For instance, if you choose family as your ending to get your dog back in Fable II, you end up receiving a letter from your sister Rose. The letter itself is extremely vague as to her whereabouts, but it does signal that she is, indeed, out there somewhere.
Of course, if you chose to sacrifice it all for the people who died making the tower, then I guess your dog and sister stay dead, which is a country song just waiting to happen!:D
Just replying to say that I agree with what rackserverdeals said in their reply to you. A lot of Oracle software depends on Java, especially the middleware offerings and will need to be there in the future, especially for Oracle Fusion Middleware.
And a reason to keep MySQL - and I'm just guessing here at this point - is to be able to enter smaller markets. Oracle DB is somewhat of an overkill for smaller companies that don't have hundreds of thousands of transactions and millions of records, and so Oracle could offer MySQL now to those who do not need an Oracle DB.
I'm only speaking for myself as an individual, and not on behalf of the company, of course.:)
I don't see it as either a threat or a check, simply because Oracle and Microsoft are in two totally different markets. They both fall under software, but Microsoft's main baby is the Windows OS for both home desktop and server, whereas Oracle is trying to become #1 in providing a total solution in enterprise software.
So you must concur that its fucking hell to install?
How am I supposed to refute an individual's anecdote? If you find something difficult, how do I deny your experience? As with the installation of any software that requires post-install tailoring to fit your business needs, YMMV.
No, they didn't fire everybody. There were layoffs, but there were also many PeopleSoft employees that became Oracle employees. The current client engagement that I am on has two such people.
Maybe you meant "they fired a bunch of people", which is inevitable with any merger or takeover. But they didn't fire EVERYONE.
Yes, in a PERFECT world that school would be a better choice. However we are building schools there, trouble is the terrorists and even some non terrorist locals don't give a rats ass about our morals or our beliefs and as such in some case it only is allowed to be used to educate boys... if at all. Should some teacher accidentally say the wrong the thing the school can be closed and the teacher killed.
The problem with your logic and the parent poster's logic is that both of you are assuming that we only have those two choices and we absolutely have to make one of them. We don't. If the Western World would finally remove it's dick from the other side's ass, then the "terrorist" and "non-terrorist" locals wouldn't care about us.
In other words, we shouldn't have to be the world's policeman, and we shouldn't have to be engaged in stopping people from becoming extremely religious. A big part of the problem is that we're trying too damn hard to convert people into a lifestyle that's acceptable to us, and they don't want it. For how long have the British, French, and Dutch been colonizing other countries in the middle and far east? They don't want it, so let them live the way they want to.
For the same reason why Americans don't want Muslims to come to the U.S. and to impose their culture on us, they don't want Westerners to impose their cultures on them.
Trouble is, we don't want to. In other words, we know countries like Iran, Syria, and Saudia Arabia (not to discount some Asian ones) are sources of a lot of grief but our current policy is to talk to them in hopes of being friends. How many years should we continue doing this? Carter made great strides by buying off Egypt but it certainly never improved our relations over there.
So what do you propose that we do? The status quo? The status quo, which has been armed conflict since man learned how to use sharpened sticks to kill one another obviously hasn't worked out all that well. You come so close to saying it, but you stop. Do you suggest that we send out bombers and bomb every country in the Middle East ? I have yet to see a real, decent solution put forward. Embargoes aren't working, warfare only creates more disillusioned insurgents, and verbal threats only cause middle fingers to be thrown in the air. What's the proposal? Iraq created a lot more terrorists than it killed, apparently, so we may want to rethink the whole "turning over bad governments" solution.
We are up against an enemy who can create new offenses faster than we can rectify past offense, real or imagined. You do not fight an unreasonable enemy with schools. You can't, it doesn't work. Until the western world wakes up an realizes just what the threat is nothing will change. It will take a nuclear bomb detonated in a western country unfortunately... and worse many will still just want to talk... even if a second goes off
Oh please, this is the exact same BS that Condoleezza Rice used to scare everyone -- the whole "Mushroom Cloud" scenario that was used to drum up support for the Iraq war. We saw what good that did for us.
So what do you suggest? You started a good train of thought, but left out what you think would be a good solution.
In theory, I can think of one way where this would actually work. I could be wrong though.
