treated unfairly, like the guy who made the intermittent wiper blades was, then by all means, sue sue sue.
it could be that "patent trolls" really are a drain on the economy, but this article makes no such case. let's not forget that to somebody wanting the IP of somebody else, it's often convenient to "cry troll" and complain about all sorts of doom and gloom. i mean, darn that patent troll, oh, i dunno, porsche with their patent on some innovative brake mechanism who are keeping me from developing the next generation supercar and hiring tens of thousands of workers to develop it! if only they weren't such patent trolls hanging on to patents for the inventions that they developed!
more likely than not, this is only so much more verbage, planted here on slashdot where most anti-IP slanted stuff, no matter how specious, gets modded +5.
=========== I agree with you on one point. A small startup with a patent can sue to protect it's invention. (It is an invention that is patented. Right?). But to sell the patent to a firm whose sole business is collecting revenue by suing is what I deem a troll organization, and the way around trolling is to permanently bind the patent to the company who created it. If you want the patent, buy the company. If you want the right to use, license it. If you developed something that is similar and you did not pirate it, then counter-sue, and have an arbitrator resolve the situation.
Outright pirates should be sued, just as you would put thieves that are caught to trial, with the consequences of being found guilty.
I'd wager there are more algorithms involved than just the 802.11 protocol -- that protocol is the top layer in a stack of technology. Before you even get to the part where you are doing any kind of data handshaking, you might have a proprietary algorithm that filters your raw radio signal to weed out interference. There are also implementations of 802.11 on the market with non-standard features.
Furthermore there is the inevitable forward march to ever-improving 802.11 standards. 802.11g is really old now. 802.11n is even old news. I've seen gobs of 802.11ac on sale at newegg.com and I don't even think the standard has been formalized.
The "algorithms" are absolutely, definitely changing.
===================== It is possible that some components are degrading, and this in turn is reducing the power to the antennae. For example, the connection from the antenna to the circuitry is usually via a capacitor (DC isolation), and while capacitors should not degrade, they often do, particularly when subject to internal stresses due to constant 24/7 transmission of low power currents at the RF frequencies. Other devices may use RF transformers, and again, these transformers may be part of a tuned circuit.
Then too, one could also argue that it may be to other components on the circuit boards. And in my humble opinion, I do not see the solid state devices deteriorating, so it has to be aging capacitors, some resistors changing values, a power supply that is not able to deliver the rated current, or even, as other respondents have written, software. In my view, software is binary, it either works, or it doesn't. So my guess is a) power supply aging an not able to provide the milliamps at the rated voltage, or b) one or more components related to filtering, tuning, decoupling, etc changing values as they age.
Yes, fuck all religious extremists, but the Islamists are the most widespread so they get the ire today.
, ==== Islam is today where Christianity was in 1400. I guess we will have to find a way to bring that religion into the 21st century, regarding tolerance, and recognizing their prophet was a human being with a lot of baggage.
That is already happening! Didn't you hear of the 14 year old girl who got shot in the face because she was intolerant to the nice people of the Taliban. The Taliban, those nice people who only try to spread the religion of tolerance and respect? That shall teach her a lesson! Huh?
Weird kind of mind-set those people have... Shooting a 14 year old girl from point-blank, no problems... Making a film...mmmmnot so cool. Pffff.. medieval hatebeards.
Uh huh.... So the way Pakistanis showed they were OK with this was by arresting those who did it and publicly protesting the attack and praying for the girl’s health. The basic problem you, and most Westerners have is that you don’t understand that the Taliban represents the views of Pakistanis the way Terry Jones and skinheads represent the views of the U.S.
Make no mistake, the Pakistanis and worldwide Muslims have a different world view than you. But your views of them are easily and narrow minded and bigoted as their views of you
=========== My view is based on what is portrayed in the press. I bet you though, that the press does selective reporting for sensationalism. And yes, there are intolerant warts in every society.
