Anyone noticing a trend with companies increasing prices this past year? Comcast raised their rates from $60 unlimited TV to $60 + $7 each extra TV. Sounds like a bargain unless you are the typical house with 3-4 TVs, then you spend more.
I'm assuming that there is a typo in here somewhere, since $60 + $7/TV never seems like a bargain compared to $60 + $0/TV.
I am also somewhat skeptical at the suggestion that the "typical" (whether that is mean, median, or mode) cable-connected home has 3-4 cable-connected TVs.
Companies are scrambling for extra cash.
For-profit business exist to gobble up as much cash as possible. Once the market for a relatively new product or service is saturated at the current price level, getting more money either means lowering prices to gain new users -- which only works if the decreased profit per user will be more than offset by the new users -- or increasing prices for -- which works if the loss of users is more than offset by the increase in profits per user (and may work even if it isn't, if there are resources that are freed up by supporting fewer users that can be redirected to support more profitable endeavors in a different market.)
All the reports say WinRT is including Office RT. Its as simple as that. WinRT comes with Office, so it costs more.
That may be Microsoft's reasoning, but it doesn't change the impact on the minimum profitable selling price of a Win8RT tablet compared to, e.g., an Android tablet with similar hardware.
And its hardly as if premium office suites with even retail prices in the range of the increase in the OEM price of Windows RT being attributed to office are things that tablet purchasers buy anywhere close to universally. So even if it Office RT is worth the price increase to people who would buy a tablet office suite, for a lot of purchasers there'll be no relevant benefit for the added costs.
The H-1B is for individuals at the top of their respective field, and it only accounts for 65,000 out of more than 6 million visas alloted per year.
No, the immigrant E-1 Employment First Preference visa is for individuals at the top of their fields (the three subcategories include: [1] "persons with extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics" who must "must have extensive documentation showing sustained national or international acclaim and recognition in their fields of expertise", [2] "Outstanding professors and researchers with at least three years experience in teaching or research, who are recognized internationally", and [3] "Multinational managers or executives who have been employed for at least one of the three preceding years by the overseas affiliate, parent, subsidiary, or branch of the U.S. employer."; source)
The H-1B is for "Persons in Specialty Occupations which requires the theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge requiring completion of a specific course of higher education", not "people at the top of their fields". (Well, there are also H-1B subcategories for fashion models, and for Department of Defense Cooperative Research and Development projects or Co-production projects; source and source.)
Say what you will about work visas in general, and granted the H-1B lasts longer than most other work visas, but H-1B visas are not where I would begin making cuts! They allow us to sap the smartest minds from other coutries, and use them for our own benefit, to benefit our own industries and own economy.
In general, snapping up the best minds is the purpose of the E-1 and, to a lesser extent, E-2 immigrant visas, not the H-1B. The H-1B is more about getting human special-purpose parts for industrial machines, not the "brightest minds".
Guess what? H1B is the only reasonable route for educated people to immigrate legally to US (aside from marriage and family ties, and lottery.)
Even if that was true, so what?
I went to school for 10 years in US, got doctorate degree, and can't just open my own clinic and practice. I am not taking anybody else's job - I'll create jobs. But current immigration system does not allow that, unless you are rich right out of school and can invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in your business in order to get E2 visa. Even then, you cannot get residency and citizenship later, ever; only renew E2, if you are lucky.
That's because the visa you are talking is the non-immigrant E-2 treaty investor visa; as a strictly non-immigrant visa you can't use it to immigrate. OTOH, if you want to immigrate as an investor in your own business in the US, you want the immigrant E-5 visa, which does allow you to immigrate.
So, H1B is the only reasonable option: get hired, work for several years, and then get residency through permanent employment.
Actually, its not, even ignoring the immigrant E-5. As a holder of a graduate degree (or a bachelor's degree and five or more years of experience, or a person with special skills in the sciences, arts, or business) you can get a job offer and qualify, by way of that, for an immigrant E-2 visa (which, despite the similar identifier, is completely unrelated to the non-immigrant E-2 treaty investor visa). With different levels of skill or qualifications, one might qualify through employment and background for other employment based (E-1 through E-4) immigrant visas, as well.
