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Comment How about perpetual copyright, include retroactive (Score 1) 184

How about we change copyright to being perpetual, but require that all previous public domain goes back to copyright as well. All of the descendents of the authors those public domain stories that Disney used for its movies can sue Disney for royalties.

If you refuse to give back to the public domain, then the public domain should never be accessible to you.

Comment Re:Police Ssurveillance (Score 1) 761

Resources! It is costly to have officers follow a person. It is relatively inexpensive to place one of these devices on a car and gather the data.

If the police have a strong reason to suspect someone, then they can allocate police resources for traditional surveillance. The use of these GPS trackers are inexpensive enough the lower the threshold to make it trivial to add a person to the surveillance web.

Comment Re:Software engineer vs. computer programmer? (Score 2) 337

So, you are calling the University of Minnesota a diploma mill? You should avoid such sweeping statements. I am in the MSSE program myself. Here is the text from "Why an MSSE degree?":

Advance your career with a Master of Science in Software Engineering degree. MSSE is a full-time, 2-year Master's program with a 95% graduation rate and is designed for working professionals.

The need is clear

Recently, a "skills development and preparedness" study was conducted in Maryland. This survey found that: "In the high-tech area, more than two-thirds of businesses that hire computer engineers, laboratory or technical personnel... reported difficulty in finding qualified workers. Overall, nearly 40 percent of survey respondents reported that a lack of skilled workers negatively impacted their firm's ability to do business..."

Industry needs qualified leaders - those who can understand the fundamentals of a software system, and be able to guide its development and deployment through an organization. These leadership roles are integral to the success of a company, and are not easily outsourced.

Critical thinking

The Master of Science & Software Engineering (MSSE) degree prepares students to become Software Engineering leaders. The core of the program is focused on building a foundation of critical thinking skills on which to make professional judgements.

Often, in the workplace, that's what is needed of an engineer - his or her professional judgement; to assess a request and judge whether it makes sense. 'Is the request reasonable?' 'Given the constraints of my organization, can something be produced that will be acceptable to the users?' 'Do we understand the risks?' 'If yes, how could a solution be structured?' 'After all is said and done, is it a good solution?' 'Why?'

Theory and practice

The MSSE program builds these thinking skills through a solid understanding of theoretical methods, principles, and tools and an examination of fundamental software development issues and processes. Topics include requirements engineering, project management, quality assurance, and database management systems.

Acclaimed faculty with both academic and industry backgrounds also provide practical perspective. Real-world problems and opportunities with software intensive systems are explored, and methods to evaluate, adopt and take advantage of emerging technologies are learned.

MSSE students will also be working closely with fellow software professionals, completing applicable class assignments within teams. Working relationships developed will be a significant resource throughout one's career.

I design enterprise scale systems. That involves taking in to consideration many stakeholders concerns and being able to address then and to communicate the architecture to them based on their viewpoint of the system.

Comment Re:bullcrap (Score 1) 475

Unfortunately most of these appliances are being made in China. I was able to talk with several people who came over to Shenzhen to oversee quality from their suppliers. I was there on a software project, but stayed at the Crowne Plaza where it seems like most of them stay. The stories they told me does not inspire comfort with appliances from China. The vendors would not even have a decent bill-of-materials as the template. When one of these QA people was there before, he instructed the vendor on a proper quality build. They did that for the time that he was there. When he came back, they were back to the old build process.

I enjoyed my stay in China, but will regard appliances made there as suspect. If I buy one, then I will inspect it thoroughly before accepting it.

If you do go to Shenzhen, the I would recommend the Crowne Plaza. A very nice hotel that is less expensive, but is still very nice is the 999 Royal Suites and Towers.

Comment Re:That's a shame. (Score 3, Interesting) 329

IANAL: Possession does not play into this. The copyright most likely belongs to the radio station in New York. If not them, then the artist(s) that recorded the discs. Unless you have a document showing the transfer of the copyright to you, then you do not own the material. If the copyright owner decides that they want the recordings back, then you will probably have to turn it over to them.

I would suggest that you ask the Smithsonian. If you would like the recordings to go into the public domain, then I suggest that they might be the proper avenue.

Comment Hire a good Data Archtitect (Contract or Perm). (Score 1) 291

The way that your data is modeled will have a great influence on systems performance, maintainability, growth potential, etc. Find someone who is versed in several database technologies and not just one database system. When your only tool is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail.

Find someone who is versed in at least two RDBMSs, at least one XML database (I prefer eXist-db and Marklogic), LDAP, etc. That person has the experience to help you avoid problems and to develop a better solution.

In the long run, a good Data Architect will save you money!

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