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Leak Shows US Lead Opponent of ACTA Transparency 164

Posted by timothy
from the putting-on-an-acta dept.

Comment: Re:I can fully understand the operators (Score 1) 329

by kelnos (#30721450) Attached to: Google Faces Deluge of Nexus One Complaints
It's a bit silly to claim that "most of the world" does it that way, since, well, that's patently false, unless you'd (erroneously) consider the US to be most of the world.

But your other point is still valid; since the Nexus One is primarily offered in the US right now, most of the potential N1 buyers are likely from the US... and since the operators in the US almost universally cover support for the phones, it *is* reasonable to believe that most N1 owners would expect support for it to come from T-Mobile.

Comment: Re:Measurement from the NVIDIA site? (Score 1) 317

by kelnos (#29820053) Attached to: NVIDIA Driver Developer Discusses Linux Graphics

Documenting the hardware was necessary, but even fully-documented, it would have only gotten you ~2% of the way towards the ultimate goal of *being* a software-defined modem.

I don't really know anything about software modems, so I won't comment on that, but the release of documentation by AMD was hugely useful to the open source radeon driver.

There's another problem with video drivers -- patents. As a practical matter, everyone in the industry violates at least one patent belonging to the other big players, and they're *all* sitting ducks for every patent troll who comes wandering along.

Except that all of the major desktop video players now -- except nvidia -- have either open sourced their drivers or provided full (as far as we know) specifications for their hardware. Nvidia is the last holdout, and hasn't sued Intel or AMD for infringing on any of their patents.

So, maybe they are indeed violating someone else's patents, but considering that you yourself claim that "everyone" in the industry violates the others' patents, there's obviously an opportunity for cross-licensing, just like lots of other competing companies do.

If it's still true that nvidia is violating someone else's patents, I have little sympathy for them. In that case, they're essentially breaking the law, and hiding that fact.

Comment: Re:No communication is no communication. (Score 1) 394

by kelnos (#29740069) Attached to: Facebook User Arrested For a Poke
Yes, because if someone was harassing me in real life to the point that I had to get a restraining order, the absolute first thing I'd think of is my Facebook account.

Somehow I think not.

The bottom line is that someone was ordered not to engage in any form of contact, but, instead of following that order, decided to do so anyway, knowing full well what they were doing. The medium of contact is irrelevant. Intent is king when considering protective order violations. While the defendant is expected to avoid contact with the restrained (e.g., don't go to their place of work to instigate contact), they're not required to go out of their way to make it difficult for the restrained to contact them.

Comment: Re:porn? (Score 1) 467

by kelnos (#29739657) Attached to: Is Working For the Gambling Industry a Black Mark?
In addition to what the other reply said, it also isn't certain that the stats post-doc was always making decisions based on the statistics. Just like anyone else, his decisions were undoubtedly influenced to some degree by emotions, sometimes not so much, sometimes strongly.

And even if you *are* going by the stats, there's always the human element, and the fact that you're playing against other people who have their own different strengths and faults. Unless everyone around the table is a computer, you can't expect to always play well based solely on the math.

Comment: Re:Ted Dziuba (Score 1) 619

by kelnos (#29739425) Attached to: Ted Dziuba Says, "I Don't Code In My Free Time"
Well, he still has Score:1 (30% underrated) so his message has been deemed at least as useful as a non-AC comment that hasn't received any moderation at all. Regardless, aside from the questionable nature of his assertion that you can "just do a $1MM project with a few minutes of explanation," I agree for the most part with the rest of what he says. You can think that's sad... and I can think you're wrong. Whatever, no skin off my back.

Comment: Re:Ted Dziuba (Score 1) 619

by kelnos (#29739399) Attached to: Ted Dziuba Says, "I Don't Code In My Free Time"

Why? Seems like a straightforward thing to bring up during an interview.

Newsflash: people lie in interviews.

Of course they do. But that's why you ask them to describe some of the things they've done, in detail, and ask probing questions about why they did it, how they did certain things, and problems they had. If they can't, then maybe they're lying. If they can, then either they're telling the truth, or they're exceptional liars.

If their spare-time coding also includes contributions to open source, take notes: it should be pretty easy to check up on after the interview since those kinds of things are usually pretty public.

Unless you are a complete moron it does not matter how bad you are at writing code, what matters is how willing you are to learn to improve.

If that were the case, experience wouldn't mean squat during a software engineering interview. I've done a few interviews as the interviewer, and I wouldn't even consider an applicant who codes poorly, especially when there are so many people who are already more than competent. If they are just lacking experience, that's fine, if the position isn't too advanced. But if they're actually bad coders... no, sorry, but they're just going to be a burden. It's pretty tough to judge a person's ability to improve in a 45-60 minute interview.

Just give them a basic coding aptitude test in their specialist language (on paper, no IDE) and see how they do.

While that's certainly applicable for some jobs, many employers may not find that so useful. I wouldn't say I've interviewed for tons of coding jobs, but I've never had anything approaching a "basic coding aptitude test." The interview questions were usually coding-related, and yes, I've written code on whiteboards during interviews, but most of them are more about critical thinking and problem solving than basic coding ability.

Comment: Re:Coding in your spare time shows an interest.. (Score 1) 619

by kelnos (#29716671) Attached to: Ted Dziuba Says, "I Don't Code In My Free Time"
Yes, and people with children seem to always believe they know better, too.

Hey, it's your choice to have kids and spend all your free time interacting with them. If that works for you, more power to you.

But maybe that doesn't work for everyone? And maybe that's ok too?

Comment: Re:Ted Dziuba (Score 1) 619

by kelnos (#29716599) Attached to: Ted Dziuba Says, "I Don't Code In My Free Time"

I wouldn't work for someone like you, who expects me to spend all of my free time working without pay.

Way to put words in the guy's mouth.

I enjoy my job in IT and still do plenty of stuff with computers in my free time........but I also do a hell of a lot of things outside of computers in my free time. Sound like you wouldn't hire me just because I date / spend time with friends / play games (video, board, card, anything) / read non-computer books / write / watch movies / exercise / work on my car / etc.

Not sure why you're so pissed; it sounds like you wouldn't be eliminated from consideration based on a hiring filter that culls people who don't do their craft as a hobby too. No one's saying that you have to do it 24/7 or at the exclusion of all other hobbies.

Because I know that in 20 years, you'll be the one burnt out and just wanting to lay down and die

Yes, unfortunately that is one of the dangers of turning a personal hobby into a profession, but some people do manage to do it and are happier for it long term. Don't want to work for someone who prefers people for whom their profession is a hobby? Fine; clearly they don't want to hire you anyway. Everybody's happy in the end.

The Universe is populated by stable things. -- Richard Dawkins