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Who's raving? Seems you're the one doing it. And even Search Enigne Watch, which both of the search links you provided says that while Teoma isn't a Google killer it does have advantages over Google. Now as for what I did say, I said that sometymes Google doesn't provide me with any links on a search query whereas both Teoma and Mooter will. You might but I don't consider stating a fact as raving. I also said I start with Google then use Teoma and/or Mooter when Google doesn't return anything for me. Hell, I even use About.com occasionally. For instance I sometymes do a search related to archeology, such as for Monte Verde, Chile which is the oldest known human settlement in the Americas. Using Google returns 4 results. About returns 19. On top of that About.com has a pretty good section on archeology with part of it about Monte Verde, Chile. In the end I'll use whatever SE returns the results I'm looking for, sometymes it's Google and other tymes it's another SE.

Who's raving? Seems you're the one doing it. And even Search Enigne Watch, which both of the search links you provided says that while Teoma isn't a Google killer it does have advantages over Google. Now as for what I did say, I said that sometymes Google doesn't provide me with any links on a search query whereas both Teoma and Mooter will. You might but I don't consider stating a fact as raving. I also said I start with Google then use Teoma and/or Mooter when Google doesn't return anything for me. Hell, I even use About.com occasionally. For instance I sometymes do a search related to archeology, such as for Monte Verde, Chile which is the oldest known human settlement in the Americas. Using Google returns 4 results. About returns 19. On top of that About.com has a pretty good section on archeology with part of it about Monte Verde, Chile. In the end I'll use whatever SE returns the results I'm looking for, sometymes it's Google and other tymes it's another SE.

No worries; we have The Shrub!

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blbushisms .htm

You have to love the poll for favorite Bushism:
1 'Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.'
2 'I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.'
3 'They misunderestimated me.'
4 'Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?'

Ah well, this is getting way off-topic, and I have to go look at a server.

Many people like to claim that the breakup of AT&T meant nothing. But I have to ask. "Do you have a cell phone?"

You do know that car phones have been around since at least the 1970's, right? It would have been bigger and happened faster but the FCC wouldn't release the frequencies to AT&T. That's right, the big bad phone company was researching cellular phone service in 1947.

Learn more here: http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa070899 .htm

I see classifying everything more as a "cover your ass" type policy than some high level conspiracy against the US citizens.

You may be right.

...But you may not. That's kind of the point. When everything is a secret whether there's a valid reason or not, none of us knows what kinds of motivations are at work behind the scenes.

Even if I give the people in charge now the benefit of a doubt and pretend like all they're doing is covering their ass, it doesn't change the fact that now that the precedent is set and government secrecy is the rule, not the exception, there's nothing to stop someone who is truly evil from taking power and wreaking havoc the likes of which this planet has never seen.

Imagine a modern-day Hitler. (No, I'm not comparing him to George Bush, I'm talking about a hypothetical person who's litierally—word used correctly—much more evil.) Does anyone remember that he was Time Magazine's Man of the Year of 1938? As he was working his way into power, people loved him, because he seemed like an average working-class guy who wanted to do right by the German people. They had no clue what future atrocities were to come. It's not too hard for me to imagine someone like that being elected in this country. Now imagine if this modern-day Hitler managed to get in charge of the one and only world superpower, and that once he started doing things like, well, Hitler did, there was no way to hold him accountable. No one knew because all of his actions were classified as national security secrets. Hey, wait, isn't that pretty much exactly what happened back then?

Again, I'm not saying that that is what's going on right now, but who knows? Maybe it is. But even if it's not, if we allow a political environment in which it can happen, there's nothing to stop it from happening in 2008. Or 2012. Or 2016. Because it can, it's just a matter of time before it does. Such is the nature of absolute power.

Is this what we really want?

I'm sorry, but whether they're covering their asses or trying to take over the world doesn't change the fact that what they're doing is evil, and it literally—word used correctly—has the potential to destroy any semblance of freedom in this country and maybe even the whole world.

And to the parent post, that was an excellent point about the government not letting us keep any secrets from them. I've never really thought about it before, but it's really a scary thought. Every intimate detail of my life is open to Uncle Sam, but when I ask stupid questions to try to make sure Uncle Sam's not evil, well, it's a totally different story.

People are so wrapped up in how Uncle Sam will protect us from the terrorists that they forget to ask the question that's much more important: Who will protect us from Uncle Sam?

If you examine the 2005 Energy Bill you will discover how deeply flawed it is. It is a bill written to protect the domestic oil companies at the expense of the middle-class taxpayer. Our government simply does not care about us. We need to make them care before they sell out our future to the highest bidder.