Immigration system is ridiculous and that's why there are so many illegals. People just cannot get through the system even when they try to do it legally.
While this is true, it has nothing to do with the supposed problems you point to with it not being easy enough to get an H-1B (or employment- or investment-based immigrant visa in general.) Illegal immigrants don't, in the largest part, come from the places where you would see more H-1Bs if it was a little easier to get them, they come from the same places where there is the largest backlogs in the family-based immigration categories -- and often are exactly the same people that can't come because of those backlogs.
If you want to eliminate the illegal immigration that results from poor management of the legal immigration system -- and thereby allow immigration enforcement to simply address the individually undesirable immigrants that we really want to keep out -- then: 1. Eliminate per-country caps in the existing, family-based immigration visa categories (keeping the global caps in each category, with a single global lottery when applicants exceed the global cap) -- this better aligns supply with demand, and makes it so you don't create an enormous backlog for legal immigration from the country where there is the largest pool of qualified applicants who want to immigrate (for instance, the 15+ year backlogs in the F-1, F-2B, F-3, and F-4 categories from Mexico.) 2. Allow excess immigration in the existing, limited family-based immigration categories for applicants willing to pay an additional substantial (different for each visa category, and higher for categories that are less preferred) fee for the privilege of bypassing the limitation & lottery process (and, therefore, any potential backlog) -- the principle of limiting immigration in these categories is limit the social cost of accommodating a larger immigrant population, but in practice this creates a large pool of people willing to pay money (which ultimately ends up supporting dangerous criminal enterprises) to get into the country simply because of the backlog created by the limits; rather than driving these resources into bypassing the limits and then expending public funds to combat it, this change would drive those
I think this is where Google Docs... or drive... or whatever comes in handy. You'd be surprised at how many companies are switching from Office/Outlook to GoogleDrive/Gmail for this very reason.
Fact is, a phone is not going to be handle what a common desktop is capable of. However, for most employees that don't need to compile code or render a design in 3D, this solution works extraordinarily well.
Its funny you should put the second paragraph in the same post as the first. You seem to recognize that you don't need a desktop office suit to do the tasks usually associated with an office suite, but compiling and 3d rendering have, if anything, a longer history of things that are handed off to an application remote from the device where the associated UI is accessed. There's no more reason -- and arguably less -- that your code compilation or 3d rendering have to occur on your desktop machine than that your office suite has to be a desktop app.
This seems like common sense and the first good news in a while about our seemingly broken patent system.
It seems to me that if it can be done on a computer any computer, than it's not automatically "novel" if you can do it on a slightly different type of computer
The (tentative) ruling has nothing to do with definitions of patentable subject matter, novelty for patent purposes, or validity of the patents for any other reason; it is all about the inability of either side to demonstrate damages tied to the alleged violation of the presumed-valid patents, and the lack of any basis for any relief aside from an award of damages. From the ruling:
"Apple concedes that [...] it cannot prove damages for the alleged infringement of the '002 and '949 patents. [...] I tentatively conclude that its admissible evidence of damages with respect to [its claims for infringement of the '263 and '647 patents] does not [...] withstand Motorola's motion for summary judgement. I likewise conclude that the admissible evidence of damages with respect to the alleged infringement of Motorola's '898 patent also fails to create a genuine issue of material fact. That leaves only the parties' claims to injunctive relief. [...] I cannot find a basis for an award of injunctive relief."
They give away an up-to-date free (as in beer) version of one of the most advanced software development tools on the planet, and yet people complain about its limitations.
I think they were complaining because when a new Express version goes RTM, old Express versions are discontinued, and the new Express versions were announced to lack key features in the old Express versions, meaning that free access to features that are currently available in free versions of VS would no longer exist.
How did "Express" come to mean "free" in the software world, anyway?
Because marketing folks realized that it sounds better "Crippled", "Limited", or "Demo", which would more accurately describe the relationship of the zero-cost version to the full-price version that the zero-cost version exists to help support the market for by building a large base of users familiar with its general structure who will be inclined to purchase the full-price version when their needs exceed the limits of the zero-cost version.
Does Slashdot have any advice on what my friend could do to build up his resume and find a job?
