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As stated on userfriendly... the iLoo concept was created by some of the most nefarious minds in the cosmos.

Oh ok, maybe not by "Hastur", but MS is equally evil and seems to believe in their own divinity.

I especially like the sign on the door... "where do you want to go today" - load of crap indeed

Is there anything Amazon isn't going for a patent on?

Relevant documentation here and here.

Is there anything Amazon isn't going for a patent on?

Relevant documentation here and here.

Apparently, it's just that the exact message changed. :)

-- MG

Hell my 2000 servers are very stable, at least with the feet out.

Distilled Usenet bitterness?

Already done:)

This kinda goes along with recent User Friendly cartoons. It's a shame really, usenet was great, but I haven't really used it in years. I say, get rid of it.

(Cartoo ny Goodness)[userfriendly.org]

(Cartoo ny Goodness)[userfriendly.org]

(Cartoo ny Goodness)[userfriendly.org]

(Cartoo ny Goodness)[userfriendly.org]

Don't we all want our very own Dust Puppy? ;)

It's fun to violate D.M.C.A.

The User Friendly strip for Easter Sunday has the right idea. ;-)

You can't run an interactive game on separate machines because the communication latency will be too high. I'm reminded of an old userfriendly cartoon here

unless you're watching The Big Blue, The Blue Lagoon, or the Gates Three Colors trilogy: Blue, Blue, and Blue.

Fortunately, there's also Enemy at the Gates.

Heh. I have no faith in Ellison after the Network Computer.

Obligatory UserFriendly link: here.

Userfriendly has already been here.

Rus

i guess people without constant internet connections are going to be a little screwed, since, afaik, all microsoft's drm techiniques involve some sort of online interaction with a remote server. that kinda alienates half the population right there...

Most computers come with dial-up modems. Microsoft could use playing crippled files as an excuse to sell the Butterfly to listeners.

Somehow that reminded me of this UserFriendly strip.

(Some more patent fun as well.)

Somehow that reminded me of this UserFriendly strip.

(Some more patent fun as well.)

Somehow that reminded me of this UserFriendly strip.

(Some more patent fun as well.)

Somehow that reminded me of this UserFriendly strip.

(Some more patent fun as well.)

If you didn't got the reference, check this UserFriendly strip.

My. Testy, aren't we?

Well, first of all, you posited a case where Another possibility is, we could be able to trade LAN admin skills for free rent, building-manager style. Apartment complexes might start building up their own hotspots and such, and they'll need someone to handle the tech support. Handymen at complexes get free rent, so does the super, why not the tech guy?
Hm. Handyman. Building Manager. If you really think that any position that can be compared to those will be free of luser bullshit then may I suggest an antidote.

"Can-do attitude?" If you really are so naive as to think that the right attitude is all that is needed to end up with a well architected system, then along with your ignorant, superior I Am A Real Geek, You Are A Mere Peon trash-talking, well, I'l take that as a big unambiguous "no" to my question. You clearly have no clue, let alone experience getting budget allocations, departmental approvals, and, hardest of all, the continuing support of people who see computers as magic boxes where anything that isn't what they want is YOUR FAULT.
"I erased my hard drive with Norton and now all my files are gone. Fix it."
"I installed unapproved, bootleg, security software, lost the manual, and forgot the password. Fix it."
"Somebody I don't like has a better computer then me. Fix it."
"We refused your budget allocations for five years running and now we can't use the current software or cool new web sites. Fix it. Oh, and don't spend any money or change any configurations or reduce any other existing capability to do it."

Silly?
Dime a dozen?
Arrogant and egotistical?

Fuck you and the government job you rode in on. I don't know quite how you turned a reasonable question asked with careful commentary on its sensitive nature into some penis measuring contest but, well, you clearly don't know shit about actual operations work, let alone operations management.
I ask you again, what experience do you have actually running a support department? How many users, let alone department heads have you ever had to report to re support? What is the largest organization or project supporting non-techies that you have ever been responsible for?

I don't want to hear about your filling in for a month or two once answering phone calls. Have you ever in your life been the senior person, the person at whose desk the buck stops, for any sort of operations? Any support of non-techies at all?

You actually think that your server would be some some sort of sanctum sanctorum? Whoever owned that building would most likely have keys, passwords, and overrides to everything you did. And when the owner chose a service provider whose bandwidth fell apart at key times you would get to kiss the ass of every influential tenant who felt like berating somebody.
You actually think that, as an employee of the building, you could just give tenants "an information sheet" for wireless and then be free from blame when *they* fucked it up? Yeah, right.

