There's tons and tons of open-source jobs out there. One of the keywords here is "Android". The other keyword is "embedded". Linux and Android are being used for all kinds of embedded devices now, and there's tons of jobs for people using C and C++ (C more at the low levels, kernel, device drivers etc., C++ at the higher levels for applications). People who can work with and build embedded Linux systems are in high demand, and there's good demand for Qt C++ programmers too as that's being used a lot on these embedded devices that have touchscreens.
Now, this doesn't necessary mean you'll be doing a lot of contributions upstream to the open-source community, but you will be working with a lot of OSS components, and developing proprietary software that interacts with them. And you definitely won't be doing any work with MS technologies, as those have no place in an embedded system (there are some places using WinCE, but they're dying out and many are switching to Linux or Android).
Your options are good ones, and so is going to work for academia, National Labs and other government agencies like NIST, NASA, etc. All use open source extensively with Microsoft and Apple all in the same bag. It's a fun environment if you get the right management and people around you. The nice thing about academia in particular is that it is relatively easy to move from department to department, college to college, or to any central IT unit if you find yourself in an unpleasant situation due to personalities, changes in management, etc. Most of my open source experience comes from working in academia for almost 20 years, supporting and managing software development and IT resources. It's one of the best places to experiment and contribute to some exciting projects using open source, closed source, crowd sourced (hehe!) IT tools and research projects, depending on where you might end up. Good luck!
Absolutely right. You have all the cards at this point. This is where the old rule of "Finder's Keepers" applies. Unless the data belongs to the government of the country where you reside, you are in no trouble at all. The Windows and other software licenses are invalid, but the data is yours. Now, whoever refurb'd that drive is possibly in trouble for not following proper procedures and his company may be in an actionable position, but you may have a gold mine. Kudos! Don't buy refurb'd drives myself, but good score.
Apple has (at the time of this post +-3 mins) $30.16 billion USD in the bank. They could take 3% of that and make everyone at Foxconn rich, or give them Apple stock and have them retire rich while retaining current work force. Seriously, what penalty couldn't they pay right now? Out of pocket. Tariff? Ha! They could cover just about any tariff and STILL have tens of billions in the bank. Trust me, something will be done, but China's gonna have to enforce whatever it is and that ain't gonna happen or change much. China does not want a new elite class in society that came from factory workers. The establishment in China would shite itself! Hong Kong movie stars get enough grief now, and most of them are products of the establishment. Not sure where this might go. Can hope for a Silicon Valley happy ending, but something tells me that Foxconn isn't going to change China like that no matter who we as consumers squeeze.
The number of iOS devices (iPhone and iPod Touch) sold last quarter exceeded the number of Android units
Just barely, and only if you believe that overtly biased analyst's estimate. And why would you count the Touch as a phone? Apples to apples please:-)
More to the point, there is no guarantee of a repeat next quarter, far from it.
iPod Touches count because they run iOS, not that they are smartphones. So, Apples are apples in this case. Now, if we want count ALL Android device sales vs. all iOS device sales we're talking a level, unbiased playing field.
It comes down to Story. Take a look at some of the blogs by the independent novel authors (konrath, wesleysmith, passive guy) to see how the writing and writers are getting closer to the consumers via Amazon's Kindle distribution system. The software to run servers and video host content is already out there, much of it is open source and free. There is a huge pile of very good script writers that are sitting in some studio's slush-pile being ignored. So figure out how to get them and you've got the stories. The rest is just having a production pipeline to make the rest of the magic happen.
Writing is like any human endeavor. It takes practice. You aren't gonna find a lot of Oscar material from early stage screenwriter's but that's not the point. The point is to tell YOUR story the best you can. And, that's why I think an accessible facility to help these folks would not only raise the level of visual storytelling in the U.S. it would be a huge boon for the economy. Let's face it. What does America still do better than anyone else? Produce movies and television; visual storytelling.
You're forgetting about that little thing called "Actors". Using your buddies to make a film is ok, and novel on occasion (think Blair Witch) but most people want to see good performances as well as good story.
Good actors aren't cheap, unless you happen to discover a real natural, but like programmers, 99.9% of good actors are forged not born.
Why do you think even most indie films have professional actors?