As a non-Muslim, I took the time to read the English translation of the Koran and that was enough for me to say, "Wow, women are chattel." (Great deal for men-- women have no rights). Women are there to be made pregnant, to discard if you are not happy with them and worse". Society rules of 1000 years ago are not all valid today. Stoning, cutting off hands, and abuse is not what we want in any society. So, if there is a mis-understanding of the Taliban, it is because they are ignorants, and cannot tolerate the existence of a woman, not only a woman, but a population having more knowledge. I thought that TV and the Internet would produce faster positive improvements, but am I too impatient? Do we give them another century to modernize.
So NY state is right to limit the sizes of cups. One extra reason could be that smaller cups take up less landfill.
Limiting the size of cups is like limiting the size of gas tanks. People will just fill up more often. As with gas, the only real way to limit consumption is increase price. If you want to do something about the obesity epidemic lobby the government to stop paying farmers to stop turning a billion metric shittons of corn in to HFCS. Or, at least tax the hell out of it. Drink prices would go up, and free refills of sweet crap would disappear.
=== In Montreal, where the cup sizes were downsized, kids and adults drank less, even with refills, and wasted less. Foods (fries) are rarely offered with "bigger it up" options.
Everyone pays for medical costs. In a private system, people pay via higher insurance premiums. In a public system, people pay via higher taxes. Either way, the cost has to be spread around - otherwise everyone is just one incident of accident or illness away from financial ruin.
============== You are correct. With small numbers, nothing is apparent for medical costs. but with 6 million people,or like NY state, with 12 million alone in NYcity, insignificant numbers add up to big costs.
Because Debian lists repositories where you can install non-free stuff, he rejects it. I guess Stallman uses windows to watch YouTube stuf. Ditto for Fedora, (ATI and Nvidia and Flash are non open and can be installed, and therefore the distribution is rejected). Sigh, I don't want to live in a sealed box
Slashdot Mirror
The US government is elected by the US citizens. Corporations have no control over that whatsoever; all they can do is spend money to influence politicians and citizens' views in elections (through PACs and the ads they create), but ultimately it's the People who make the decisions on their voting ballots. So if you're looking for someone to blame about the state of the US government, look at the citizens who elect it.
=================
Do you believe your words? You have millions being contributed to the campaign to insure that the wealthy remain wealthy, and that the poor stay decently poor
"our dual mission is to facilitate travel in the United States while we secure our borders, our people, and our visitors from those that would do us harm like terrorists and terrorist weapons, criminals, and contraband,"
Nice sound byte accusing him of being a terrorist without actually saying it.
Every time I see this kind of thing it just confirms that the biggest threat to peace and the ones creating racial intolerance and hatred are the US Government.
===========
Does everyone who dissents from having foreign Drone strikes on his nation/country a terrorist? Perhaps it is the Drone pilot's country that is the terrorist.
What a wonderful way to kill oppositions -- leave no traces, no fingerprints, no cars to burn, or spies to worry about. etc. Just a 007 James Bond guy in a foreign city somewhere in the world, doing the dirty work.
Well, if your friend told you so, then by all means you're right to be modded "informative". Although the truth is that only a minority of the people tax evade in Greece. People who are not self-employed or business owners, get their taxes withheld from their monthly salary (and that makes about 60% of the greek workforce). They may or may not pay more or get some money back at the end of the year, depending on their total income/spending.
The are reasons that the view that we shouldn't pay taxes is somewhat more widespread in Greece than in other countries, though. When you have a corrupt government, and a broken down pubic education and healthcare system, you really don't like giving part of the wealth you produce to bankers, weapon dealers and friends of the govenment. Greece was one of the top countries in buying weapons (mainly from the U.S.) before the crisis started, and there were tons of scandals involving greek politicians getting money under the table to close some weapon deals.