The debtor's prison you speak of deals more with debts owed... not fraudulently attempting to pay off those debts (or creating new ones).

For example, not having the money to pay your taxes should NOT land you in prison. Fraudulently writing a check to cover the tax is.

Basically, you have an existing debt you got legally, and can't pay it. If you owe money, and can't work because you are in prison, then you will ALWAYS be in there unless someone else pays off the debt.

Neat little article:
http://credit.about.com/cs/credbasicsfaq/a/100501. htm

Two Factor Authenticationis not the only part of the problem. It does helps a lot for strong authentication of the client. Some other important parts of the problem are:

1. Mutual Authentication. Short term, need to have the FI display something unique which helps the user tell for sure they are connected to who they think they are connected to. Longer term, need changes to Firefox and IE6 (which for me means 95% of my customers) so that the PKI credentials for the FI are displayed.
2. Need to be able to ask the client if I can query their computers status, and make sure that they have a current patch level and decent AV and Spyware protection. So, need to ask Linux and Windows (or other products installed on Windows and Linux) to provide capabilities, because I do not want to download code. After all, not my business. Could request this function with a special HTTP header.
3. Mid term to long term, I love the idea of a second factor (USB attachment) which supports PKCS#11 / PKCS#15. This, along with #1, prevents MITM attack.
4. Everywhere in the world, except maybe theU.S., we are rapidly rolling out EMV and VIS. So, we are going to have Smartcards in everyone's wallet, that will be a key part of the 2FA problem. Just need a small portable USB device to support a USB interface to the card. So far, I am having trouble with this, need something small enough to hang on your keychain. Wait a year or so, someone will build it.

On the server side, need to make some changes as well.

1. Proper support for tiered authentication. So, you can access less dangerous functionality with less authentication
2. Base the entire thing on a decent RBAC approach, so I can administer and keep track of what is going on. Note, DSD gives me a decent way to model tiered authentication.
3. Need to build a proper authorization framework so that the requirements for both a proper authentication tier and even a signature (OTP, Digitial Signature) on specific transactions can be enforced.

The bottom line:

1. The stronger the authentication of the client, the better. As we move towards 2FA, lets be careful to not make any stupid biometric decisions. Biometrics should only be used to gain access to the hardware second factor, for instance via a thumbprint. Then, it the second factor gets stolen, we just revoke the token; we do not need to cut off your thumb!
2. Mutual authentication. Not only does the client need to prove who they are, the FI needs to prove who it is. Some cool stop-gate things with GIFs and stuff are possible, but in the middle and longer term, changes to the browsers (the two that dominate my customer base are Firefox and IE)
3. Assurance the PC is protected. If you will excuse me the vanity, I will riff on "Clarke&'s Third Law", name it "Cameron's Law&", and state that "Any sufficiently infested PC cannot be protected from allowing the customer to be scammed". Frankly, I was really hoping that the Fed would step up to that in its

Re my example of WinNT, see http://windows.about.com/od/pastnews/l/blhistory19 80.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_nt.

NT development started in June 1989. In October the team estimated they'd be done in March 1991. NT3.1 actually shipped in July 1993, never mind how long fixing bugs took. And this is with a team who had experience developing the original Win3.x and in developing other OSes, mind. There's a big tendency for engineers *and* managers to look at a number and say "oh yeah, that's ages away, we must be able to make that". Except it ain't so - it just means it's going to take longer before you realise you're screwed. :-/

Grab.

yeah, but this clock will be obsoleted by the bush administration next spring -- when they change the rules for daylight savings time -- because america will not allow terrorist daylight savers to intimidate our country. ;->

If people are smart enough to be expected to follow the law, they are smart enough to propose and vote on law. People are smart enough to do all of the above. People are smart enough to finance their homes, vehicles, and education; they are smart enough to run their own businesses, and they are smart enough to follow the law in everyday life.

What are you talking about? They're not even smart enough to elect someone coherent.

The kinds of skills that get you by in life aren't necessarily the kinds of skills that help out in running a government. The average citizen is no more likely to do a good job running the government than the government is running the job of the average citizen. Figuring out the tax code is a nightmare for the average person. What would make them qualified to decide if the estate tax should be compounded per bracket or not? Or if ranchers in north dakota should recieve a 5% tax break but a lower monthly subsidy? Or if the joint chiefs of staff should make new threat assessments and readyness plans every 12 months or 36 months. Or argue out the minutiae of whether education funding should get $13.3 billion for Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies and $1.3 billion in Vocational and Technical training, or $13.4 billion in Title I Grants and $1.2 billion in vocational training.