Wrong again. You guys want to shoot for the moon and make Driving Miss Daisy or Transformers in your back yard. Not gonna happen. Plus, directors and writers that become directors (what Hollywood is really pushing right now) are who determine the quality of a production. I can work with mediocre actors because I can get them, for the one take I need, to give me the performance I want. The pool I pull from is a college campus with a growing theatre and cinema department. Not only can I get good behind the camera people, but also good actors for less than $1000USD each per production. There are actors just as good as those in Hollywood walking around all over the place. Why? Because they can't break into that market as easily as you might think, and they are looking for work. Directors that know their stuff can get the performance they need, and good actors are NOT hard to find. Oh, and what do you define as "indie", because even Sundance and Val Kilmer's group are DIRECTLY tied to Hollywood. The word indie is bullshit! They're about as independent as Puerto Rico...which ain't!
I do not trust Anonymous proxies. So I always host my own "anonymous" proxies myself. That is what I call secure!
How do you figure that's "anonymous"? You are paying for the Internet connection so SOMEBODY knows who you are. If you are using a machine at work to do same, then still, SOMEBODY knows who you are. The bottom line is, there is no truly anonymous proxies anymore...not that there really were any to begin with. Somebody always knows unless you are IP spoofing on top of a proxy, but even that is becoming less secure as governments and law enforcement get more capable.
The distribution mechanisms are all in place, and others will come along. That's not the problem.
The problem is the content production. That's what costs millions of dollars, and needs a return on investment.
The general publics expectation of production values means small, indie content production just won't compete with the hollywood projects.
Oh, so not true! The content production value is very much in the hands of Pro-sumers today. DSLR cameras that record full 1080p HD content are under $2000USD with lenses. Add some mics and lights and you can build a production kit for way less than $10,000USD. For anyone with a photography background and some study, that's all you need to create good content. I've been involved in these types of productions for years, and I know what can be done today for tens of thousands of dollars, not millions. Granted, these aren't fully bonded and insured action pictures, and we're not doing much post-production CGI work, but that's a small amount of what's released from Hollywood anyway.
The real problem with competing with Hollywood is two-fold. 1. The GIANT marketing engine and resources each studio has that the indie crowd doesn't. And 2., STORY! Story is king and can overcome the cheesiest production standards (you do remember the pre-remasterd Star Trek: TOS from 1966? That was super cheese and turned off a lot of viewers initially, but the folks that stuck with it quickly saw how good the stories were and how well they were presented that the cheesie effects were tertiary at best; what you want really. It was these folks that, through mostly word of mouth, got more people to watch or come back and watch). All the good screenwriters end up in Hollywood because that's where the money is! Again, the money is there because of the huge marketing edge that Hollywood still posses and will for some time to come.
No, the best that this incubator could do would be to create a "minor league" for Hollywood, much like Major League Baseball's system now. I think that is completely viable and would generate a ton of really good low-budget content that would serve a lot of minority viewers (i.e., those not interested in much that Hollywood offers now, not ethnic minorities per se). It could be a breeding ground for up-and-coming talent as well as show Hollywood a little history lesson on how they got started. Have to remember folks, things weren't always as they are now. Hollywood was an orange grove not much more than 100 years ago. They had to start somewhere and I think giving storytellers a more structured, accessible voice could be a very good thing. I will be submitting a proposal.
I have tried every text editor decked out with bells and whistles (including DW) since I started hand coding HTML in NotePad and SimpleText back in 1993. Yeah, I did some in vi and emacs, too.
TO THIS DAYand I mean five minutes ago when I stopped coding to eat I still use a simple line numbering and code-aware text editor (currently TextWrangler) to do 99.9% of my coding. I say that because coding tables is a pain in the arse by hand and I will cheat and use something else to at least set those up. I then have at least two different browsers open, several file folders and a SFTP client or shell window open to scp files to a server. My WYSIWYG is just that. Always reliable because I am looking at it in Firefox and Safari initially, then once that code is stable I boot my Windows VMs and test those browser versions. All while the workflow rolls from editor to Finder to CyberDuck to browser (love me some FireBug, and the Chrome page inspector ain't bad either), repeat as necessary. Versioning would be nice, and the integrated file management in some of the for-pay editors like DW and BBEdit are really nice, but versioning is still klunky.
I do add some time to my project dev the way I work, but I am used to it and have gotten smooth. My code always works, most of the time with very minor tweaks for cross browser compatibility. A WYSIWYG editor for the web is a pipe dream loaded with the best hash in the world. Web standards are too much of a moving target, let alone figuring out which browser supports what! Forget it. You're gonna have multiple browsers open, and you're gonna be reloading...a lot! Now, the editor environment, debugging (in browser linked to editor, mind you), versioning, and file transfer and management in one app along with his other non-pipe dream specs exist. Sure, most have some bloat, but that's what you get when you move from the component world to the all-in-one stereo. A bunch of extra crap you didn't really need.