If he has actual demonstrable knowledge and skills, then he needs to build contacts with people working in the field, specifically, people working in places with sufficiently non-bureaucratic hiring practices that a recommendation from a skilled current employee can help him get to an interview where he can demonstrate that to a hiring manager.
At least, that's how I got my first technical job with a degree in the social sciences and minimal formal experience (e.g., coursework) in computer-related fields. (I didn't actually build connections for that purpose, they were preexisting.)
As a 'distributor' of Linux services will they be suing themselves for all the 'blatant' patent infringement that Linux is doing or just trap the end users with those patent fees?
No, Microsoft won't sue themselves, because they have a right to exercise their own patents. Microsoft has nothing against people paying Microsoft in order to use Linux, whether its because the direct user is paying for Azure, or because someone in the distribution chain is paying Microsoft a patent licensing fee.
What Microsoft objects to is people using Linux without paying Microsoft.
They hired the Enyo team, not the WebOS team. Enyo is a web framework, and reports indicate those employees were put into the Chrome team, not the Android team.
The second distinction (Chrome v. Android) may be less significant that it appears on casual inspection, given Google's oft-stated (and increasingly frequently stated) plan to converge ChromeOS and Android.
How Long Should Devs Support Software Written For Clients?
As long as the clients have paid for, as specified in the terms of the development contract (except insofar as the developer has an interest -- e.g., in developing goodwill -- that outweighs the cost of the support, or applicable law -- e.g., general provisions governing warranty obligations that the contract did not modify, either because the language didn't address them or because the law doesn't allow contracts to modify them -- imposes additional obligations.)
I see...so they get rid of bugs by boring them to death with explanations of their bureaucratic structure, and threatening to add additional layers of management!
Interestingly, the excerpt the above refers to contains description of exactly one layer of management, and two different engineering roles -- one of which is a software developer focussed on developing tests and testing tools, and the other of which is -- loosely -- a software architect focussed on testing.
I hardly see having these three defined testing-related roles as intense bureaucracy.
I don't think he's suggesting testing didn't exist; just that it wasn't so formalized as it is now with QC teams that get hold of software before it leaves, people making their careers in QC, books written and courses given on the subject.
Software QA/QC wasn't even remotely new 15 years ago.
Not that long ago, the dev'r was generally wholly responsible for testing the software vs now where the dev'r is expected to test, but the QC is there to really put software through its paces.
The distinction between unit, integration, and system testing -- and the idea that all were important, and only the first was properly within the scope of responsibility of the developer as a developer, and the idea that testing was a distinct discipline and skill set -- is, in software development methodology terms, fairly ancient. It was certainly widely accepted by the mid- to late-1980s, and there have certainly many, many books and courses on the subject even in the 1980s.
Testing often wouldn't be done until the end of the cycle, and was frequently shortened or skipped entirely to meet deadlines. That doesn't seem to happen any more.
This is what happens when you mistakenly generalize from what happens now where you work to what happens now generally.
Let me assure you, there are all too many (which, come to think of it, is satisfied by "greater than zero") places where testing isn't done until the end of the cycle and is known to be shortened or skipped entirely to meet deadlines.
Testing has for decades been recognized as important in the literature on software development and has for decades been practiced consistently at the places with the better development cultures.
Also, for decades, its been skimped on and/or skipped entirely in environments with less organizational maturity or institutional understanding of software quality and long-term costs.
The company that killed WebOS and seriously considered selling off their whole PC business line is desperate to hang on to their Itanium business?
They are desperate to hang on to the massive effective subsidy to their Itanium business that (by their characterization) Oracle agreed to provide for as long as possible. Since its pretty much the only thing that makes that business worth anything -- either where it is or even as an asset to be sold off.
It wouldn't surprise me if Mark Hurd was a little lax in the clauses of the contract(s) with Oracle because he was dealing with his buddy Larry.
The contract at issue was a settlement of the Oracle-HP dispute that occurred after Hurd was essentially forced out of HP in a sexual harassment scandal and picked up by Oracle, so Hurd was pretty certainly not involved, at least on HP's side, in setting or evaluating the terms.
According the the linked articles (haven't read the actual suit/complaint), HP is claiming that Oracle committed to continued support at part of the settlement of HPs suit over Oracle hiring former HP CEO Mark Hurd who resigned in the midst of a scandal for which HP would have almost certainly fired him.
