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Death threats never really are and I didn't see anyone else (so far) call your posting funny.

I thought that it was hi-freaking-larious. I actually laughed out loud. Of course, my entire family has a hard time keeping a straight face at funerals too...

But regardless of whether or not it was funny, it was certainly protected speech and perfectly legal. Isn't that ironic (for anyone who read the article)? It's not like he was making death threats, he was simply making a joke (or comment for the morbid-humor impaired) about how he thought that it was appropriate for the goatse.cx man to get death threats.



Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

Dunno where you could normally find it, but being an employee at a failing company would help. My company was just gutted and sold, and employees can pick up 1 year old PCs for $25 (incluing 17" monitor). Laptops are a little more costly at $125, but worth it. I can't wait till they give a price on the Aeron chairs. :-)

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

I've heard good things about Global Knowledge. I've never been to any of their classes, but I did snag some of their course amterials (my best friend runs a training center that GK rents on occasion). I stopped by one night to pick up my friend for dinner and poked my head into a Cisco class (can't recall which one). I was amazed to see that they pack up an entire lab with dozens of routers and switches and other equipment and ship it to wherever they hold the class. I thought that most of it would be book learning/lecture with some play on a "simulator" program. Pretty cool stuff.

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

If "you don't know what you don't know", you might just end up wasting your time re-inventing the wheel, especially if a product has a huge documentation set and you just need to do a few specific things. Or if the product is very new and the documentation is patchy. Anyway, sitting down with a book is no substitute for hearing lessons learned in practice, or hearing the developers explain their design decisions. If you say that it is, I can only assume you've only worked with simple systems.

I agree. There are some complex systems out there that simply do not lend themselves well to book learning at all. Sure, if you want to learn Java or C++ or Perl you can get a book and tinker around on your Linux box. But if you're a developer or implementer for a proprietary system (like Peoplesoft, SAP, etc) then you need to take the classes to learn it. Most people don't have 3 or 4 servers lying around plus access to the software plus a set of sample databases to teach themselves on. Additionally, books are plainly not available for many of these topics.

I think that too often people on Slashdot make the mistake of thinking that all Slashdot users are developers who have jobs that can be learned from an O'Reily book or some derivative. That's not the case. Some of us have much more esoteric jobs, and others have much more mundane jobs.

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

As ADSL is becoming available for ordinary users the need for quite web servers may increase. I have an ADSL from home but I really haven't made a web-site at the IP address because I wouldn't like the noise in my home... especially when I'm going to sleep. When I turn off the computer late at night (morning?) and go to bed, I really like the quietness.

Call me crazy, but I just keep my PCs in a room other than the bedroom. I have 2 servers and 2 workstations runnnig 24/7 at my house (one of them is a web server) and I never hear a peep out of them when I sleep (unless I leave the speakers on and someone IMs me in the middle of the night). Problem solved.

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

Also, if an overseas casino just labels its transactions as from Bob's Fishmarket then how does the bank know, and are they liable under the legislation if they didn't know it was a casino?

Because since it is not illegal to gamble in an off-shore casino (only for them to collect on losses), any Australian with an ounce of sense would dispute the charges on his credit card with the bank.

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

because gambling and loteries are (as someones sig puts it) it "a tax on stupidity".

In California this week there was a store attendant who won the largest state lottery jackpot in US history. $140 million. I doubt that he would call it a "tax on stupidity".

Quite frankly, I don't see how playing lotteries and casino games is much more reckless than investing in stocks. You make or lose money on either one, and there's essentially nothing that you can do to affect the outcome of either of them. Sure, you can minimize your chances of losing on stocks by doing market research and analysis and becoming a professional investor. But even professional investors got burned in the IPOs of the dot-com bubble. And you can do the same thing with gambling as well. There are quite a few professional gamblers in the world who have studied the games of chance and calculated their mathematical odds of winning for various circumstances and make a quite successful life of it. They still lose sometimes, but that's just the nature of the beast...just like investing.