Moreover, the greek tax system resembles the way the Mafia works. Every year, for the last ten years, the government makes you an offer. It'll ask for about 500-1000 euros (depending on how much income you actually declared) and in return they promise to never check your books for that year. The more you're tax evading, the more of a bargain this is. If you're not tax evading though, you'll probably take their offer anyway. Why? Because Greece has a very complicated tax system and if they check your tax declarations really close (which they'll do if you don't take their offer) they'll probably find something to fine you for an you'll end up paying more. Although this has slowed down a bit the last 2-3 years, as people don't have 500 euros to pay to the IRS anyway.
Oh, and the Olympics did not bankrupt the government because of tax evasion. They bankrupted the government because the construction companies in greece are in bed with the governement (the same ppl own the media and most of the banks). The government paid huge amounts for the olympic works to the construction companies. I still recall the case of a stadium that was to be renovated for a budget of a million euros. We ended up paying 20.
The money that greece is being given now (as debt), move in two directions: most of them, repay previous loans (so they go to banks), and some of them go directly to the greek banks. So, the german taxpayer loans money to the greek government. The money go straight to the greek and foreign banks and the greek people now have a debt towards the german (and the rest of the EU) people. It's not fair for the greek people and it's not fair for the german people.
The greek media all support the current status quo and for a good reason. There are no greek media that are economically succesfull. They have never been, not for one year. They survive with loans. The only reason that banks loan money year after year to the greek media although they know that they're not going to get paid back, is that the media in return support the current situation.
=============
Are you wrining about Greece, or Quebec Canada. No matter! I bet the same practice takes place in your Republican Back Yards
If 'stingray' is the IMSI catcher MITM device, you can watch these from a defcon demonstration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjYAAmHvt-g
In short, you pretend to be the cell network and pass communication through. The handsets generally don't care or warn the user, you can issue all kinds of instructions to the handsets, it doesn't take a whole lot of gear, and you're now the network before the network.
===============
All that is going to happen is that communications will be encrypted on the device before being transmitted. With this mode, stingray operations will intercept encrypted data.
US might not have a monopoly on intelligent people, but Iran has no intelligent people at all. Indeed, no people at all in general, only garbage.
=============
I presume you are in jest.
The president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a Doctorate in Science but is under control of the Ayatolah and is told what to do.
Iranians have very intelligent people, but the religious zealots have control of the army, police and secret service. So, these intellectuals are held semi-captive and prevented from leaving the country.
The Iranians can destroy the US internet if they desired. They have drones, they have spied on their neighbors with these drones, and for all you know, they could actually be using a drone within the USA borders.
No country has exclusivity on intelligence.
So Iran now has the capabilities of an angsty 13yr old script kiddy with a remote control helicopter from the sharper image. OH HIDE YO INTERNETS.
==============
Be careful with sarcasm. The United States does not have a monopoly on intelligent people. Iran is probably following the old biblical expression "Do unto others before they do unto you".
Otherwise known as a fair market wage?
Whoever's writing as Cringly is just being racist here. There's no moral wrong when a non-American gets an "American job", whether through immigraiton or offshoring. Everyone deserves to compete for any job, without prefernce given by race or place of birth.
Sure, I'd personally like to see all the cool developer jobs reserved for somewhat overweight middle-aged white guys, but that's because I'm a greedy bastard, not because it would be some kind of moral virtue!
The problem is that it puts a net drain on the local market, both in terms of skilled workers and in terms of money. An H1-B takes a low paying job that would traditionally go to an entry-level local worker, works for several years, and returns home with enough money live on comfortably for the rest of his life due to the exchange rate. This means that the local entry-level worker can't find a job and becomes disenfranchised, and a total loss of ~50k * 3 yr = $150k is permanently removed from the local economy. Now maybe this is not ethically wrong, but it is not in the best interests of the local economy or the national economy.
===========
Not all H1B visas are for lower salaried people. Rarely are there unqualified Americans, the problem is
a) We need them now, whereas the American is finishing off a contract and cant accept the position
b) He wants to be home weekends to tend to family -- wife,children,himself,shopping,grandparents, etc.
