Posts by Richard 15

Same Quality?

If the quality was the same, they would not be doing it in-house at all.

Way back when,when I did contracting I'd been asked more than once to "fix" something that was offshored.

Now obviously there are some guys that are perfectly competent, but those are not the ones they want fixed.

In almost every case I told them it would be simpler to scrap it and start over rather than use the code they

were trying to get fixed. Some of the code was copied verbatim from samples on the net, including the comments.

They could simply just have another USB port or the like in addition to the lightning one.

On being a "Coward"

There are many, many good reasons for someone else NOT to intervene to protect your property.

First off, there is chance of getting injured. It's one thing to intervene to protect someone from being assaulted,

that's reasonable risk/reward thing, but to save property ... not so much.

I noticed you did not mention his race. I'm a white guy, "assaulting" a person of color exposes me to being labeled

a racist. If hurt them I can be charged with assault and sued, doxed, and have my life made miserable. Pass.

Similar problem if they are white and "Trans".

Worse, I could get injured, stabbed, or possibly shot and for what? To protect something that I have no stake in?

Your property means nothing in comparison to either of these scenarios.

Lets pretend someone intervenes and manages to hold onto them long enough for the police to arrive.

You're in SF. Chances are they won't even charge him. If his lawyer convinces the DA the current value

is under $1000 they absolutely will not do so. Meanwhile that someone needs to fill in a bunch of paperwork, etc.

Recently a woman in SF was violently assaulted and the judge initially just let the guy go on a promise to

show up. After a huge uproar they added an ankle tracker requirement.

Sorry, but you live in a place with far too many reasons to NOT act.

SF is a place where there is broken glass on the streets everywhere from the cars windows smashed along

with human waste and drug needles. They don't want to jail anyone because that costs money that could go

to paying government employees. I have no idea why anyone would want to live there now.

So, Rap music is pretty much dead then, huh?

Entire genre's will get removed.

Rap music contains so much stuff that offends many.

There are a lot of "artists" that will have nothing available to play.

A useful tidbit.

OK, did a little research which took a bit longer than I thought it would to answer one important question, how do you get infected. I was afraid it would be a drive by type in which case we are

all potentially screwed.

No, apparently at this time its distributed via email and also happens to be quite large in size,

about 32 mb. I'm guessing that most modern anti-virus programs will quickly catch on to these

attached files and cut down on the problem.

Is there any easy test I can do to find out if the one my company using is ok?

Complete load of nonsense

The only thing unprecedented here is the level of damage to the company's bottom line.

It's been decades since Wargames came out, and yet companies are not securing sensitive

systems from the internet. They do this for the convenience of their executives and managers

rather than make them do a bit more work.

The only way to prevent access to a computer system is to have it 100% isolated,

You have things attached to a discrete network that literally can't talk to any other network.

You can have remote servers dedicated to a single purpose. A system designed to back things

up does not need to necessarily be able to allow downloads by default of that data without human

intervention.

Sony is a freaking hardware company. Make some damn computers, NOT by the lowest bidder in China, that have built in encryption by nature. You can easily have a hardware based key that is literally impossible to crack, you just need to have the two individual systems be given the keys.

Make a key longer than the message, using progression along the key and it becomes impossible to crack.

There are too many managers that demand sysop rights that just don't need it.

Users need to be limited to accessing information that they NEED and nothing more.

Stop using social security numbers as an ID.

You map an internal ID to it and use that instead, keeping the SS#'s only on those

systems that specifically need them, and even then you need to use good encryption.

You cut corners, you pay the price.

This might be as big a screw up as the oil spill in the Gulf Of Mexico because they wanted

it the cheapest way rather that the right way. That stupidity wiped out any of the savings

they achieved and cost them Billions more on top of it.

The result of a limit of 150 will be higher prices charged to the consumers since

the intent, if not effect, is to limit it to 150 active drivers at a time.

Now, ironically, it may eventually lead to lower prices as the drivers bid for the right

to get the passenger. I imagine when it rains badly that it will still go up regardless.

I think that it would be reasonable for anyone who wishes to participate in the programs

have some kind of background check and insurance such that they are covered at all

times.

The city councilman's examples all have to deal with money.

Money flowing into the city's coffers and insuring that those businesses paying it get

protected to ensure the money continues to flow unabated.

The last example of piracy is pure garbage though since the other example have to do

with legal services, just not as profitable to the city, while piracy is straight out theft.

He should be ashamed, but as a politician I don't expect him to actually experience that

emotion.

We need a change in the system.