I don't speak, read, or understand Russian, at all. But if you gave me a sheet that had Cyrillic text, and gave me a request to retrieve a phrase or a portion of the text, I could probably do it given enough time by matching the characters exactly, but won't have any idea what I'm reading. I'm not translating anything, just retrieving a portion of the text based on a character map.
Of course, I'm not sure if this analogy is really doable, but it's how I interpret what they want.
Sure, let's find a forum on the crimes of Saddam Hussein, and we can all discuss it there. But that's not the topic of this article. Other posters have pointed this out - Saddam could have been the devil himself, but that doesn't excuse OUR moral obligations. Nobody liked Saddam and I don't see anyone here defending his past actions, but we expect more out of our civilized people and a lot of our actions actually allowed Saddam to go out as a Martyr instead of the low-life scum that he was for murdering his own people. Hell, some of his supporters were on his side only out of fear. He ruled by fear via an iron fist, not by respect.
Changing the subject to the past crimes of Saddam Hussein and calling the poster an anti-American is just a way of side-stepping the real issue at hand.
Not everyone who disagrees with what the American government does is an anti-American, and we shouldn't have to qualify each and every statement with EVERY bad thing that everyone else has done. Nobody is saying that the U.S. is the lone bad guy on this planet and that the U.S. is the only country that can do wrong. It should go without saying that there are countries out there that do far worse on a daily basis. That still doesn't change the topic of this particular article and the argument the people here are making.
The prosecution did indeed screw up, but keep in mind, the system worked as intended. Because of misconduct by the prosecution team, the entire trial of Ted Stevens was tainted, and his conviction was rightfully tossed.
At this point, it doesn't even matter if he really was guilty or innocent. Once the prosecution screws up this badly, everything about the case is thrown into question. We should not let our personal feelings of someone cloud our judgment. If you were standing trial for something that could potentially land you in prison and the prosecution withheld key evidence, you would be wanting your conviction to be tossed as well.
At this point, all that matters is that Ted Stevens did not get a fair trial. Regardless of the letter next to his name (R or D), he still has rights and we would want the same treatment if we were in his place. Does it suck that serial murderers and serial rapists can potentially get off on a technicality?* Yes. C'est la vie.
*No, I'm not comparing Stevens to a murderer or rapist, I'm just pointing out that this system applies to everyone who is accused, from petty thieves to serial killers.
Let me ask you this - when do you feel it is appropriate to apologize for past foreign policy, if ever? (Not a loaded question - I'm genuinely curious...)
Over drinks with the other head of state.
I can see that now...
I'm *hic* sawwwy *gulp* fer sinkin yerr battleshep *hic*. ish i'm forgivn?:D
Bashing Obama for doing something supposedly conservative is just silly. Conservatives bashing Obama for doing something conservative is even sillier still. If it was so right for Bush to wiretap, then, shouldn't conservatives be defending Obama at least on this issue? If it was so wrong for Bush to wiretap, well, conservatives, where were you for eight years?
Or we could say that Bush wasn't really a conservative. I mean, isn't the whole idea behind conservatism that less government is better and that the real role of a federal government is the regulation of commerce between states? One of my conservative coworkers dubbed the entire Bush administration as "democrat-lite" in terms of spending and government expansion policies.
Anyway, my question was largely rhetoric. If I'm reading your post correctly, you're implying that it was wrong for Conservatives to have been so silent about warrentless wiretapping with one President and not the other. At least, that's my whole take on your post.
If you look at his overall record, Obama is acting like the dyed in the wool hardcore liberal that he is. Come on, Obama has spent his last European trip apologizing for everything the USA has ever done - a typical liberal thing to do. Do you think Bush would ever apologize for American foreign policy? Don't think so.
That's dangerously along the lines of ultra-nationalistic thinking, where every and any foreign policy action that is ever done is right and too bad if you don't agree with it. I don't agree with that line of thinking as it tends to get countries in trouble, and I also don't agree with the flip-side -- continuously apologizing for everything forever. I believe that showing remorse for truly wronging another party is healthy and a sign of showing respect. A line must be drawn, however, and apologizing is pointless if you plan on repeating the action over and over again.
