Slashdot Mirror

YOU ARE SO SMART!

It's obviously physically impossible to ever improve the performance of anything more than 100%. That's why 60+ years of Moore's law means that modern computers have a maximum theoretical performance ceiling of 769 FLOPS since the Eniac churned out 385 FLOPS and it's physically impossible to be more than 100% faster.

Where can I sign you up for the Turing Prize?

http://knology.net/johnfjarvis...

At worst, his boss violated office policy and is a bit lazy.

From the Excerpts from ALDOT Computer Usage Policy:

A user who utilizes ALDOT computer resources for any purposes other than for official
ALDOT purposes, is guilty of theft or misuse of state resources and may be subject to
both ALDOT personnel action and appropriate criminal prosecution.

So, by the management's own rules, the boss was guilty of theft or misuse of state resources. The first is a crime, and I'm pretty sure the latter would be covered in a criminal statute, as well.

Here's an ethical situation - boss takes the computer home (against policy, but you saw him carrying it out), his kid spills soda all over the case, boss brings the computer back in & tells you the computer is broken and needs to be replaced (we'll say acquisition costs are $1500/machine). You tell your boss's boss about the situation and you don't get any response. Do you replace the boss's computer out of the IT repair budget, or do you raise a shitstorm about it? Does it matter if your IT budget is in the red?

I see this as being the same type of deal - this man is being paid to do a job, and the evidence that we have (both the screenshots & accounts from co-workers) is that he's not doing it. Therefore, he's stealing from the government.

I don't think work computes need to be 100% business all the time (even though ALDOT policy states that is the case), but there's a difference between checking /., news, stocks, and personal emails occassionally throughout the day for mental break, and spending 70% of your time playing Solitare.

Someone needs to figure out that boss's email address (by removing the grey box), and write an HTML mail that uses an MSHTML exploit to make a SolitareCam for us slashdotters :).

Although it was clearly my responsibility as a computer system administrator "to confirm and document" such misuse

wrong! here, you are so off the marker it's pathetic.

I would normally agree, except in the case where the former system administrator shows the job description from the employee manual that states that as part of his job function.

ALDOT Policy Excerpts

I agree with all the points that you've made. Certainly the firing and subsequent 'slap on the wrist' draws attention to the Right of Way Bureau as to why, such practises as "above reproach", with a finish like "yours very truly", it makes me wonder if there should have been kisses at the bottom too. Additionally the letter seemed to suggest some subordinates needed disciplinary measures, quite forward about it too.

The only conflict of interests was if the employee saw privileged information, such as salary information. However, since this is a government position, this kind of thing is less likely.

Why, exactly, was his "only other option" to spy on his boss? Why not write the letters to the editor that are now being written for him? Why not put up a website that talks about the issues he's facing, without mentioning names? Why is the next step to spy on his boss?

Was his boss' conduct reprehensible? Yes. Was it his job to spy on him? Short of a policy expressly giving him permission to spy on his boss (or *anyone* else in the office), his behavior was wrong. And no, " 'to confirm and document' such misuse" is *not* sufficient authorization for spying on *any* user in the office, especially his boss.

You can get in trouble doing such things, including prosecution under federal wiretapping laws. This is *not* an area where you want to screw around with.

The outrageous thing is that these screenshots are still posted on the web. This guy obviously completely lacks any sense of ethics. If I posted screenshots of my boss's desktop on the public internet without his permission, I would expect to never work again.

I wonder how the guy was caught. Oh, and there's a picture of a spy in the lower right hand corner.

From the site. Hehe.

secondly, microsoft, coke, wotc, rambus, intel - they're all at the top of their respective markets because they give people what they want. they answer demand.

All of the companies listed (but can't speak about WOTC) work very hard to create a demand for their products and services. You left out phillip morris and a few others. Perhaps I should be daring and mention that you also left out the drug cartels. This is not what people want, it's what they've been told they want.

Can you honestly tell me that Peruvian natives actually wanted black caffienated phosphoric acid before CCC moved in and flogged it to them, hard? People don't actually want ``Word'' or ``Windows'', they want software that does certain things, or even more so, they simply want to do certain things, and Microsoft have - at great expense - sold them on the idea that the Microsoft Way is the best (only) way, and please pay at the till on the way out.

What they are doing now is escalating that to the point of being able to make you pay every time you breathe or blink. Bill's attitude is probably very much along the lines of ``let them eat cake.''

microsoft provides software that is easy to navigate

Yah, like Microsoft Bob with the reversed OK and Cancel buttons, those useless disappearing menus, and that fsking PITA paperclip. Oh, and dear old Word, with Format-everything-else in the Format menu, but Format-Page in [drum roll...] the file menu! Of course! No thanks.

an os which is unparallel in simplicity

``Simplicity,'' yes, but simple not in the sense of easy to use. Simple in the sense of having important bits missing, like security (CodeRed/SirCam/PWL-files/CIFS-hole-de-jour,PPTP,. ..), timesharing (WinModems), user awareness (Windows login), reliability (all, especially Bill's '98 USB scanner driver :-), consistency (NT GUI routing != text) standards (Kerberos/AD/IE-MIME-handling), flexibility (FIND.EXE,EDLIN.COM), honesty (DR-DOS crash code in WFW3, ``IE is necessary for Windows''), and much else. Any modern Linux installer and/or system management toolset (think DrakConf) eats Windows for manageability, and Konqueror (for one example) stands between Explorer and WorkPlaceShell for elegance and consistency.

the best web browser that i can think of offhand

For...? Stepping on HTML mines? It took them a hell of a long time to get IE smooth, most of the Open browsers are up on it in half the time.

amd and intel make beautiful chips at low prices

Samsung make even more beautiful chips (Alphas) but Intel may not let them play in that space for long. And tell me that Intel haven't pulled out all the stops to cut AMD, Firewire and everyone else who even smells of competitor off at the knees, I dare you...

the ability to destroy competitors who improve on your product, for example, is a particularly ugly piece of legislation designed to protect businesses by stifling innovation.

Yes, and haven't Microsoft just used that ability to the hilt whenever opportunity arose? Have they stopped? Will they ever? Discuss.

after all, i personally favor letting idiots not wear their seatbelts so that when they crash into something going 60 mph, their stupidity will be removed from this earth.

Would it impact your gross stupidity at all to learn that eight times as many car accident victims are maimed for life as are killed outright? And even more are permanently handicapped? What you are advocating would cause a dramatic increase in the societal burden of caring for incapacitated accident victims, which is the direct opposite of where your pious bullshit was evidently directed.

ms does not need a patch - it will die, eventually, if it's not what the people want.

The trick is to prevent M$ from altering ``what people want'' to suit their accunting department.