The H1B person can work 6 days per week. He has no family to contend with.
c) There is always a question of moraity. Do you keep staff, and have a smaller dividend for yourself, or do you dump them because it is more profitable. And when you need a recall, you can't get them back.
If I was a true blood American, I would say f**k the shareholders, keep the employees working, so they can spend and maintain the economy by spending. (Kensian economics basics). If you need to, pay them for 4 days per week, until the economy revives. Banks today have so much debt because of high director salaries and, foreclosures on houses, and hedgefund losses, that they will not lend money if there is any risk involved. They have so tightened credit and loan approvals, that the company has no choice but to go offshore for H1B technocrats.
Here is what I see as a rule for H1Bs. Have the company show proof of advertising for the position to be filled. This advert must have been posted for a minimum of 180 days. Company to show proof via headhunters, newspapers, corporate website, etc. that they have in fact done a proper search. If after that time, with no results, then then allow the H1B for a that project.
Nothing like the pot calling the kettle black!
Or the alligator calling the crocodile cruel.
No, just seems like they are trying to phase out older OSes faster and keep people current.
There may be another reason....
The staff used for w7 support was moved across to support the new toy and W8. MS is not as profitable as before, and they feel that the existing software that looks at patches works just fine if you start from a vanilla DVD installation or from the W7 version that comes with your computer.
I worked in banking for more than 20 years. You cannot imagine the fraud that occurs, that becomes part of the institutions losses. As we close loopholes, others open up.
From my experience, the only thing I allow is for my pension cheques to be direct-deposited into my account. I have no online accesses to accounts, even though my account level is relatively low, I rarely do internet purchases with a high limit credit card. I shun ebay with Paypall, Amazon, and other big retailers. You can scan facebook, linked in, slashdot, twitter, or other place and you will not see my ssn, or any fragment of a credit card number. If I need to purchase something substantial, I make a large deposit to the credit card account, and subsequently do the purchase. This happens once in a year.
I send cheques as I have some doubts about the security of certain vendors.
When man in the middle attacks can be fully blocked, when I can pre-encrypt information before transmission, and have the host do the decryption after reception, as a standard method to do business, I will reconsider.
Actually, the Libertarians are having a strong effect on the Republican party. You'll notice that Ron Paul debated on the stage with the other Republican candidates, and got a strong response. The effect is usually sneered at as "The Tea Party". But if you look at any candidate labeled as a Tea Party candidate, you'll see a strong libertarian streak.
Furthermore, it's worth noting that, just before the Civil War, the Republicans WERE the 3rd party. The bad thing about a 2-party system is that, no matter who the 3rd-party is, if they get strong they eventually become one of the 2. The good thing about a 2-party system is that some fringe group (like the Greens or Austria's Freedom Party) can't hold the coalition government model hostage in order to advance their narrowly-supported agenda.
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I beg to differ. In Canada we have had more collation parties than ever. The result was cleaner government, more open debate and good resolution about issues, and a great benefit to our population.
Currently we have a majority Conservative government, and instead of bringing out individual bills about important issues, they package them in an omnibus bill of 2-3 thousand pages, and want a vote of yes/no. Since they are the majority, it became mute, and democracy is badly endangered, if not lost.
So, if republicans or democrats become the majority in a two house system, the majority party does not have to do other than produce omnibus bills and screw the minority party.
You get faster results with more serious problems with government by a two party system.
Tablet fads have come and gone... the iPad has actually done really well this time around, but I remember how the 486 tablets (that did all the same stuff at much lower resolution) were going to make PCs obsolete... sure they did.
Due to e-readers, I think this time around tablets might actually settle into a durable niche of their own. But a lot of people (such as myself) will never really have a use for one.
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My grandkids take their ipads to bed under the covers. They were not able to do that with laptops.
Exactly. I can do mouse operations 10x faster than a 3 year old so since the UI is about 10x slower and less efficient, that brings us back down to the same level. I keep telling everyone their UI is designed like a tablet for 8 year olds but I may have to drop it to 3.