Let me ask you this - when do you feel it is appropriate to apologize for past foreign policy, if ever? (Not a loaded question - I'm genuinely curious...)
Pezzopane, the provincial president, said residents may have been lulled into complacency because so many smaller quakes had jolted the area, including two or three earlier in the night.
"Considering what happened, a bit more concern, more attention might have saved lives," she said.
National officials insisted no quake can ever be predicted and that no evacuation could have been ordered on the basis of the recent jolts.
"There is no possibility of making any predictions on earthquakes. This is a fact in the world's scientific community," Civil protection chief Guido Bertolaso told reporters
Talk about saving face...
They're not completely wrong - there currently is no scientifically acceptable method of predicting earthquakes that is time-tested, but at the very least, they could give some credit to Giuliani for seemingly predicting this earthquake, and offer him a full apology for calling him an imbecile.
MODS!! How are Shakrai's posts in this thread considered flamebait, when all they did was restate a fact based on common sense? You don't break company policy and then nonchalantly describe it in a column that you're getting paid to write.
Flamebait mod != "I don't agree with this person" Next time, just click the reply button.
Anyway, I hate to see anyone get fired (there are some conflicting reports about that...) but he pretty much admitted to pirating a movie that his parent company owns the rights to. As interesting as the column was, he did disobey company policy. That typically results in being reprimanded or fired. I'm not happy that he lost his job, but am not surprised at the outcome, if he was indeed fired.
But if they're already using XP, and know that it works, then they can save that money on your suggested development lab, by simply telling people to keep using XP.
I guess this is where we say "If it ain't broke, don't fix it.":-) I agree with you on that point.
I don't really mean though spending a huge sum of the budget on a state-of-the-art lab or anything, just have a few machines dedicated to getting installed with the latest tech that would actually be of some benefit, then wipe them when you're done and satisfied with your findings. I mean, Microsoft will eventually stop supporting XP completely, and the department will have to migrate anyway.
It makes sense - some of the agencies in the county I worked for were still on Windows 2000 when the main IT department was getting ready to roll out Vista.
Why squander money on testing al your ancient legacy systems against a new OS that doesn't give you anything new that's obviously worthwhile for the jobs your employees are doing, and which seems likely to be obsolete soon anyway?
I guess we go back to our "If it ain't broke..." quote. Only spend the money and resources on tech that will give your employees a clear benefit. Don't do it for the sake of just having the latest.
By the way, how do you know if it isn't precisely the IT department's advice that made Texas Senate decide for this policy? Something like "This OS is too unstable, we advise avoiding to upgrade to it for now unless there are imperative reasons to do so."
You're absolutely right - this could have been a possibility. I read the article and it made no mention as to how they came to this decision. There was one part of the article, though, where they said:
According to Texas Department of Information Resources data shared with The Houston Chronicle, 44 state agencies have already spent a total of $6.1 million to upgrade to Vista in the last several years. They range from a low of $122 spent by the Texas Board of Professional Land Surveying to $1.6 million spent by the Health and Human Services Commission.
State agencies make their own IT purchasing decisions independent of the DIR. They may, however, buy through contracts procured by the DIR, according to DIR spokesman David Duncan.
"As a state agency, we are prohibited from saying anything that is positive or negative towards legislation," he said. "We will comply with the will of the legislature."
So it almost sounds like they're going along with whatever policy that's put out, which they're supposed to, but again, the article is light on details of whether the DIR had anything to do with influencing the legislation.
If Texas' state IT minions are so incompetent that they need politicians to tell them what software to use, based on anecdotal evidence, then they should be fired at once. If not, then they should be treated like reasonably responsible adults, and allowed to do their jobs to the best of their expertise.
Why would they want Vista anyway when they could just go with Microsoft Mojave, which is a clear upgrade!
Jokes aside, I agree that this bill is stupid. Why have an I.T. department if they need the state politicians to tell them what software to use? Rather than legislate a "no-vista-upgrade" rider, they should instead devote a portion of the budget to setting up a development lab so that they can test their applications against whatever operating system they want to go with.