Cable should be allowed to charge a simple low flat rate to its customers for anything offered for "free" by using the public air space. Anyone that wished to charge needs to abandon that part of the spectrum dedicated for the "public interest". Channels that wish to charge should be allowed to bill their customers directly with the cable company getting no additional compensation above a basic fee that was charged to their customers as part of the basic bundle.

Customers can opt out of any channel even if free.

If the broadcasters wish to scramble the signals, they lose the spectrum.

If they broadcast only infomercials, they lose the spectrum.

If they want to raise their rates for the other channels, let them, and let the market sort it out.

Just don't be surprised when many cable channels go out of business because most people

don't care for their products. Broadcasters may not offer channels in a way that requires you

to purchase one channel to get another.

But it did not have to be crap.

Myspace was fine and could have easily developed into Facebook, if only they

had paid attention to its user base. You have to be able to do what you want with

a minimum amount of hassle . People don't mind "some" ads. They are less than

thrilled about arbitrary changes made though.

Ultimately, the users of the social network are the product. All your product to get

poisoned and it goes away.

A few points.

First, the ammunition as such would in all likelihood still be detectable.

Now with some clever camouflage you get a situation like the man with the golden gun

who assembled the weapon from pieces that looked innocuous.

"This" gun is likely to be not all that useful.

The plastic in today's printers are simply not made to withstand the pressures involved.

It would not surprise me to see one of these things blow up in someone's hand.

That said, I can see future versions being made that ARE indeed useful.

And if the machine is one of the advanced ones that make items out of ceramic, like they

do engines, then it not unreasonable to think an undetectable gun could be made "on the fly".

Governments already make guns that are for the most part not detectable, but hey, that's

"their" right, right?

How about we start with more proper sizes?

Some condoms are just too damn narrow.

What we really need are custom fit condoms that can go on quickly and still be safe.

I saw something close being advertised for Europe, but never heard more to think

it went into release.

meh

The ladies are cute, the costumes are nice, but the dancing sub-par and the music sucks bantha crap.

The problem is, is that people generally do not like change.

Windows 8 "might" be successful, but they need to put in the tools that let people

use what they already know. The OS is so different and is not optimized for keyboard entry.

Nice for a user of prepackaged games, but crap for the people programming them.

And, guess what, if it sucks to work on, less people will want to work on it.

I'm surprised that the Apple ][ /][+ is not listed.

While the earlier machines were hobbyist things, the Apple ][ had VisiCalc back in 1979.

I even remember IBM making what was effectively an Apple ][ on a board so that you could use

the peripherals that you had purchased for the Apple. Many of the games and business programs

existed on the Apple long before their equivalents came out on the IBM PC. IBM made the market

big, but Apple created the market via the spread sheet and the ability to do custom printing by

yourself at a fraction of the cost. One decent size print job paid for the printer + software, a few also

paid the cost of the computer.

I actually worked for a small company in the 90's that were using Apple ][ gs's with built in hard drives

and "accelerators" which could be hooked up via a special interface set up with a PC to transfer data

back and forth.

Nothing new here.

I've written programs in vb with tile like functionality.

The tiles would change color or be grayed out depending on whether on the status.

For example, a picture viewer.

If the picture was "missing" then it grayed out.

If the QA process said that it was not acceptable, the tile would have a red back color.

If the QA process said that it passed then the tile had a green back color.

If the QA process had not yet been run it was a neutral color.

Now granted, this was within a program, but an OS is just a program to and I did launch

external programs from within the program.

I did this in VB6 sometime in the 90's.

I'm pretty sure I was inspired by similar functionality in a different program too.

If you must deal with paypal

Have more than one bank account. Use one account as a gateway to paypal/ebay, but immediately transfer most funds to a different account to keep their greedy mitts off of it.

If you are selling on ebay, you don't need paypal if you have your own merchant account.

They do this to avoid anti-trust issues or possibly visa/mastercard requires it of them

When you purchase things via paypal, make sure you have taken any payments you have received out of

your "credits" and transferred it to your bank account and then to your safe bank account otherwise they

will use that first. Then make sure the credit card option is selected each and every freaking time or they

will attempt to take from your bank account. They do this because money taken from your account comes

to them essentially free while money from your credit card forces them to pass on the 2.3% they charge

every time regardless of pay source. This is where they make their largest profit!

You use the credit card option to protect YOU. Paypal has zero incentive to work on your behalf regardless

of the glaring level of fraud. If they can't get the money from you, they at least put on a show, but still rarely

appear to actually act. After a while they will, with crocodile tears, say they are sorry but you need to pay.