Shut up and use the CLI like a man.
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This is what I know. Three year old brains are like wicks in an oil lamp. They suck up information faster than you can blink, and they retain it forever. So it is no surprise that the three year old can do better at mazes than can an adult. Is it fair to call W8 a maze?
Second point. All my grandkids know three languages (two of them fluently), they are aged 8, 7 and 5. English is spoken at home. Their schooling is in French immersion until grade 4, with gym and lunch-break in English. In grade 4, it is almost the reverse. They get more English than French. From Kindergarten to grade 4, even maths (arithmetic) was in French. They did not have any problem transitioning from English to French or vice-versa.
At home, my wife speaks Spanish to her sisters. Via osmosis the grandkids have picked up spoken Spanish.
I love the multiculturalism of Montreal. Even at my 70+ years, I thrive with 3 languages. I sincerely believe and recognize that people with multiple language skills are more creative than those with only one language.
So, the three year old traversing the Windows 8 maze should not amaze you.
Overcharging, potentially illegal actions? Pfft, who cares.
Whats that, you say its bad at displaying maths and science? Someone get the firing squad.
Seriously, what on earth do its shortcomings have to do with whether the government needs to take action?
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Overcharging in Montreal became a big Corruption scandle. It seems that municipal contracts had 2.5%ers and 3% ers in the approval chain. The result was about 50% higher than estimates for jobs done.
One person responding in a commission for fraud indicated that over 6 years he pulled in $700k. The suppliers gave out 10% but jacked up the costs 50%.
Pfft you say?
Publishers insisting on DRM, engaging in infighting, and pushing multiple incompatible standards have given Amazon a device monopoly just like music publishers gave Apple. It's stupidity because they had five years to see what was coming. It's publishers monopolistic greed that enabled Amazon's position, and Jeff Bezos is laughing all the way to the bank.
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For technical books of any value, I first read take them out from the library and if I like, I buy them.
Because I have problems reading e-material, I use post-it's to book mark pages that I need to refer to often.
I am semi-retired, and do a lot of driving the wife shopping, and I do a lot of waiting. I often sit in a daylight sunlit waiting room, and every e-device in that room, because panels are just not bright enough, becomes an eyestrain to read.
Our taxes are applied after purchases. VAT in Canada varies by location.
I agree that it's not a magic bullet.
The point is, however, that the overall throughput of the network was increased by better usage of the available resources! If the *effective* available bandwidth is increased, then the performance of everyone "nibbling" on that network will *also* presumably increase.
Also, think how much more money carriers may be able to squeeze out of users without needing to invest more in infrastructure! [/sarcasm]
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on hard disks and server memories, we have ecc correction. A bad bit can be recalculated. If one uses a form of xor chain encoding, I believe that any block with a neighbor on each side can be used to construct a damaged or missing block. One has to appreciate XOR use
I've been in [personal] computers over 40 years, seeing them from the kilobyte/kiloflop era to the threshhold of the terabyte/teraflop era.
There have been both surprises and disappointments at every turning. I dont see why this would not continue for another 40 or 100 years.
My two biggest mispredictions were:
(1) In the mid 70s I wounder why anyone would buy a store-made computer. They were so fun to solder together yourself.
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Here I am again with analogies.
Up until the 1960's or so, your car needed a lot of service. You may have changed the oil yourself, added anti-freeze and brake fluid, and regapped the valves, changed plugs, batteries etc, clutches, transmission fluid etc..
As cars evolved, we do none of this anymore. The transmission is sealed, rarely fails before 200k clicks. Batteries are sealed, -- no adding water, and essentialy, what I am saying is that the car is a closed device. You need a computer readout to do repairs.
OK, so what. Well, the PCs of today, the cellphones and tablets of today are just beginning to move to be appliances. There will be programmers, but one specialist will satisfy a nation with his software and deliverables.