I had a brief three-year stint with a county government here in Northern VA and they had done just that -- they had a core group of testers test the shit out of every piece of legacy software the county used against Vista. When Vista came out, the county said "no-way" to upgrading until almost a year went by. The upgrade to Vista was definitely on their schedule, but they wanted to be sure that everything played nice together. Once their testing was done, they slowly rolled out in a beta fashion where select employees would use Vista (usually the I.T. guys within individual agencies) and then eventually upgrade everyone else.
Anyway, that was the vision of the I.T. director and NOT the county superintendent, board of directors, Virginia General Assembly, county executive or any other politician.
I would also add that the obvious subjects are ruining the April Fools gags, and unfortunately, even if Slashdot were to post a real-looking April Fools gag, nobody would buy it.
I still enjoy searching around websites to see what April Fools gags are being posted; it used to be like looking for easter eggs.
Slashdot Mirror
I think they made the ending for Fable II open-ended. I'm just guessing that there would be a DLC to give you a "proper" ending.
*SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER*
*SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER*
*SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER*
For instance, if you choose family as your ending to get your dog back in Fable II, you end up receiving a letter from your sister Rose. The letter itself is extremely vague as to her whereabouts, but it does signal that she is, indeed, out there somewhere.
Of course, if you chose to sacrifice it all for the people who died making the tower, then I guess your dog and sister stay dead, which is a country song just waiting to happen! :D
Just replying to say that I agree with what rackserverdeals said in their reply to you. A lot of Oracle software depends on Java, especially the middleware offerings and will need to be there in the future, especially for Oracle Fusion Middleware.
And a reason to keep MySQL - and I'm just guessing here at this point - is to be able to enter smaller markets. Oracle DB is somewhat of an overkill for smaller companies that don't have hundreds of thousands of transactions and millions of records, and so Oracle could offer MySQL now to those who do not need an Oracle DB.
I'm only speaking for myself as an individual, and not on behalf of the company, of course. :)
I don't see it as either a threat or a check, simply because Oracle and Microsoft are in two totally different markets. They both fall under software, but Microsoft's main baby is the Windows OS for both home desktop and server, whereas Oracle is trying to become #1 in providing a total solution in enterprise software.
So you must concur that its fucking hell to install?
How am I supposed to refute an individual's anecdote? If you find something difficult, how do I deny your experience? As with the installation of any software that requires post-install tailoring to fit your business needs, YMMV.
Disclaimer: Oracle employee
No, they didn't fire everybody. There were layoffs, but there were also many PeopleSoft employees that became Oracle employees. The current client engagement that I am on has two such people.
Maybe you meant "they fired a bunch of people", which is inevitable with any merger or takeover. But they didn't fire EVERYONE.
Where are the bodies buried? :)
Yes, in a PERFECT world that school would be a better choice. However we are building schools there, trouble is the terrorists and even some non terrorist locals don't give a rats ass about our morals or our beliefs and as such in some case it only is allowed to be used to educate boys... if at all. Should some teacher accidentally say the wrong the thing the school can be closed and the teacher killed .
The problem with your logic and the parent poster's logic is that both of you are assuming that we only have those two choices and we absolutely have to make one of them. We don't. If the Western World would finally remove it's dick from the other side's ass, then the "terrorist" and "non-terrorist" locals wouldn't care about us.
In other words, we shouldn't have to be the world's policeman, and we shouldn't have to be engaged in stopping people from becoming extremely religious. A big part of the problem is that we're trying too damn hard to convert people into a lifestyle that's acceptable to us, and they don't want it. For how long have the British, French, and Dutch been colonizing other countries in the middle and far east? They don't want it, so let them live the way they want to.
For the same reason why Americans don't want Muslims to come to the U.S. and to impose their culture on us, they don't want Westerners to impose their cultures on them.
Trouble is, we don't want to. In other words, we know countries like Iran, Syria, and Saudia Arabia (not to discount some Asian ones) are sources of a lot of grief but our current policy is to talk to them in hopes of being friends. How many years should we continue doing this? Carter made great strides by buying off Egypt but it certainly never improved our relations over there.