Actually, corruption is "the action of making someone or something morally depraved or the state of being so." OR, more appropriate to this instance, "dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery." So, no, it really has to do with morality than ethics. See also, Philosophy 1304: Morality and Justice
Oh, and California grows a large percentage of our fruits and vegetables. Like we're gonna let those get away! Mmmmmm, avocados, artichokes, and garlic!
Honestly, if you think about the problem of a state seceding from the U.S. for more than a few days you begin to realize that it's genuinely impossible without a foreign government helping in a MASSIVE way, i.e., supplying all the things missing below; like the French (and some Spanish) did for us against Britain. That would not go unnoticed nor would it be allowed to even come close to happen, let alone actually happen. Here's what would be needed, immediately upon declaration of secession (because, you would NOT be given a grace period, folks!):
Currency (You think you're keeping U.S. dollars? What are you Quebec?)
Credit (Ch'yeah, right! In this century?!?! Please!)
An Army (and NO, you can't have any of OUR equipment!)
A Navy (LIKE THE DOG FACE SAID!)
A Merchant Fleet (cuz, you ain't drivin' on our highways to get to a port)
Customs and Border Patrol (cuz, if you don't put up fences and guard posts, WE WILL!)
...
And the list goes on, and, on, and on... The real biggies are the ones listed above. Sorry, a foreign power is not going to mass troops and ships anywhere near us to support something like this without a BIG STINK! Besides, most of the people that want to secede don't like foreigners, so them having any hope at all of succeeding on their seceding would compromise their core principles to begin with. Idgits! Go ahead, secede! Morons! You're like a petulant child that threatens to run away from home, does it, and then comes back when he/she gets cold or hungry. Baaaaa! Do it! I dare ya!
I can point to way more examples of non-DRM content making money: Brian Eno, Joss Whedon, hell, Louis C K did something profitable recently. You can make money off non-DRM content, but you have to make more of it inexpensively in order to make *the same* profit you would from DRM content and suing pirates. Making a profit isn't the problem. It's the expectation of getting wealthy off each project that is a product of corporate greed and is a problem.
I am sorry, but the notion that you have to DRM content to make money is just categorically untrue, and is a lie perpetrated on the public by the greedy. The bottom line is copyright (and trademark and patent) law needs to be reformed and business models need to change. All we are seeing now is the old establishment trying to hold onto a failing business model and squeeze as much money out of the system until the ride is over, regardless of the cost to anyone.
Has nothing to do with Obama. This problem of misused copyright has been around for longer than you, I or Obama have been alive. Obama is at least asking the people for suggestions, unlike any of the others across the aisle from him politically. Natural law? Please define and then put in context? As humans we have not been subject to survival of the fittest since, at least the invention of the supermarket. Natural law has never applied to commerce as there is nothing "natural" about it, so you're left with a market that is (obviously if pirating is as bad as they claim, which it is not) not too happy with the status quo and could give a fig about copyright enforcement on something they seem perfectly entitled to possess and share.
So, the problem with the situation is greed and the misuse of copyright to feed that greed. So, yes something does need to be done. Copyright law needs to be modified to better reflect its original intent. Kinda like the folks claim they want to do with the Constitution from the other side of the aisle than Obama. Funny how that view only seems to apply to things they choose it to.
Seriously, that's what they came back with? How about starting with copyrights being to protect the identity of a work of art's originator, not as a financial weapon and then go from there!
Hopefully, NewYorkCountryLawyer hasn't posted yet because he's actually writing a brief to send to the WH starting with just that.
I will have to go hunting around, but I seem to remember a rumor that went around while OS X was still be referred to as Rhapsody that went something like, "NSA requests backdoor into Rhapsody" with the story saying something about it being needed because of how difficult it would be (at the time, 1998-2000) difficult for them to hack if they "needed to". So, I am fairly certain there is a backdoor into OS X. If anyone else remembers or can find a link please reply. I will also search and reply.
Ahhh, but paying online is also a convenience for Verizon as the data entry labor is all done by the customer and then processed by the same systems the internal people use whether you paid by phone or mail. It's horse shit! It's like that $5.00 charge the banks wanted to impose on Debit Card users, and the customer response should be the same (will be from me!).