If we had a direct democracy, people would turn to talking heads to decide how to vote. People would look to people they considered "specialists." People like Oprah Winfrey, Margret Cho, and Jack Thompson. And the idea promoted by the silliest celebrity of the moment would win. And ultimately, nobody would have time to read the bills and vote anyway. Hell, the senators we've elected don't have time to read the bills and vote, and they have a lot more help than we do.

I love democracy, and I believe that the will of the people should be the guiding hand that points the direction of the nation. That having been said, people have lives. They don't have time, education, or inclination enough to be involved in every single decision their city, state, and country makes any more than their city, state, and country has the time to send an inspector to sit over their shoulder and make sure they are doing their work right. The will of everyone should set the direction of government, but certain people devoted to the government full-time are needed to make things work.

Lets put that in perspective.

America

China

These are both about a year ago. Which country has done better in the last year?

Card, the editor-in-chief, has stayed true to his ideals: quality stories, author's rights, and trust in people's honesty...

...and flagrant homophobia.

e.g. the archos jukebox, first released on August 29, 2002. Steve Jobs originally claimed that they wouldn't make PVP's, because there wasn't enough demand for them. (http://portables.about.com/cs/portablevideo/a/app lepvp.htm)

Last year, when my father past away, I have been thinking about what to do with myself when I pass on. My father and mother have a plot in a mausoleum. Burying my remains seems to be a little boring, so I thought about cremation. But I do not want to have my dust stuck in an urn for all eternity. I am an atheist agnostic, so I do not have any predetermined requirements for my remains.

I spend some time thinking about doing something special with my ashes if I chose cremation. A lot of people seem to like their ashes spread in ocean or in the sky. I thought about my ashes going to space, like Scotty's, but it may not be an option for a chump like me. Unless there is a service that performs this or I get connections, my family won't be able to do this practically.

I went to the Internet to find alternatives. I found a couple that were interesting and practical. The one that seemed most attractive was creating diamonds from human ashes. I am not kidding. There are many companies, like LifeGem and Memory Jewels, that do this. I could not believe it myself. What else could be the best way for my wife and children to remember me by? I will have lasting sentimental value. Plus, loking at the price lists from Memory Jewels, it's much cheaper than buying a $3000 casket. I am seriously considering it, too.

Since you couldn't be bothered to read the note at the end of the page you linked to, "this one" is a hoax.

Click on link. Read page. Read note at end of page:

Did you enjoy this story? It turns out to have been a hoax. The full story is found here.

Unfortunately, it's a hoax:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blsux.htm

I'll bet the Nigerians heard about that Email Tracking Program Bill tested a few years ago. That would be really helpful in seeing who spammed and who got spammed along the way!

Only something dramatic, such as a major volcanic eruption, could cause enough cooling to miss setting a new record.

Um, since when did a volcanic eruption make things cooler?

Perhaps you've heard of Mt. Pinatubo. (This appears to be a decent summary of what happened when it last blew its top.)

speaking of "equator" (did a search and no one else mentioned this) wouldn't the sun be a bit more powerful closer to the equator? Since Syracuse is a bit closer to the equator than Massachusetts I'd image the results in Syracuse might have been a little better, igniting faster or perhaps require fewer mirrors.

http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/kooijman s.html
http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/abst racts/2000-2004/01AB.pdf
http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/familyresources/a /vidgameviolence.htm

Yea... nobody confuses the two.

Banning GMail
Feng Shui

Yes.

Aids + Barebacking Faggots.

And to make it even weirder, some fags try to get infected with Aids.

In that vein I would like to now suggest that viruses be given the dumbest names possible as a means of discouraging stupid kids from writing them to seek publicity. After all who would want to see themselves listed as the author of ChickenChaser .5 or TinyPocketRocket 1.3"

DIVX in its day was irrelevant at best and hated at worst. Good to see MS is still willing to throw good money after bad.

Here's all you'll ever need to know about the original self destructing DVD format:

DIVX Bites The Dust

He may write sci-fi well, but he's a vocal homophobe in his non-fiction rants.

You will need to keep the honey fresh, not a good thing to keep in a cupboard for 10 years.

That one got a good chuckle out of me... For those of you who don't know, he's referring to one of the many famous quotes by our country's great and heroic leader. http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blbushisms .htm There are also a few books available that contain many more, however I'm going to wait until after 2008. There's a new one every day!

My employment is "at will", I know this because it says so in my contract!

If they can fire you "at will," it's not an employment contract.