At which point I suggest you tell them to pound sand unless you have no options other than ebay to sell.

Me? Well, I made the mistake of taking a payment through paypal for a friend.

She did web work for someone and their was a dispute. The buyer contacted paypal and asked for

their money back. Since the TOS states that services are not covered by the buyer protection program

paypal ruled in my friend's favor. However, shortly before a year had passed the buyer told here credit

card company that it was an unauthorized charge and paypal attempted to take the money from my

paypal account (I did not have a bank account linked and nothing in the credits at the time) so they were

not able to get it. They froze my account.

Having spoken to them, they said they would "fight" for me, etc. etc.

So, despite having emails from the buyer complaining about the purchase, and thus proof that it was

indeed authorized, paypal managed to lose the dispute. (Or that is the story they told me, I think it was BS).

So, they asked me for the money and I told them that the buyer was ripping THEM off and not ME.

I figured that if they had an actual risk of loss, they might actually make an effort.

Well, they passed on my "debt" to a collector who demanded the money.

I asked for proof of debt, there was none, and threatened to sue them if they put anything on my

credit report. They went away, but I still can't sell on Ebay and the only purchase I make are

when the seller is local and I can meet and pay cash.

The thing is.

We have foreign flagged ships running through our waters all the time.

Not all of them actually stop in the US, but continue on their way to Canada or Mexico, etc.

Kind of an odd way to do things, but I doubt most of the US would care as it is little different

than if someone were doing it in another country and use telephony or the like.

Frankly, most people won't care. The US is mainly concerned about drug smuggling,

diseases, and people coming here and using the public services without the ability

to pay the costs involved.

I'm sure that since they are in economic zone that eventually someone will want to collect

taxes and the like, but other than that...

I have been saying for years that they need to establish a legal method of transfer in order to

keep the principle of "first sale" alive. What we are now paying for is a perpetual non-transferable

license when most of think we are actually buying music or books.

This is one of the main reasons why I have not embraced the ebook concept.

Right now I can go to a garage sale and buy a used book for a fraction of the cost of a new one,

even a new ebook version.

What is needed now is a clearing house for the licenses and a way for people to "release" the

license they have. Currently ebooks can be "lent" to others and then the ebook self destructs.

What we need is a way where an owner can De-authorize his copy and then transfer the

rights to someone else. Said action must be traceable and may not be initiated without the

owners permission.

I propose they maintain a clearing house where for a very small fee they implement the transfer. I figure 25 cents would make it very profitable and maintainable. I would prefer this actually be maintained by a body independent of the copy right holders and in fact that the copyright holders MUST preserve the mechanism or forfeit the rights with the material then entering the commons.

I believe the odds of this happening are slim at best.

I would think that if she can demonstrate any kind of history of publishing that she could obtain protection.

Nothing new here.

There have always been overpriced books.

And there have always been "new" editions that added little or no value over the previous editions.

A teacher should never, with the very rare exception, require that the student buy a book that they

have some financial interest in. If you happen to have a world famous author teaching a course on their own books, and you can get it in paperback for $10 that would be OK.

Likewise schools should not receive any form of kickback.

A school should have to certify that a new edition actually brings something new. Lets face it,

you really don't need a new edition of most math books. If there is a mistake, then an inserted

addendum (with the right for all to freely copy to correct and compensate for the mistakes)

should be made available.

A school should need to certify that all those expensive CD's with software or what not actually

have some value.

If an e-book is issued it must include a legal method of transferability and non-expiration.

I have no objection to rentals provided they are at a reasonable fraction of the cost.

By certify I mean that the books should be reviewed and approved before it can be assigned.

Until such certification occurs the old books should remain in circulation. If the publisher

declines to continue that edition and their new one is not yet certified, too bad for them, they

don't get issued.

A partial contribution to the solution.

If an e-book had to have a certain number of pages viewable, or a certain percentage, then it would allow potential readers to see if the book is crap. Not a full guarantee, but a start.

Or, allowing for a reader to reclaim their purchase price with a reasonable short span of time

for reasons of it being "crap" could work, provided that a certain threshold was reached.

For example, lets say 1 person in 100 says its crap, then a refund would not be allowed.

If, however, 80 in 100 did, then it would. Tweak this as you see fit.

Heinlien would be a good start

I'd love to see the moon is a harsh mistress done. Fairly timely too given the theme.

Harry Harrison's Stainless steel rat series.

Retief by Keith Laumer could be excellent source material, though slightly dated in a way.