I have mine tied directly to my checking account and payments are done as ACH at no cost to me. Verizon also pushed me toward One Bill and then paperless billing to save the environment, and now they want to charge me $2.00 a month to do their job: I'm sorry, when I enter all the data and submit my bill every month *I AM DOING THE WORK FOR YOU!* It should not cost them a dime for me to submit my bill, directly to their systems, online.
I still think thirteen 28 day months and leave in February 29th every four years makes more sense. Plus, we already have a name for the new month, Smarch!
they simply would have to do a bit of flying in those areas with a SIGINT plane and map out all the transceivers
This may not be as simple as you think. If I were a cartel, I would use directional antennas wherever possible and try to minimize propagation in unwanted directions (like upward where a helicopter might receive it). Something like this, perhaps:
http://www.wlanparts.com/product/MT263004NH/900MHZ-SECTOR-ANTENNA-H-POL-125DBI-120-DEG.html
Take a look at the vertical beamwidth; that is going to be a pretty weak signal from the air, unless you are lucky enough to find a side lobe of some kind (and even then, your helicopter would have to be moving pretty slowly). Now, I do not know what sort of frequencies the cartels were using or what their specific needs were (maybe they needed something with less of an LOS requirement than 900MHz), so I could be wrong about using directional antennas. It may also be the case that the repeaters do not continuously transmit and that the cartels keep their communications to an absolute minimum, and so hunting for the repeaters from the air may be a difficult thing to do.
Actually, the old WWII huff-duff method would be cheapest and a lot more clandestine way of finding the transceivers. They could easily recruit ordinary citizens (like the British did) to sit at home and report directional and signal strength data from various locations to triangulate the locations of said transceivers. Given that most of these transceivers would be fixed rather than mobile, it would not take long to find and eliminate them.
WE (the technically oriented community) should be doing this as well with 802.11 networks
THEY (the FCC) have rules that make such a thing difficult outside of densely populated areas. Point-to-point wifi links across long distances are doable under the FCC's rules, but low-gain antennas (read: not-highly-directional) can only legally be used to transmit at low power. Even point-to-point links can be difficult if the conditions are bad: vegetation, rain, etc.
If you have an amateur radio license, you can transmit at higher power levels...but then you are subject to Part 97 rules, which forbid conducting (most) business over amateur radio systems. This effectively means that you could not log on to Amazon; even if that were allowed, you would not want to do it, because the rules also forbid encrypting most communications. Part 97 also prevents you from communicating with people who are not licensed, which would make any such network useless to most people. If it were not for such rules, amateur radio operators would have enabled national wireless Internet service long ago.
Actually, the biggest limit is the FCC 1 watt barrier for unlicensed broadcasting at just about any frequency. Can't get too far on 1 watt unless you have an Amateur Radio license and/or a very large antenna.
"Incredible" salaries at The Agency (as in, NSA)? No way. They don't get paid any more than anyone else in the federal government on the GG scales.
No, The Agency is CIA. And yes, they do get compensated very well. I didn't say it was just money, did I? No. It also depends on what side of the house you're on. If your supporting analysts in the home office, then yeah, you're probably making GS scale, but if you're supporting operations, that's a different story all together.
I'm inclined to agree. GP comes across as the kind of feckless twat who equates making everyone's job easier with doing everything they say and no questions asked.
I'll tell you whose job it doesn't make easier - the one who has to clean up the inevitable wreck that occurs when you take understanding the users (a good thing) a step too far and let them run the show.
Ahhh. but isn't that about setting expectations, not necessarily letting them run the show. The role of IT is to enhance the productivity of *ALL* employees in a company, not just the engineers, not just the bean counters, not just the execs, not just the IT department. Employees have different jobs and different needs and IT needs to be flexible in helping ALL employees be more efficient WITHOUT sacrificing security or regulatory compliance. How do you do that? By having periodic meetings with department heads and individual employees. You have to make them feel like they can come to you when they have an idea about something they might want to use, whatever that technology is. You have to then set expectations for deployment by making that employee (or those) understand what YOU as an IT person has to do to vet the technology, integrate it, and then deploy it. That's what the dictatorial types don't do! They create an adversarial relationship with the people they are supposed to be supporting and helping be better at their jobs. When that type of relationship exists, not only does the company suffer, but so does the IT department. I can't tell you how many IT positions I've walked into and started these meetings, listening to the employees tell me how they NEVER had the previous person(s) do this, "All they would do is tell us, 'NO!'" Your life is better, their life is better, and you don't have egregious messes to clean up because everyone talks to each other and knows what's up. Of course, you will have some personalities that will still conflict, but then you have ammo to go to THEIR boss and say, "Hey! This guy/girl is causing problems."