"...employment at will essentially means that, under common law and in the absence of a contract to the contrary [emphasis added], employment is presumed to be voluntary and indefinite for both employees and employers."

http://jobsearchtech.about.com/cs/resignationlette r/a/twoweeksnotice.htm

Besides, under the usual theories of contract law, if one party or the other can get out of the contract "at will," it's generally found that no contract exists. Of course, there are exceptions, but this is by far the more general rule. Both sides generally need to suffer some sort of "detriment" for a contract to exist.

An "employment contract" in employment law terms means an actual contract, which generally describes such things as the length of the contract, what the "bargain" is (what you are going to do, and how much and often they need to pay you), and how to get out of the contract (usually requires notice on your part, and "cause" on their part). The law treats bonafide employment contracts very differently from the usual "at will" employment.

BTW, there are situations where "implied" employment contracts can arise, but these are rare occassions -- besides, in this context, we are discussing contracts that are entered into up front, so the impied contract isn't really at issue here. Just want to add that for completness' sake.

I've worked for numerous employers, from retail sales up to my current position in a large law firm, and I have never signed an employment agreement. I've signed offer letters, I've signed employment applications, I've signed forms giving away any IP I develop to the company, I've signed forms stating that I understand and agree with a company's susbtance abuse policy -- but I have never signed an agreement that limits my ability to quit whenever I want, and limits their ability to fire me whenever I want. That's an employment contract.

Are you using some strict terminology about what constitutes an "enployement contract" beyond the papers you have to sign on the first day of work?

Well, I guess I am -- although it's not really strict terminology so much as "legal" terminology. Maybe that's where some confusion lies.

In any event -- if we use my "strict" construction of an employment contract -- basically a limitation on when I can quit and when they can fire me -- then that would be more analagous to the contract between the recording industry and artists. However, such a contract, at least in the U.S., is certainly not the norm -- virtually all employer-employee relationships are governed by regular old at-will employment, and not a formal employment contract which retricts when you can leave and when they can fire you.

Sorry if there was some confusion there.

Parent refers to this:
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/multimedia /foolbush.mov

(-:

I'm not much of a linux guru, so my favorite is simple.

skill

s-kill, basically, kills a process by name. "skill netscape" will kill netscape, no finding proc ID required. It's what kill should have been from the beginning.

The only command I love more than skill is apt-get, but that doesn't really count.

Neither in yours, give that it's been falling in the USA for the same period
Reference: All told, 42,636 people died on the nation's highways in 2004, down from 42,884 in 2003. The fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT) was 1.46 in 2004, down from 1.48 in 2003. The fatality rate has been steadily improving since 1966 when 50,894 people died and the rate was 5.5.

Overall deaths can actually go up while having the VMR and per 100,000 rates go down because the USA, more so than Europe, is still increasing in population.

But they didn't invent it, and neither did Darrow, the man credited with inventing it.

Let's see. It is rectangular in shape with a round thing on the face.
Could it resemble to a launderette?
Or could it look like a pendulum clock?
Well, it is to be pocket sized ... so I would argue a buck note could fit the shape!
Fair resemblance is a tough beast!

"Sounds useful."

From http://inventors.about.com/cs/inventionsalphabet/a /lighted_handbag.htm

:
"BREE even sees a realistic chance of getting these innovative bags into stores by the coming year - and thus staying one step ahead of the competition as well. Because Axel and Philipp Bree are convinced of one thing: 'In less than five years, interior light will be just as common in handbags as mobile telephones are today.'"

Umm... no. Not unless they can convince all the people who don't carry handbags at all (most men, for example) to start carrying them.

"Eckard Foltin, head of the Creative Center at Bayer Polymers, says the main field of application for this quantum leap in technology is in the automotive industry: "Incandescent lamps in cars will soon be a thing of the past. Instrument panels will be designed to take up less room. The headliner on the interior of a car will glow in a soft, glare-free light and provide a pleasant atmosphere in the passenger compartment." "

Now this sounds like an application more likely to penetrate deep into the market.

"This is an example of why it's good to have women in engineering/CS programs. Would a guy ever have thought of this? "

Well, yes, they would. Not to say that more women in engineering/CS programs is not a good thing, but for the purpose of imporving handbags? That's a very sexist stance that misses the whole point of having women in engineering*.

That purpose, of course, is to provide targets for slashdotters' awkward advances ;)

The US Navy refers to its dolphin units as "Marine Mammal Systems", and documents the purpose of each unit. Individual units are trained for mine hunting, force protection, and object recovery.