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

Overall, the law certainly doesn't seem to prevent Australians from online, off-shore gambling (although the article implied it did), but (unless I've misinterpreted the credit card/legal interation) it does put a damper on the casinos' profitability.

From my reading, this is correct. The intended effect of this law is to discourage off-shore gambling sites from accepting credit cards from Australians. Once that part has kicked in, it will be much much harder for Australians to gamble online, which suits the backwards ways of the government hack who proposed this legislation. Don't forget that this was brought to you by the same man who proposed legislation making it illegal to forward an email (something like a $10,000 fine I believe) and legislation making it illegal for you to make freely available online anything that your local police department might find harmful or offensive to minors. How's that for someone who doesn't get it?

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

I thought only the ruling was thrown out the door, all the findings and the like have been passed down to a trial court, which could give the same ruling as jackson or even worse.... spose it doesn't matter either way because until microsoft win they will just keep appealing.

Which ruling? The remedy was thrown out. But now that it's back in the courts again I'm sure that you will see negotiations begin again for an out of court settlement. And since the new DoJ are just as much puppets as the president who put them in charge, I wouldn't be suprised to see the DoJ back down altogether and settle on an irrelevant settlement. Gates has already gone on TV talking about how he thinks that litigation is not the "correct" way to solve this problem and that he expects negotiations to begin anew.

While the case was under appeal it had already been settled and a judgement entered. The DoJ couldn't (at least politically...maybe even legally) decide to throw out the case altogether and settle because they got exactly what they asked for. Now that they no longer have what they asked for, there's a chance that a new, MS-friendly judge could rule in a way that is very soft on MS. The DoJ now has a convenient excuse to work on an out of court settlement "for the good of the consumers."

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

Calling one that does not speak your protocol 'stupid' is ignorant, self-centered, and racist.

Pray tell, just where did my "ignorant, self-centered, and racist (racist???)" self call anybody stupid for not having correct grammar and punctuation?



Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

Judges are nominated for life for a reason.

Not all judges are appointed for life. Supreme Court Justices are, Federal Appeals Court Judges are, and (I'm not 100% on this one) Federal Circuit Court Judges may be. Most other judges are not (though many states probably have lifetime appointments for State Supreme Court Justices and the like).

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

I don't like Microsoft but I want them to get their just desserts fairly and for the right reasons. So back to the lower court it goes and if we are lucky it will get worked out while it's still vaguely relevant to our lives.

That's what you would think. But that's not likely to happen now. The prosecution had rested and won the case. The case was (in part) overturned on appeal. Now that it is back in limbo the new Dubya DOJ has an opportunity to settle with MS before the lower court rules again. If they do (which is likely) MS will get off with a slap on the wrist.

Hopefully by keeping the findings of fact intact this will be a little harder for them to do, but it won't be impossible.

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

If you want to compare them to the TV world, Smart Tags are closer in nature to the brightness, contrast, and tint controls - they allow a user to alter the presentation of a signal (page) they've received to suit their own needs.

I'm not quite sure how you can see that as the case. Smart tags allow third-parties (not end-users or content producers) to intercept (parse before presentation) my content and then tag portions of it with links to information that they (or their advertisers) provide. This information may or may not be relevant to my content. It may even be contrary to the message that I am trying to get across. Either way, smart tags sit between the user and the content and repackage content to suit a 3rd parties needs. That is exactly the example that I provided.

The key difference is that it's a third party who is modifying my information to suit their (the third party's) needs, not the end-user.

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

Yes yes yes, let's all root for that OTHER big corporation. Go AMD! I hope you have better sales on your Athlons, because even though I don't hold stock in your company, I irrationally support you anyway! I hope that consumers fail to see how you have an inferior product and all!

I'm not sure at how this statement relates to the article at all. The only thing that I can figure is that you for some reason equate RDRAM with Intel processors and DDR/SDRAM with AMD processors. Obviously that isn't the case as SDRAM is supported by Intel-based chipsets, and Intel is planning to release DDR boards for their Pentium IV processors around the end of the year (they would have done so sooner had there not been a stipulation in their contract that Rambus preventing them from doing it).