There is no suggestion that HP paid Oracle any amount to develop or continue support of their software on HP's Itanium systems. So, if you cut through all the distractions and boil it down the the basics, HP is claiming the Oracle owes $500M to $4B for hiring Mark Hurd, the very same CEO HP would probably have fired.
No, look, if Oracle wanted to deal with whatever they would have had to pay for hiring Hurd, they shouldn't have made a deal with HP to give something up to drop that lawsuit -- they should have just fought that lawsuit in court. Whatever they are now liable for as a result of breaching a contract with HP to continue support for Oracle DB on Itanium is something they owe for breaching that contract, not for hiring Hurd.
Doesn't this violate the "anti-Tivo" clause of GPL v3?
Not if you distribute the OS on separate signed media that the user has to install. And not (regardless whether or not the preceding condition applies) if the device is not a consumer device.
How does this add anything positive to the internet?
It adds more domain names that people with names they want to protect from typosquatters and hostile parties will need to buy, which means more money for domain name registrars.
Plus, it increases the probability that names on a local network will clash with TLDs.
Okay, well, none of that is any good for the internet. I give up.
Google's security people aren't thinking straight. They believe there is state sponsored hacking and they then recommend their silly phone pin nonsense ("two factor authentication")? Did they think that the phone channel was secure? They don't believe someone could watch them send the PIN over a text message? If they really cared about security they'd ween people off of passwords and only use computer generated RSA/DSA keys.
Username and password with the authentication code is more secure than without it, though using the SMS or voice-channel option (which isn't the preferred two-factor mechanism) is a greater risk against an attacker with your password than the preferred two-factor method (which uses an app which generates computer-generated keys instead of sending them two you over a telecommunication network.)
Using computer generated and invoked keys would solve the phishing and guessing attacks.
It would be a single-factor authentication method subject to compromise of the device with the key-generating software. In practice, it would be less secure than using Google's existing two-factor authentication system using the preferred (mobile app) mechanism, which involves both device generating a limited-time authentication code and a regular password, so that compromise of either the password or the device doesn't compromise the account.
I live in an island which is 5km wide and 40km long. Cities and everything else is organized across the 40*1 km range. So the whole cache thing is useless for me.
Why is that? You cache two 10-mile (24 km) squares and you have your whole island cached.
If 10 miles was actually 24km, that plan would work. 10 miles is only a hair over 16km, though, so you'd really need three 10 mile squares cached to cover an area 40km in one dimension and 5km (or anything up to 16km, for that matter) in the other.
What worries me is amateurs getting into coding positions and writing appalling code that probably ends up costing a lot more in the long run that if they'd hired people who had a clue.
The problem, of course, is that lots of people who are hiring programmers also don't have a good ability to detect the ones that have are really skilled -- spending the money that it would cost to get someone that has a clue would often mean they were still getting not-so-good programmers writing needlessly-expensive-to-maintain code, but paying top dollar for it.
When Boeing or Airbus wants to build a new plane they don't hire some kid who's good folding paper aircraft, they hire proper engineers. I don't understand why IT should be treated so differently.
Because most IT work doesn't involve the level of risk associated with garden variety moderate deficiencies in competence that aircraft engineering does. (The IT work that does have that level of criticality often has substantially higher standards, and skilled people applying the standards.)
Yes, patterns often are needed due to the inflexibility of your programming language of choice
Patterns, qua patterns, are only needed due to inflexibility of the programming language. With a sufficiently-flexible programming language, any given "pattern" is instead a piece of library code that needs written once, rather than a template that needs to be reimplemented each time it is used.
Of course, real programming languages aren't perfectly flexible, so any real programming language is going to have patterns that are useful -- but which patterns is going to vary based on the limitations of the particularl language.
This is the same faulty reasoning that makes people think the year 2000 is the first year of the 21st century. There was no year 0 because when the modern calendar was developed they were still using Roman numerals. The calendar goes from 1 BC to 1 AD with no zero.
Astrononomical year 0 (which is what you'd expect to be in use in discussion of astronomical effects) is Julian calendar year 1 BC, and ISO 8601 (another common modern system) year 0 is proleptic Gregorian calendar year 1 BC.