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There's tons and tons of open-source jobs out there. One of the keywords here is "Android". The other keyword is "embedded". Linux and Android are being used for all kinds of embedded devices now, and there's tons of jobs for people using C and C++ (C more at the low levels, kernel, device drivers etc., C++ at the higher levels for applications). People who can work with and build embedded Linux systems are in high demand, and there's good demand for Qt C++ programmers too as that's being used a lot on these embedded devices that have touchscreens.
Now, this doesn't necessary mean you'll be doing a lot of contributions upstream to the open-source community, but you will be working with a lot of OSS components, and developing proprietary software that interacts with them. And you definitely won't be doing any work with MS technologies, as those have no place in an embedded system (there are some places using WinCE, but they're dying out and many are switching to Linux or Android).
Your options are good ones, and so is going to work for academia, National Labs and other government agencies like NIST, NASA, etc. All use open source extensively with Microsoft and Apple all in the same bag. It's a fun environment if you get the right management and people around you. The nice thing about academia in particular is that it is relatively easy to move from department to department, college to college, or to any central IT unit if you find yourself in an unpleasant situation due to personalities, changes in management, etc. Most of my open source experience comes from working in academia for almost 20 years, supporting and managing software development and IT resources. It's one of the best places to experiment and contribute to some exciting projects using open source, closed source, crowd sourced (hehe!) IT tools and research projects, depending on where you might end up. Good luck!
First, have a look at the data. Then decide.
Absolutely right. You have all the cards at this point. This is where the old rule of "Finder's Keepers" applies. Unless the data belongs to the government of the country where you reside, you are in no trouble at all. The Windows and other software licenses are invalid, but the data is yours. Now, whoever refurb'd that drive is possibly in trouble for not following proper procedures and his company may be in an actionable position, but you may have a gold mine. Kudos! Don't buy refurb'd drives myself, but good score.
Apple has (at the time of this post +-3 mins) $30.16 billion USD in the bank. They could take 3% of that and make everyone at Foxconn rich, or give them Apple stock and have them retire rich while retaining current work force. Seriously, what penalty couldn't they pay right now? Out of pocket. Tariff? Ha! They could cover just about any tariff and STILL have tens of billions in the bank. Trust me, something will be done, but China's gonna have to enforce whatever it is and that ain't gonna happen or change much. China does not want a new elite class in society that came from factory workers. The establishment in China would shite itself! Hong Kong movie stars get enough grief now, and most of them are products of the establishment. Not sure where this might go. Can hope for a Silicon Valley happy ending, but something tells me that Foxconn isn't going to change China like that no matter who we as consumers squeeze.
The number of iOS devices (iPhone and iPod Touch) sold last quarter exceeded the number of Android units
Just barely, and only if you believe that overtly biased analyst's estimate. And why would you count the Touch as a phone? Apples to apples please :-)
More to the point, there is no guarantee of a repeat next quarter, far from it.
iPod Touches count because they run iOS, not that they are smartphones. So, Apples are apples in this case. Now, if we want count ALL Android device sales vs. all iOS device sales we're talking a level, unbiased playing field.
It comes down to Story. Take a look at some of the blogs by the independent novel authors (konrath, wesleysmith, passive guy) to see how the writing and writers are getting closer to the consumers via Amazon's Kindle distribution system. The software to run servers and video host content is already out there, much of it is open source and free. There is a huge pile of very good script writers that are sitting in some studio's slush-pile being ignored. So figure out how to get them and you've got the stories. The rest is just having a production pipeline to make the rest of the magic happen.
Writing is like any human endeavor. It takes practice. You aren't gonna find a lot of Oscar material from early stage screenwriter's but that's not the point. The point is to tell YOUR story the best you can. And, that's why I think an accessible facility to help these folks would not only raise the level of visual storytelling in the U.S. it would be a huge boon for the economy. Let's face it. What does America still do better than anyone else? Produce movies and television; visual storytelling.
You're forgetting about that little thing called "Actors". Using your buddies to make a film is ok, and novel on occasion (think Blair Witch) but most people want to see good performances as well as good story.