There will be machines (devices) for ERP, for Home use, robotics, etc. We are moving into the "There is a box for every need". The future is on the wall. We will not need the tens of thousands of programmers either.
So, bring on the tablets. Bring on the Work stations, etc. Be prepared to own many boxes. Prices are coming down, and there is no reason why we cant have move than a few.
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(2) The sudden rise of the world wide web in 1993. Everyone knew cycberspace would eventually happen, but probably another decade or so. That was a huge victory for open source: thanks Tim!
First, I am no fan of patent trolls. However, both the article's headline and the slashdot headline are misleading.
The article claims "the numbers don't lie." The "numbers" it speaks of are basically the results of a survey in which one researchers polled a few startups and asked them if patent trolls were an issue. Quite a few said yes.
But the number is entirely without context. To use a slashdot favorite, the existence of cars also puts buggy whip manufacturers out of business and "costs them jobs." Just because something has an adverse effect on somebody's business.. or in this case somebody's potential business doesn't make it bad for the economy. in fact, taken as a whole you'd be hard pressed to find a legitimate study (not some boldrine and levine ass-pulled crapola) that suggests that patents taken as a whole are bad for an economy and for r&d - quite the opposite, taken as a whole, they're very very good. are there rough edges in patent regimes? of course. but i'd argue that patent trolls aren't really the problem. the real problem is the granting of patents unnecessarily for obvious bullshiat. if that goes away, then the sort of patent trolls that peopel complain about go away.
i have no problem with legitimate patent trolls, by which i mean some small company has made some innovation and then sues the hell out of some large company who simply ignores the small company's prior art. too many of you on slashdot are ironically too pro big business by proposing systems by which big companies could more easily do just that. legitimate holders of worthy ideas who lack the resources to turn those ideas into products have a financial incentive to license or transfer the ideas to those who can. and if they do get treated unfairly, like the guy who made the intermittent wiper blades was, then by all means, sue sue sue.
it could be that "patent trolls" really are a drain on the economy, but this article makes no such case. let's not forget that to somebody wanting the IP of somebody else, it's often convenient to "cry troll" and complain about all sorts of doom and gloom. i mean, darn that patent troll, oh, i dunno, porsche with their patent on some innovative brake mechanism who are keeping me from developing the next generation supercar and hiring tens of thousands of workers to develop it! if only they weren't such patent trolls hanging on to patents for the inventions that they developed!
more likely than not, this is only so much more verbage, planted here on slashdot where most anti-IP slanted stuff, no matter how specious, gets modded +5.
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I agree with you on one point. A small startup with a patent can sue to protect it's invention. (It is an invention that is patented. Right?). But to sell the patent to a firm whose sole business is collecting revenue by suing is what I deem a troll organization, and the way around trolling is to permanently bind the patent to the company who created it. If you want the patent, buy the company. If you want the right to use, license it. If you developed something that is similar and you did not pirate it, then counter-sue, and have an arbitrator resolve the situation.
Outright pirates should be sued, just as you would put thieves that are caught to trial, with the consequences of being found guilty.
I'd wager there are more algorithms involved than just the 802.11 protocol -- that protocol is the top layer in a stack of technology. Before you even get to the part where you are doing any kind of data handshaking, you might have a proprietary algorithm that filters your raw radio signal to weed out interference. There are also implementations of 802.11 on the market with non-standard features.
Furthermore there is the inevitable forward march to ever-improving 802.11 standards. 802.11g is really old now. 802.11n is even old news. I've seen gobs of 802.11ac on sale at newegg.com and I don't even think the standard has been formalized.
The "algorithms" are absolutely, definitely changing.
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It is possible that some components are degrading, and this in turn is reducing the power to the antennae. For example, the connection from the antenna to the circuitry is usually via a capacitor (DC isolation), and while capacitors should not degrade, they often do, particularly when subject to internal stresses due to constant 24/7 transmission of low power currents at the RF frequencies. Other devices may use RF transformers, and again, these transformers may be part of a tuned circuit.