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

Now please allow me to translate for all of the technical types who feel that correct grammar and punctuation is not important: The English language is a standard. Our ability to comprehend is an API (which comes from being taught how to read). Your written words are code. Now code to the freaking standard already so that your writing will be compatible with our API! Most of the writing on Slashdot is just spaghetti code.

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

Take a look at their response. You'll come to the conclusion that they've been brainwashed by the company's cult-like PR department.

The thing that I just don't understand about Rambus is this:

The tech industry said all along that it was too expensive. Most memory manufacturers who were far larger than Rambus ever dreamed to be were working on a competing standard that had higher performance at a lower cost. Nobody in the tech biz wanted to even mess with Rambus, even after Intel decided to go with RDRAM and basically bribed memory manufacturers to license the technology. Rambus's heavy-handed tactics were well-known in the industry and they were spurned for it.

How in the hell could any analyst or market researcher even pretend that Rambus was ever a smart buy (at any price)? It was obvious from the beginning that it was doomed to failure. And yet it became one of the hottest IPOs ever. And had an astronomical P/E ratio. It just goes to show you that when it comes to the stock market, even the "experts" are clueless.

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

To say E&S has never been heard from again is silly considering how large of a company it is and how many contracts they have out.

I think that what he was saying is that E&S never came knocking on their doors again about that particular "patent."

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

Yes, Loch Ness does sit slap-bang on top of the Great Glen Fault - but an earthquake in Scotland means about 1R... Hardly an event that's felt, never mind the frequency of these (non)events.

I read a similar article yesterday that stated that the surface disturbances weren't caused by the movement of the tremor, but by gasses that escaped from fissues or somesuch during the quake.

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

So why, if they've accepted this is an unpopular concept, have they taken it out only to keep it in scope for future versions? What does this say about how much attention they really pay to what users want?

It was hyped as a "great thing" in the new version of IE. Nobody liked it. MS realized the mistake of having hyped it to begin with. MS "withdraws" it from the gold code. Six months later, MS sneaks it into an IE service pack and doesn't tell anybody. Since it doesn't get hyped or announced, the uproar is minimal and it sticks around. If they get burned really badly by sneaking it in later, they can blame it on sloppy coding by claiming that IE6 SP1 was already in development before the IE6 code went gold, and they "forgot" to take it out of the SP code.

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

We can at least hope. Maybe, eventually, they'll even get rid of Clippy.

Um...don't you remember the news? Clippy got canned from Office XP. MS even had a web page set up that was supposed to be like a "Clippy web log" that had his "resume" and other stupid crap on it. It was generally hailed as one of the best moves that MS has ever made. If it wasn't for the fact that Office XP is even more big-brother-like than previous versions of Office, it might be worth the upgrade just to get rid of him. In fact, I wouldn't be suprised to find out that MS planned on it being a "key feature" of the upgrade for many users.

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

Hmmm.. how do SmartTags stand when it comes to IP and copywrite? They are, in effect, taking the web page you have published and changing it (by adding the keyword sensitive links), and then displaying it to the end user.

Yes, it's like intercepting your local TV station's signal and inserting advertisements for your company, and then broadcasting it to the rest of the city. I'm pretty sure that is illegal. What they are essentially doing is stealing advertising space from your web page without compensating you. I think that there could be a lot of copyright issues here.

I wonder what happens if I make the word "Redhat" a link to www.redhat.com and the MS-default smart tags make the keyword "Redhat" into a link to Craig Mundie's anti-GPL/open source speeches? Which link wins out win you click on it?

What if I make an image a link to a web site? Maybe I have a "powered by Apache" logo that links back to www.apache.org. Will it parse the filename of the image looking for keywords and make my apache.png a link to the IIS web site? Will it parse my ALT tags for that link as well?