Good actors aren't cheap, unless you happen to discover a real natural, but like programmers, 99.9% of good actors are forged not born.
Why do you think even most indie films have professional actors?
Wrong again. You guys want to shoot for the moon and make Driving Miss Daisy or Transformers in your back yard. Not gonna happen. Plus, directors and writers that become directors (what Hollywood is really pushing right now) are who determine the quality of a production. I can work with mediocre actors because I can get them, for the one take I need, to give me the performance I want. The pool I pull from is a college campus with a growing theatre and cinema department. Not only can I get good behind the camera people, but also good actors for less than $1000USD each per production. There are actors just as good as those in Hollywood walking around all over the place. Why? Because they can't break into that market as easily as you might think, and they are looking for work. Directors that know their stuff can get the performance they need, and good actors are NOT hard to find. Oh, and what do you define as "indie", because even Sundance and Val Kilmer's group are DIRECTLY tied to Hollywood. The word indie is bullshit! They're about as independent as Puerto Rico...which ain't!
I do not trust Anonymous proxies. So I always host my own "anonymous" proxies myself. That is what I call secure!
How do you figure that's "anonymous"? You are paying for the Internet connection so SOMEBODY knows who you are. If you are using a machine at work to do same, then still, SOMEBODY knows who you are. The bottom line is, there is no truly anonymous proxies anymore...not that there really were any to begin with. Somebody always knows unless you are IP spoofing on top of a proxy, but even that is becoming less secure as governments and law enforcement get more capable.
The distribution mechanisms are all in place, and others will come along. That's not the problem.
The problem is the content production. That's what costs millions of dollars, and needs a return on investment.
The general publics expectation of production values means small, indie content production just won't compete with the hollywood projects.
Oh, so not true! The content production value is very much in the hands of Pro-sumers today. DSLR cameras that record full 1080p HD content are under $2000USD with lenses. Add some mics and lights and you can build a production kit for way less than $10,000USD. For anyone with a photography background and some study, that's all you need to create good content. I've been involved in these types of productions for years, and I know what can be done today for tens of thousands of dollars, not millions. Granted, these aren't fully bonded and insured action pictures, and we're not doing much post-production CGI work, but that's a small amount of what's released from Hollywood anyway.
The real problem with competing with Hollywood is two-fold. 1. The GIANT marketing engine and resources each studio has that the indie crowd doesn't. And 2., STORY! Story is king and can overcome the cheesiest production standards (you do remember the pre-remasterd Star Trek: TOS from 1966? That was super cheese and turned off a lot of viewers initially, but the folks that stuck with it quickly saw how good the stories were and how well they were presented that the cheesie effects were tertiary at best; what you want really. It was these folks that, through mostly word of mouth, got more people to watch or come back and watch). All the good screenwriters end up in Hollywood because that's where the money is! Again, the money is there because of the huge marketing edge that Hollywood still posses and will for some time to come.
No, the best that this incubator could do would be to create a "minor league" for Hollywood, much like Major League Baseball's system now. I think that is completely viable and would generate a ton of really good low-budget content that would serve a lot of minority viewers (i.e., those not interested in much that Hollywood offers now, not ethnic minorities per se). It could be a breeding ground for up-and-coming talent as well as show Hollywood a little history lesson on how they got started. Have to remember folks, things weren't always as they are now. Hollywood was an orange grove not much more than 100 years ago. They had to start somewhere and I think giving storytellers a more structured, accessible voice could be a very good thing. I will be submitting a proposal.
Seriously, do the /. editors read more than just the submitted posts feed? http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/17/samsung-not-buying-rim/
I have tried every text editor decked out with bells and whistles (including DW) since I started hand coding HTML in NotePad and SimpleText back in 1993. Yeah, I did some in vi and emacs, too.
TO THIS DAY and I mean five minutes ago when I stopped coding to eat I still use a simple line numbering and code-aware text editor (currently TextWrangler) to do 99.9% of my coding. I say that because coding tables is a pain in the arse by hand and I will cheat and use something else to at least set those up. I then have at least two different browsers open, several file folders and a SFTP client or shell window open to scp files to a server. My WYSIWYG is just that. Always reliable because I am looking at it in Firefox and Safari initially, then once that code is stable I boot my Windows VMs and test those browser versions. All while the workflow rolls from editor to Finder to CyberDuck to browser (love me some FireBug, and the Chrome page inspector ain't bad either), repeat as necessary. Versioning would be nice, and the integrated file management in some of the for-pay editors like DW and BBEdit are really nice, but versioning is still klunky.