The phrase "the modern calendar" is meaningless, because there are several modern calendars, many of which have a year 0.
Of course, the assumption that the Shroud of Turin should (if it were authentic, and if the dates calculated after the fact on which the Christian calendar was based were correct) date from at the latest shortly before before year 0 (astronomical) or 1 BC (Julian) is in error, because it associates either the mythology of the Shroud of Turin or the epoch date for the Christian calendar with the wrong event.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm assuming that there is a typo in here somewhere, since $60 + $7/TV never seems like a bargain compared to $60 + $0/TV.
I am also somewhat skeptical at the suggestion that the "typical" (whether that is mean, median, or mode) cable-connected home has 3-4 cable-connected TVs.
For-profit business exist to gobble up as much cash as possible. Once the market for a relatively new product or service is saturated at the current price level, getting more money either means lowering prices to gain new users -- which only works if the decreased profit per user will be more than offset by the new users -- or increasing prices for -- which works if the loss of users is more than offset by the increase in profits per user (and may work even if it isn't, if there are resources that are freed up by supporting fewer users that can be redirected to support more profitable endeavors in a different market.)
That may be Microsoft's reasoning, but it doesn't change the impact on the minimum profitable selling price of a Win8RT tablet compared to, e.g., an Android tablet with similar hardware.
And its hardly as if premium office suites with even retail prices in the range of the increase in the OEM price of Windows RT being attributed to office are things that tablet purchasers buy anywhere close to universally. So even if it Office RT is worth the price increase to people who would buy a tablet office suite, for a lot of purchasers there'll be no relevant benefit for the added costs.
No, the immigrant E-1 Employment First Preference visa is for individuals at the top of their fields (the three subcategories include: [1] "persons with extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics" who must "must have extensive documentation showing sustained national or international acclaim and recognition in their fields of expertise", [2] "Outstanding professors and researchers with at least three years experience in teaching or research, who are recognized internationally", and [3] "Multinational managers or executives who have been employed for at least one of the three preceding years by the overseas affiliate, parent, subsidiary, or branch of the U.S. employer."; source)
The H-1B is for "Persons in Specialty Occupations which requires the theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge requiring completion of a specific course of higher education", not "people at the top of their fields". (Well, there are also H-1B subcategories for fashion models, and for Department of Defense Cooperative Research and Development projects or Co-production projects; source and source.)
In general, snapping up the best minds is the purpose of the E-1 and, to a lesser extent, E-2 immigrant visas, not the H-1B. The H-1B is more about getting human special-purpose parts for industrial machines, not the "brightest minds".
Even if that was true, so what?
That's because the visa you are talking is the non-immigrant E-2 treaty investor visa; as a strictly non-immigrant visa you can't use it to immigrate. OTOH, if you want to immigrate as an investor in your own business in the US, you want the immigrant E-5 visa, which does allow you to immigrate.
Actually, its not, even ignoring the immigrant E-5. As a holder of a graduate degree (or a bachelor's degree and five or more years of experience, or a person with special skills in the sciences, arts, or business) you can get a job offer and qualify, by way of that, for an immigrant E-2 visa (which, despite the similar identifier, is completely unrelated to the non-immigrant E-2 treaty investor visa). With different levels of skill or qualifications, one might qualify through employment and background for other employment based (E-1 through E-4) immigrant visas, as well.
While this is true, it has nothing to do with the supposed problems you point to with it not being easy enough to get an H-1B (or employment- or investment-based immigrant visa in general.) Illegal immigrants don't, in the largest part, come from the places where you would see more H-1Bs if it was a little easier to get them, they come from the same places where there is the largest backlogs in the family-based immigration categories -- and often are exactly the same people that can't come because of those backlogs.
If you want to eliminate the illegal immigration that results from poor management of the legal immigration system -- and thereby allow immigration enforcement to simply address the individually undesirable immigrants that we really want to keep out -- then:
1. Eliminate per-country caps in the existing, family-based immigration visa categories (keeping the global caps in each category, with a single global lottery when applicants exceed the global cap) -- this better aligns supply with demand, and makes it so you don't create an enormous backlog for legal immigration from the country where there is the largest pool of qualified applicants who want to immigrate (for instance, the 15+ year backlogs in the F-1, F-2B, F-3, and F-4 categories from Mexico.)