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

How about, to preserve the integrity of an author's design? Smart Tags are a way for an outside agency to modify my pages on the fly, in ways I do not approve of. Why should I, or any author, surrender that control? How can it possibly be good for a third party to intervene between me and my readers?

I think that there should be a web page designed by the open source community and copyrighted. Then when people view it with MS Smart Tag enabled browsers and tags start popping up that point to other sites, we can sue them for copyright violation. Or file some suits that claim that their use of smart tags violates the look and feel of our web design.

I mean, sure you can opt out of it. But that's like saying that you can opt out of junk mail or telephone solicitiors. You shouldn't *HAVE* to opt out. It should be an opt-in if you want Smart Tags to be able to deface...er...modify the appearance of your page. Especially since a cleverly designed smart tag could easily completely change the idea, purpose, or concept that you are trying to get aross to your page viewers.

Most commercial web sites (in order to protect their integrity) will notify you if a link that they provide leads to another web site (and that they don't control or necessarily even endorse what is written there). They don't want to create even the impression that they support everything that they link to. How can you combat that with Smart Tags? Put a disclaimer at the top of your page saying that any link on your page probably goes somewhere that you didn't intend it to, nor want it to, nor do you control the content of the site linked to or even your own site? Once again, you can opt out. But if MS really believes that this is in the users' and the content providers' best interests, then they will make sure that it ISN'T the default and make sure that it IS opt-in only. Then let the market judge it on it's merits.

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

...to let the coders have time to finish the rest of the technology that goes with the smart tags, the smart-image, for example. Yes that's right, no longer will you have to worry about non-microsoft related content on your website, smart-image will instantly replace your graphics with better and prettier microsoft ones.

Lemme guess...images from Corbis? And then they send me the bill/lawsuit?

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

According to MS, that is the correct META tag. The relevant link to Microsoft's site is: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/preview/smartt ags/default.asp

Of course, what they're really doing is secretly re-writing the smart tag code so that the META tag doesn't work. Then they'll sneak it out in a "service pack" for IE 6. Yeah, that's it!

How's that? Informative AND a parnoid flame, all in one post!

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

As if Columbine has not taught us a single thing, here come ID with another Nazi-glorifying festival of blood, guts and gore.

Yeah, I remember Columbine! I can't wait for this game to come out so that I can be persuaded to don a trenchcoat and shoot all of my high school classmates!!! This will be so awesome!!!

Oh wait...I'm 28 years old and not in high school. Damn. Now what? Hold on...the 10-year class reunion is coming up! Kick ass!

(And yes, this was supposed to be sarcastic. I'm not a violent person at all.)

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

It's not about the engine, it's about the gameplay experience. Having the latest and greatest 3D effects and the prettiest pictures don't mean jack if the gameplay sucks. This is where I'm hoping RTCW excels, and if the graphics look really good then that's just a bonus.

Most people don't play games just to look at the pictures.

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

Yeah. When the hell are the full immersion games showing up? We've been promised for years. I want the gogles and the surround video effect! I'm sick of staring at a monitor, I want to lay back in a lazy boy, slap on the goggles, and have some (clean, non x-rated) fun.

Non-xrated fun? You must be either gay or a woman! (Just kidding...don't kill me.)

Seriously though, there is more to a game than just how pretty it looks. There are some games that are very highly immersive without having to use Else 3D glasses or multi-million dollar VR technology. "Half-life" was fair at it when it came to immersiveness. But the all-out champion in the category was "Thief: The Dark Project." I don't think that there has been a game since (with the exception of Thief 2)that has come close to creating such an intense sense of environment (especially when played with EAX audio). It was unbelievable. Granted, the graphics weren't all that hot, but the gameplay + the immersiveness of the game was enough to get me hooked.

The comments about using stealth and the various "states" of the guards awareness are very much like the way that Thief worked. I'm hoping that RTCW will be a nice Half-life/Thief hybrid. Looks like fun. That, and the pictures are pretty.

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.