I do add some time to my project dev the way I work, but I am used to it and have gotten smooth. My code always works, most of the time with very minor tweaks for cross browser compatibility. A WYSIWYG editor for the web is a pipe dream loaded with the best hash in the world. Web standards are too much of a moving target, let alone figuring out which browser supports what! Forget it. You're gonna have multiple browsers open, and you're gonna be reloading...a lot! Now, the editor environment, debugging (in browser linked to editor, mind you), versioning, and file transfer and management in one app along with his other non-pipe dream specs exist. Sure, most have some bloat, but that's what you get when you move from the component world to the all-in-one stereo. A bunch of extra crap you didn't really need.
Actually, corruption is "the action of making someone or something morally depraved or the state of being so." OR, more appropriate to this instance, "dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery." So, no, it really has to do with morality than ethics. See also, Philosophy 1304: Morality and Justice
Oh, and California grows a large percentage of our fruits and vegetables. Like we're gonna let those get away! Mmmmmm, avocados, artichokes, and garlic!
Honestly, if you think about the problem of a state seceding from the U.S. for more than a few days you begin to realize that it's genuinely impossible without a foreign government helping in a MASSIVE way, i.e., supplying all the things missing below; like the French (and some Spanish) did for us against Britain. That would not go unnoticed nor would it be allowed to even come close to happen, let alone actually happen. Here's what would be needed, immediately upon declaration of secession (because, you would NOT be given a grace period, folks!):
And the list goes on, and, on, and on... The real biggies are the ones listed above. Sorry, a foreign power is not going to mass troops and ships anywhere near us to support something like this without a BIG STINK! Besides, most of the people that want to secede don't like foreigners, so them having any hope at all of succeeding on their seceding would compromise their core principles to begin with. Idgits! Go ahead, secede! Morons! You're like a petulant child that threatens to run away from home, does it, and then comes back when he/she gets cold or hungry. Baaaaa! Do it! I dare ya!
I can point to way more examples of non-DRM content making money: Brian Eno, Joss Whedon, hell, Louis C K did something profitable recently. You can make money off non-DRM content, but you have to make more of it inexpensively in order to make *the same* profit you would from DRM content and suing pirates. Making a profit isn't the problem. It's the expectation of getting wealthy off each project that is a product of corporate greed and is a problem.
I am sorry, but the notion that you have to DRM content to make money is just categorically untrue, and is a lie perpetrated on the public by the greedy. The bottom line is copyright (and trademark and patent) law needs to be reformed and business models need to change. All we are seeing now is the old establishment trying to hold onto a failing business model and squeeze as much money out of the system until the ride is over, regardless of the cost to anyone.
So, the problem with the situation is greed and the misuse of copyright to feed that greed. So, yes something does need to be done. Copyright law needs to be modified to better reflect its original intent. Kinda like the folks claim they want to do with the Constitution from the other side of the aisle than Obama. Funny how that view only seems to apply to things they choose it to.
Seriously, that's what they came back with? How about starting with copyrights being to protect the identity of a work of art's originator, not as a financial weapon and then go from there!
Hopefully, NewYorkCountryLawyer hasn't posted yet because he's actually writing a brief to send to the WH starting with just that.
I will have to go hunting around, but I seem to remember a rumor that went around while OS X was still be referred to as Rhapsody that went something like, "NSA requests backdoor into Rhapsody" with the story saying something about it being needed because of how difficult it would be (at the time, 1998-2000) difficult for them to hack if they "needed to". So, I am fairly certain there is a backdoor into OS X. If anyone else remembers or can find a link please reply. I will also search and reply.
You mean slate and flint? Pen and paper? Or, I'll give you the more advanced, yet clumsy, Etch-A-Sketch.
Ahhh, but paying online is also a convenience for Verizon as the data entry labor is all done by the customer and then processed by the same systems the internal people use whether you paid by phone or mail. It's horse shit! It's like that $5.00 charge the banks wanted to impose on Debit Card users, and the customer response should be the same (will be from me!).
I have mine tied directly to my checking account and payments are done as ACH at no cost to me. Verizon also pushed me toward One Bill and then paperless billing to save the environment, and now they want to charge me $2.00 a month to do their job: I'm sorry, when I enter all the data and submit my bill every month *I AM DOING THE WORK FOR YOU!* It should not cost them a dime for me to submit my bill, directly to their systems, online.