2. Allow excess immigration in the existing, limited family-based immigration categories for applicants willing to pay an additional substantial (different for each visa category, and higher for categories that are less preferred) fee for the privilege of bypassing the limitation & lottery process (and, therefore, any potential backlog) -- the principle of limiting immigration in these categories is limit the social cost of accommodating a larger immigrant population, but in practice this creates a large pool of people willing to pay money (which ultimately ends up supporting dangerous criminal enterprises) to get into the country simply because of the backlog created by the limits; rather than driving these resources into bypassing the limits and then expending public funds to combat it, this change would drive those
Its funny you should put the second paragraph in the same post as the first. You seem to recognize that you don't need a desktop office suit to do the tasks usually associated with an office suite, but compiling and 3d rendering have, if anything, a longer history of things that are handed off to an application remote from the device where the associated UI is accessed. There's no more reason -- and arguably less -- that your code compilation or 3d rendering have to occur on your desktop machine than that your office suite has to be a desktop app.
The (tentative) ruling has nothing to do with definitions of patentable subject matter, novelty for patent purposes, or validity of the patents for any other reason; it is all about the inability of either side to demonstrate damages tied to the alleged violation of the presumed-valid patents, and the lack of any basis for any relief aside from an award of damages. From the ruling:
"Apple concedes that [...] it cannot prove damages for the alleged infringement of the '002 and '949 patents. [...] I tentatively conclude that its admissible evidence of damages with respect to [its claims for infringement of the '263 and '647 patents] does not [...] withstand Motorola's motion for summary judgement. I likewise conclude that the admissible evidence of damages with respect to the alleged infringement of Motorola's '898 patent also fails to create a genuine issue of material fact. That leaves only the parties' claims to injunctive relief. [...] I cannot find a basis for an award of injunctive relief."
I think they were complaining because when a new Express version goes RTM, old Express versions are discontinued, and the new Express versions were announced to lack key features in the old Express versions, meaning that free access to features that are currently available in free versions of VS would no longer exist.
Because marketing folks realized that it sounds better "Crippled", "Limited", or "Demo", which would more accurately describe the relationship of the zero-cost version to the full-price version that the zero-cost version exists to help support the market for by building a large base of users familiar with its general structure who will be inclined to purchase the full-price version when their needs exceed the limits of the zero-cost version.
If he has actual demonstrable knowledge and skills, then he needs to build contacts with people working in the field, specifically, people working in places with sufficiently non-bureaucratic hiring practices that a recommendation from a skilled current employee can help him get to an interview where he can demonstrate that to a hiring manager.
At least, that's how I got my first technical job with a degree in the social sciences and minimal formal experience (e.g., coursework) in computer-related fields. (I didn't actually build connections for that purpose, they were preexisting.)
No, Microsoft won't sue themselves, because they have a right to exercise their own patents. Microsoft has nothing against people paying Microsoft in order to use Linux, whether its because the direct user is paying for Azure, or because someone in the distribution chain is paying Microsoft a patent licensing fee.
What Microsoft objects to is people using Linux without paying Microsoft.
The second distinction (Chrome v. Android) may be less significant that it appears on casual inspection, given Google's oft-stated (and increasingly frequently stated) plan to converge ChromeOS and Android.
As long as the clients have paid for, as specified in the terms of the development contract (except insofar as the developer has an interest -- e.g., in developing goodwill -- that outweighs the cost of the support, or applicable law -- e.g., general provisions governing warranty obligations that the contract did not modify, either because the language didn't address them or because the law doesn't allow contracts to modify them -- imposes additional obligations.)
Interestingly, the excerpt the above refers to contains description of exactly one layer of management, and two different engineering roles -- one of which is a software developer focussed on developing tests and testing tools, and the other of which is -- loosely -- a software architect focussed on testing.
I hardly see having these three defined testing-related roles as intense bureaucracy.
Software QA/QC wasn't even remotely new 15 years ago.