Then too, one could also argue that it may be to other components on the circuit boards. And in my humble opinion, I do not see the solid state devices deteriorating, so it has to be aging capacitors, some resistors changing values, a power supply that is not able to deliver the rated current, or even, as other respondents have written, software. In my view, software is binary, it either works, or it doesn't. So my guess is a) power supply aging an not able to provide the milliamps at the rated voltage, or b) one or more components related to filtering, tuning, decoupling, etc changing values as they age.
u in honor is honour, as neighbour, as colour, etc
American English spelling did not lie to conform to Canadian, Australian, British or International English.
I just go with the flow. When I write to people outside of the USA, I add the missing letters.m
Yes, fuck all religious extremists, but the Islamists are the most widespread so they get the ire today.
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Islam is today where Christianity was in 1400. I guess we will have to find a way to bring that religion into the 21st century, regarding tolerance, and recognizing their prophet was a human being with a lot of baggage.
That is already happening! Didn't you hear of the 14 year old girl who got shot in the face because she was intolerant to the nice people of the Taliban. The Taliban, those nice people who only try to spread the religion of tolerance and respect? That shall teach her a lesson! Huh?
Weird kind of mind-set those people have... Shooting a 14 year old girl from point-blank, no problems... Making a film...mmmmnot so cool.
Pffff.. medieval hatebeards.
Uh huh.... So the way Pakistanis showed they were OK with this was by arresting those who did it and publicly protesting the attack and praying for the girl’s health. The basic problem you, and most Westerners have is that you don’t understand that the Taliban represents the views of Pakistanis the way Terry Jones and skinheads represent the views of the U.S.
Make no mistake, the Pakistanis and worldwide Muslims have a different world view than you. But your views of them are easily and narrow minded and bigoted as their views of you
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My view is based on what is portrayed in the press. I bet you though, that the press does selective reporting for sensationalism. And yes, there are intolerant warts in every society.
As a non-Muslim, I took the time to read the English translation of the Koran and that was enough for me to say, "Wow, women are chattel." (Great deal for men-- women have no rights). Women are there to be made pregnant, to discard if you are not happy with them and worse". Society rules of 1000 years ago are not all valid today. Stoning, cutting off hands, and abuse is not what we want in any society. So, if there is a mis-understanding of the Taliban, it is because they are ignorants, and cannot tolerate the existence of a woman, not only a woman, but a population having more knowledge. I thought that TV and the Internet would produce faster positive improvements, but am I too impatient? Do we give them another century to modernize.
So NY state is right to limit the sizes of cups. One extra reason could be that smaller cups take up less landfill.
Limiting the size of cups is like limiting the size of gas tanks. People will just fill up more often. As with gas, the only real way to limit consumption is increase price. If you want to do something about the obesity epidemic lobby the government to stop paying farmers to stop turning a billion metric shittons of corn in to HFCS. Or, at least tax the hell out of it. Drink prices would go up, and free refills of sweet crap would disappear.
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In Montreal, where the cup sizes were downsized, kids and adults drank less, even with refills, and wasted less. Foods (fries) are rarely offered with "bigger it up" options.
Everyone pays for medical costs. In a private system, people pay via higher insurance premiums. In a public system, people pay via higher taxes. Either way, the cost has to be spread around - otherwise everyone is just one incident of accident or illness away from financial ruin.
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You are correct. With small numbers, nothing is apparent for medical costs. but with 6 million people,or like NY state, with 12 million alone in NYcity, insignificant numbers add up to big costs.
Then install debian.
Stallman's organization maintains a list of approved distributions.
Debian is not there, so he won't recommend it.
Because Debian lists repositories where you can install non-free stuff, he rejects it. I guess Stallman uses windows to watch YouTube stuf. Ditto for Fedora, (ATI and Nvidia and Flash are non open and can be installed, and therefore the distribution is rejected). Sigh, I don't want to live in a sealed box