Assuming that these dolphins are not part of a separate program, presumably the loose mammals are part of Marine Mammal System Mark VI. Note that the Navy Marine Mammal Program FAQ includes the following item:

Does the Navy train its dolphins for offensive warfare, including attacks on ships and human swimmers or divers?
No. The Navy does not now train, nor has it ever trained, its marine mammals to harm or injure humans in any fashion or to carry weapons to destroy ships. A popular movie in 1973 ("The Day of the Dolphin") and a number of charges and claims by animal rights organizations have resulted in theories and sometimes actual beliefs that Navy dolphins are assigned attack missions. This is absolutely false. Since dolphins cannot discern the difference between enemy and friendly vessels, or enemy and friendly divers and swimmers, it would not be wise to give that kind of decision authority to an animal. The animals are trained to detect, locate, and mark all mines or all swimmers in an area of interest or concern, and are not trained to distinguish between what we would refer to as good or bad. That decision is always left to humans.

I find trace references to the fact that the former anti-swimmer system (the Shallow Water Intruder Detection System) was supplanted by something new involving dolphins. In the old system, a sea lion would swim up to an unknown frogman with an open-jawed clamp attached to a line attached to its nose, ram into the frogman, and then signal the handler -- the frogman would essentially become "handcuffed" to the line, easy to reel in.

But, it sounds like, they are just doing what they are expected to do, as handed down by the politicians.

"I was only following orders." Yeah, that's a great defense.

http://palmtops.about.com/cs/productreviews/tp/Pal m_RSS.htm

Or is someone just trying to stir up a liberal/conservative debate?

Of course someone is. The 'controversial' link in the article text is to a well-known Nazi/white power bottom-feeder Bush-worshipping site.

I for one would like to see more ethnic names added to the list. I'm getting pretty bored with all of these bland names that we have. Arlene, Bret, Cindy, Dennis, Emily? Can I get a Hurricane Xang, or how about a Tropical Storm Tyrell? The names should be more inclusive of the people in our country if you ask me. The full list of names is located here if someone wants to look:

http://geography.about.com/od/physicalgeography/a/ 2005names.htm

And yes, it would be male. They alternate genders, and the last hurricane on this year's list is "Wilma."

It's database monkey terminology. Why the grandparent expected a graphic designer to recognize a 3NF when biting her on the ass is beyond my comprehension.

I've read up on 3NF and I STILL don't know what the heck it is! http://databases.about.com/od/administration/l/bld ef_3nf.htm

I'm sure Switchfoot isn't all that concerned, even if Sony drops them from their record label. There are a ton of record labels that would happily pick up Switchfoot.

IIRC, ThePirateBay, probably the biggest Bittorrent "dark grey" tracker network, is hosted in Sweeden, and, well, they openly mock US companies that send them threatening letters.

http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php

Also, IIRC, Sealand, which is a floating fortress that was abandoned in international waters, apparently has a hosting company. They make it a point to host things that might be illegal in other countries (the exception being child pornogrpahy and spam).

http://thewhir.com/marketwatch/sealand.cfm
http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa081100 a.htm

Remember, oil isn't everything. Neither is science, but it's still important enough to spend money on.

Seems he started half an hour ago.

More info about SPAMIS:
http://antivirus.about.com/od/emailscams/a/spamis. htm

Ok, jackass.

I realize you are a troll, but while I wait for our load process to run, I got nothing better to do...

It is true that some people allow obsession w/ sports to dominate their time and minds, essentially "sucking intelligence" out of them. However, I think it is a mistake to say that people that push the boundaries of human endeavor (yes, including skateboarding) contribute nothing to society. This spirit of adventure is a crucial ingredient to the success of our species. I forget who said it, but a Sci-Fi author I once read said something to the effect that many of mankinds most notable achievements have come long after reason should have convinced us to give up.

So, while there might not be any use to society in skateboarding, I think that in the long run, encouraging the sort of person that decides jumping the Great Wall on a skateboard is doable will benefit society in the long run.

apple's lack of support and bad attitude toward end users is well known, apple's support went into the shitter bigtime in the mid 90's and never recovered.

Then why does Apple rate high in customer satisfaction surveys?

In the personal computer category, Apple Computer scored 81 and led Dell by seven points. Toyota led the automobiles category with an 87. Honda trailed just behind at 86.

Chimner is not the only customer at odds with a PC maker. Our most recent survey of 29,593 subscribers reveals growing frustration with computer service. Last year, PC World readers told us they were unhappy with technical support. This year's survey shows little--if any--improvement. Dell, for example, tumbled in service overall--especially in hold times. The other big news: Apple rated higher than any other computer maker.

i was talking about HP and IBM and Sun in terms of non-pc support, eg unix servers. which all three companies sell. their support is very generally excellent.

And why are you comparing servers to desktop computers?

Would you like to back that claim up, or are you just repeating the often-debunked urban legend?