I still think thirteen 28 day months and leave in February 29th every four years makes more sense. Plus, we already have a name for the new month, Smarch!
they simply would have to do a bit of flying in those areas with a SIGINT plane and map out all the transceivers
This may not be as simple as you think. If I were a cartel, I would use directional antennas wherever possible and try to minimize propagation in unwanted directions (like upward where a helicopter might receive it). Something like this, perhaps: http://www.wlanparts.com/product/MT263004NH/900MHZ-SECTOR-ANTENNA-H-POL-125DBI-120-DEG.html Take a look at the vertical beamwidth; that is going to be a pretty weak signal from the air, unless you are lucky enough to find a side lobe of some kind (and even then, your helicopter would have to be moving pretty slowly). Now, I do not know what sort of frequencies the cartels were using or what their specific needs were (maybe they needed something with less of an LOS requirement than 900MHz), so I could be wrong about using directional antennas. It may also be the case that the repeaters do not continuously transmit and that the cartels keep their communications to an absolute minimum, and so hunting for the repeaters from the air may be a difficult thing to do.
Actually, the old WWII huff-duff method would be cheapest and a lot more clandestine way of finding the transceivers. They could easily recruit ordinary citizens (like the British did) to sit at home and report directional and signal strength data from various locations to triangulate the locations of said transceivers. Given that most of these transceivers would be fixed rather than mobile, it would not take long to find and eliminate them.
WE (the technically oriented community) should be doing this as well with 802.11 networks
THEY (the FCC) have rules that make such a thing difficult outside of densely populated areas. Point-to-point wifi links across long distances are doable under the FCC's rules, but low-gain antennas (read: not-highly-directional) can only legally be used to transmit at low power. Even point-to-point links can be difficult if the conditions are bad: vegetation, rain, etc. If you have an amateur radio license, you can transmit at higher power levels...but then you are subject to Part 97 rules, which forbid conducting (most) business over amateur radio systems. This effectively means that you could not log on to Amazon; even if that were allowed, you would not want to do it, because the rules also forbid encrypting most communications. Part 97 also prevents you from communicating with people who are not licensed, which would make any such network useless to most people. If it were not for such rules, amateur radio operators would have enabled national wireless Internet service long ago.
Actually, the biggest limit is the FCC 1 watt barrier for unlicensed broadcasting at just about any frequency. Can't get too far on 1 watt unless you have an Amateur Radio license and/or a very large antenna.
"Incredible" salaries at The Agency (as in, NSA)? No way. They don't get paid any more than anyone else in the federal government on the GG scales.
No, The Agency is CIA. And yes, they do get compensated very well. I didn't say it was just money, did I? No. It also depends on what side of the house you're on. If your supporting analysts in the home office, then yeah, you're probably making GS scale, but if you're supporting operations, that's a different story all together.
I'm inclined to agree. GP comes across as the kind of feckless twat who equates making everyone's job easier with doing everything they say and no questions asked.
I'll tell you whose job it doesn't make easier - the one who has to clean up the inevitable wreck that occurs when you take understanding the users (a good thing) a step too far and let them run the show.
Ahhh. but isn't that about setting expectations, not necessarily letting them run the show. The role of IT is to enhance the productivity of *ALL* employees in a company, not just the engineers, not just the bean counters, not just the execs, not just the IT department. Employees have different jobs and different needs and IT needs to be flexible in helping ALL employees be more efficient WITHOUT sacrificing security or regulatory compliance. How do you do that? By having periodic meetings with department heads and individual employees. You have to make them feel like they can come to you when they have an idea about something they might want to use, whatever that technology is. You have to then set expectations for deployment by making that employee (or those) understand what YOU as an IT person has to do to vet the technology, integrate it, and then deploy it. That's what the dictatorial types don't do! They create an adversarial relationship with the people they are supposed to be supporting and helping be better at their jobs. When that type of relationship exists, not only does the company suffer, but so does the IT department. I can't tell you how many IT positions I've walked into and started these meetings, listening to the employees tell me how they NEVER had the previous person(s) do this, "All they would do is tell us, 'NO!'" Your life is better, their life is better, and you don't have egregious messes to clean up because everyone talks to each other and knows what's up. Of course, you will have some personalities that will still conflict, but then you have ammo to go to THEIR boss and say, "Hey! This guy/girl is causing problems."