David Webber's Honor Harrington series as well as the Ring of Fire series.

And there are a lot of great books/stories out there that would sadly not translate well.

Groupon can be done better, for a lot cheaper and less evil

Groupon is going to have to change or they will fail.

Right now they have some suckers willing to cough up a whole lot for the rights to

sell things at a small percentage and keep an even smaller one. As time goes on, someone

will come up with their own site and offer the same service for less.

It's like those coupon books they used to push hard. They got people to pay for the right to

include their coupons in a coupon book, then they also managed to get people to buy the

coupon books. Thing is, I don't see them around anymore since it did not make enough

sense to either the potential customers or the businesses.

They must have a heck of a salesforce to convince businesses to let groupon keep 50% of

the sales AFTER the price was already slashed. The only way it would make sense is if they

managed to develop a significant percentage into long term customers or if they were so

overpriced to begin with that they at least break even after getting perhaps 25% of the list

price.

So, while groupon looks a bit juicy with their cash flow (I have no idea what their costs and debts are) it would be far cheaper to simply create their own site, offer it for a less evil piece

of the action, which would likely drive enough traffic to make more profit anyway.

They can learn from groupon and do it better.

Go ahead and pay 10-12 times real earnings (not gross sales) if you must jump into it,

otherwise be patient and build a better creation without the pitfalls from dealing with their

evil past actions.

Evil being defined as that the only company that really makes out on the deal is groupon.

A good sales job.

I remember when CDs came out. People were sold on the "superior" sound.

The reality was, the sound was in fact inferior with high and low notes cut out.

Moral: Tell a lie convincingly enough and many will buy it.

What was actually good about it was that they were usually more likely to last

longer as a physical medium like tape and vinyl were more subject to damage

while being played. That and the fact they took up less space.

Of course with people and ipods playing even lower quality sound and deafening

their customers to the point where they can't tell the difference any more .....

Blu-ray has the CAPACITY to serve up better quality, but unless the source material

is properly translated you will get little to no benefit.

Reminds me of the Disney commercials for the animation they release.

They always push the "newly remastered" aspect as if whatever was out there already

must, of course, have faded and become damaged.

The sad thing is, its nothing new.

I can tell a lot of people posting are old timers like myself. I've been a PAID computer programmer for over 20 years, I played with them maybe another decade. I do remember my written language skills to be sub-par at one time.

One of the early jobs I applied for had a very simple coding exercise. I think it took me 3 minutes to code, at most. I asked for the next piece, but was told that, that was all. Apparently this tiny bit code flummoxed all the other applicants. Now its not that I was especially bright, it was that the wanna be coders were, well, unable to do anything real.

We are spoiled today. The old Apple ][ I played on took several minutes to load up a game, a

game that would barely qualify as an applet now. We had floppy drives that had disks with a capacity much, much smaller than what you have now and hard drives were all but non existent.

So, we had to learn to code, code that was smaller and more efficient. You were encouraged to look for ways to save time/space. The Y2K "bug" was not a bug at all, it was the result of people trying to continue to use code that was not upgraded to deal with the current realities. It was never intended to be used as long as it was without replacement. Perhaps the "bug" was the lack of documentation, but really its about planning. The code should have been properly replaced years before instead of in a panic at the end.

The thing is, so many programmers are taught using suites that really hold their hands. I'm personally spoiled in that I can search the web and retrieve coding examples of so much of what I need to accomplish that I don't have to reinvent the wheel. The difference being that I can ultimately come up with a solution in the vast majority of the cases myself, but since I'm using libraries of code for some fairly complex things, it makes sense to use something if its already available. In other words, its cheaper for my company for me to use something someone else made rather than waste my hours to accomplish the same thing. It's why we don't all write our own word processors.

I'm actually somewhat happy that so many newbies suck. Really, it makes my job that much more secure. There will always be a percentage of the population that love to code, the lot that want to read a program in 24 hours book and act like a professional SHOULD fail and leave the coding to the people that spend the time to think before they code.

I do agree that c++ is a pain in the butt. I happen to loathe pointers and I do admire those people who create systems that allow me to fob that bit off on the compiler and let it do more of the garbage memory collection for me.

It all comes down to the contract with the first buyer.

From what I understand, there IS a contract with original licensee of the autodesk software.

That contract does not allow for transfer of the software, The reseller in this case is selling

something that, according to contract, he does not have the right to possess in the first place.

Or, rather, he may have the right to the physical media and materials, but not the license to

install it anywhere. The company that signed the contract did not have the right to transfer

the physical media to the reseller in the first place.