The distinction between unit, integration, and system testing -- and the idea that all were important, and only the first was properly within the scope of responsibility of the developer as a developer, and the idea that testing was a distinct discipline and skill set -- is, in software development methodology terms, fairly ancient. It was certainly widely accepted by the mid- to late-1980s, and there have certainly many, many books and courses on the subject even in the 1980s.
This is what happens when you mistakenly generalize from what happens now where you work to what happens now generally.
Let me assure you, there are all too many (which, come to think of it, is satisfied by "greater than zero") places where testing isn't done until the end of the cycle and is known to be shortened or skipped entirely to meet deadlines.
Testing has for decades been recognized as important in the literature on software development and has for decades been practiced consistently at the places with the better development cultures.
Also, for decades, its been skimped on and/or skipped entirely in environments with less organizational maturity or institutional understanding of software quality and long-term costs.
They are desperate to hang on to the massive effective subsidy to their Itanium business that (by their characterization) Oracle agreed to provide for as long as possible. Since its pretty much the only thing that makes that business worth anything -- either where it is or even as an asset to be sold off.
The contract at issue was a settlement of the Oracle-HP dispute that occurred after Hurd was essentially forced out of HP in a sexual harassment scandal and picked up by Oracle, so Hurd was pretty certainly not involved, at least on HP's side, in setting or evaluating the terms.
No, look, if Oracle wanted to deal with whatever they would have had to pay for hiring Hurd, they shouldn't have made a deal with HP to give something up to drop that lawsuit -- they should have just fought that lawsuit in court. Whatever they are now liable for as a result of breaching a contract with HP to continue support for Oracle DB on Itanium is something they owe for breaching that contract, not for hiring Hurd.
Not if you distribute the OS on separate signed media that the user has to install. And not (regardless whether or not the preceding condition applies) if the device is not a consumer device.
It adds more domain names that people with names they want to protect from typosquatters and hostile parties will need to buy, which means more money for domain name registrars.
Plus, it increases the probability that names on a local network will clash with TLDs.
Okay, well, none of that is any good for the internet. I give up.
Username and password with the authentication code is more secure than without it, though using the SMS or voice-channel option (which isn't the preferred two-factor mechanism) is a greater risk against an attacker with your password than the preferred two-factor method (which uses an app which generates computer-generated keys instead of sending them two you over a telecommunication network.)
It would be a single-factor authentication method subject to compromise of the device with the key-generating software. In practice, it would be less secure than using Google's existing two-factor authentication system using the preferred (mobile app) mechanism, which involves both device generating a limited-time authentication code and a regular password, so that compromise of either the password or the device doesn't compromise the account.
If 10 miles was actually 24km, that plan would work. 10 miles is only a hair over 16km, though, so you'd really need three 10 mile squares cached to cover an area 40km in one dimension and 5km (or anything up to 16km, for that matter) in the other.
The problem, of course, is that lots of people who are hiring programmers also don't have a good ability to detect the ones that have are really skilled -- spending the money that it would cost to get someone that has a clue would often mean they were still getting not-so-good programmers writing needlessly-expensive-to-maintain code, but paying top dollar for it.
Because most IT work doesn't involve the level of risk associated with garden variety moderate deficiencies in competence that aircraft engineering does. (The IT work that does have that level of criticality often has substantially higher standards, and skilled people applying the standards.)
Patterns, qua patterns, are only needed due to inflexibility of the programming language. With a sufficiently-flexible programming language, any given "pattern" is instead a piece of library code that needs written once, rather than a template that needs to be reimplemented each time it is used.
Of course, real programming languages aren't perfectly flexible, so any real programming language is going to have patterns that are useful -- but which patterns is going to vary based on the limitations of the particularl language.
Astrononomical year 0 (which is what you'd expect to be in use in discussion of astronomical effects) is Julian calendar year 1 BC, and ISO 8601 (another common modern system) year 0 is proleptic Gregorian calendar year 1 BC.
The phrase "the modern calendar" is meaningless, because there are several modern calendars, many of which have a year 0.
Of course, the assumption that the Shroud of Turin should (if it were authentic, and if the dates calculated after the fact on which the Christian calendar was based were correct) date from at the latest shortly before before year 0 (astronomical) or 1 BC (Julian) is in error, because it associates either the mythology of the Shroud of Turin or the epoch date for the Christian calendar with the wrong event.