Look, I don't know much about you as a programmer. You clearly don't know shit about me.[1] But you have made it mighty clear that you don't understand what a senior tech support job is. I made a point of specifying that I personally would not take that sort of job. Why you so emphatically are displaying a stick up your ass the size of the federal deficit doesn't even interest me very much.

You want to show me how wrong I am? Go for it, baby. There are plenty of buildings these days that include "digital services" in the rent. Find me people holding the sorts of jobs we're talking about and get *them* to agree that I'm building a strawman. Until then, well, when discussing a subject that's already been declared fraught, try not to get snippy with people who know far more then you do. Sometimes we bite back.

[1] I'll give you a big hint: there's a reason that I could take your exposed conduit proposal

Already been done. ;)

I think userfriendly.org had Bill the Cat on as a guest

That would be this one.

So she was just using you for techs?

And I think userfriendly.org had Bill the Cat on as a guest, since he is/was the only one able to properly pronounce "HTTP".

It is todays UF Link of the Day.

Of course, that wasn't the first time userfriendly pointed out amazon's progress about the patent process.

I thought I could instruct slashdot readers on how actually the patenting process works . Good luck ;)

Do you work with many programmers?

Yes.

All of them think they can do a better job,

Untrue. That statement works as a punchline for a comic strip, nothing more.

Sure, everyone occasionally feels he could do a better job than the implementer of some library he's using. The more "Freedom" he has to see and modify that library, the greater the chance that he'll either learn he was mistaken, or incrementally improve that library, rather than rebuilding it entirely.

if you let them.

That is a more specific problem- management that is insufficiently engaged, or insufficiently informed.

Back when that guy was proposing his idea, his boss should've made him explain why it was better than each of those alternatives.

However, had he been forced to justify the cost of a reinvention, his case would've been doubly strengthened because of the prevalence of proprietary software:

A) "We can't use those things, they are owned." Whether or not that's true in a particular case, people make those assumptions, and think less about reuse than the might. Even the TCL webpage doesn't explain that it's free to use on the first 2 layers of links.

B) "We shouldn't use those things, because then we wouldn't own our changes." "Hey boss, a proprietary scripting language, all our own- won't that be an asset for the corporation?". Many organizations put too much weight on the value of restricting their code. (And even if that is beneficial for those corporations, it might not be the best for the world at large)

This is a look inside the AOL spam department, at the time when a former employee of another ISP started his first day there.

Did they follow the process? They got the patent anyway! Go figure.

User Friendly did a hilarious Star Wars parody on the OS wars.

LOL check out this Amazon.com patent.

[grin]

Just for those who didn't see it. UF has a good comic take on this

Just for those who didn't see it. UF has a good comic take on this

What a coincidence. Today's UF topic covers patent obsession. Check it out. Although amazon.com is the target of the joke, it shows how patent-obsessed software companies can be. I'd say it sure does a good job satirizing it. Who knows? Maybe Google will be targeted in tomorrow's strip.

How about a clue bat!

And I forgot those:

Daily Dilbert (though I get the newsletter)
Userfriendly - the other famous comic strip :)
Nicht lustig - cool German comics, soon to be expected an a daily basis because the author signed a contract. Currently he's busy with his book, though.

Read Userfriendly Much???

There kind of already is this for online comics. Modern Tales is an online comic site that requires you to pay to access their archives. The profits (after overhead) are then distributed amongst the artists using the site according to how often each one's works were viewed.

There also is the concept of "premium" specialized online comic hosting. Keenspace offers such a service, as well as the ability for viewers to pay not to see advertisements (User Friendly offers this as well).

Of course, not all online comic artists like to operate under such a scheme. Rocket Box Comics is a site created by a number of artists dedicated to keeping comics freely available online.

In any case, if you like your "local" online artists, support them! I personally have probably sent over $200 to at least 5-7 people in order to support their site, purchase their limited-print books, etc. The best thing you can do for any artist is to support them; some artists even have set threshold where they will just work on comics full-time if they make at least X amount of money per month online.

With current filesharing, when you look up a movie it finds .mpg, .mpeg .avi etc etc, and music .wav, .mp3, etc

It helps you filter your search. Now if somebody zips it up... there goes the filter, unless maybe you name it .mp3.zip or .zip.mp3? Even then you'll have to break out the cluebat for most amature leeches to figure out that the file is zipped, and others might suspect it is a virus.

when people see it they probably think, "Wow! That guy riding the Segway looks like a dork!"

Why ?

In the book of Illiad, Chapter 3, Verse 29 through Chapter 4, Verse 10

In the book of Illiad, Chapter 3, Verse 29 through Chapter 4, Verse 10