So what do you propose that we do? The status quo? The status quo, which has been armed conflict since man learned how to use sharpened sticks to kill one another obviously hasn't worked out all that well. You come so close to saying it, but you stop. Do you suggest that we send out bombers and bomb every country in the Middle East ? I have yet to see a real, decent solution put forward. Embargoes aren't working, warfare only creates more disillusioned insurgents, and verbal threats only cause middle fingers to be thrown in the air. What's the proposal? Iraq created a lot more terrorists than it killed, apparently, so we may want to rethink the whole "turning over bad governments" solution.
We are up against an enemy who can create new offenses faster than we can rectify past offense, real or imagined. You do not fight an unreasonable enemy with schools. You can't, it doesn't work. Until the western world wakes up an realizes just what the threat is nothing will change. It will take a nuclear bomb detonated in a western country unfortunately... and worse many will still just want to talk... even if a second goes off
Oh please, this is the exact same BS that Condoleezza Rice used to scare everyone -- the whole "Mushroom Cloud" scenario that was used to drum up support for the Iraq war. We saw what good that did for us.
So what do you suggest? You started a good train of thought, but left out what you think would be a good solution.
I figured what I described was too good to be true. :) In that context, I can see how this would differ with encryption. Thanks for the clarification.
In theory, I can think of one way where this would actually work. I could be wrong though.
I don't speak, read, or understand Russian, at all. But if you gave me a sheet that had Cyrillic text, and gave me a request to retrieve a phrase or a portion of the text, I could probably do it given enough time by matching the characters exactly, but won't have any idea what I'm reading. I'm not translating anything, just retrieving a portion of the text based on a character map.
Of course, I'm not sure if this analogy is really doable, but it's how I interpret what they want.
Jumbo Shrimp
Military Intelligence
Civil Disobedience
Evaporated Milk
Fresh Cheese
Political Science
Reality TV
White Chocolate
Clean Coal
Slashdot Editor
That's okay, the next release should utilize vi. *runs*
Terrorists around the world were heard saying: "Curses, foiled again..."
Not if you're in Soviet Russia! :D
Ouch OUCH OUCH stop hitting me!!!
Sure, let's find a forum on the crimes of Saddam Hussein, and we can all discuss it there. But that's not the topic of this article. Other posters have pointed this out - Saddam could have been the devil himself, but that doesn't excuse OUR moral obligations. Nobody liked Saddam and I don't see anyone here defending his past actions, but we expect more out of our civilized people and a lot of our actions actually allowed Saddam to go out as a Martyr instead of the low-life scum that he was for murdering his own people. Hell, some of his supporters were on his side only out of fear. He ruled by fear via an iron fist, not by respect.
Changing the subject to the past crimes of Saddam Hussein and calling the poster an anti-American is just a way of side-stepping the real issue at hand.
Not everyone who disagrees with what the American government does is an anti-American, and we shouldn't have to qualify each and every statement with EVERY bad thing that everyone else has done. Nobody is saying that the U.S. is the lone bad guy on this planet and that the U.S. is the only country that can do wrong. It should go without saying that there are countries out there that do far worse on a daily basis. That still doesn't change the topic of this particular article and the argument the people here are making.
(Warning: Link is not really work-safe)
They could borrow the unofficial Ubuntu Girls. >;)
The prosecution did indeed screw up, but keep in mind, the system worked as intended. Because of misconduct by the prosecution team, the entire trial of Ted Stevens was tainted, and his conviction was rightfully tossed.
At this point, it doesn't even matter if he really was guilty or innocent. Once the prosecution screws up this badly, everything about the case is thrown into question. We should not let our personal feelings of someone cloud our judgment. If you were standing trial for something that could potentially land you in prison and the prosecution withheld key evidence, you would be wanting your conviction to be tossed as well.
At this point, all that matters is that Ted Stevens did not get a fair trial. Regardless of the letter next to his name (R or D), he still has rights and we would want the same treatment if we were in his place. Does it suck that serial murderers and serial rapists can potentially get off on a technicality?* Yes. C'est la vie.
*No, I'm not comparing Stevens to a murderer or rapist, I'm just pointing out that this system applies to everyone who is accused, from petty thieves to serial killers.
I can see that now...
I'm *hic* sawwwy *gulp* fer sinkin yerr battleshep *hic*. ish i'm forgivn? :D
(Yes, I would make an awful drunk...)
Bashing Obama for doing something supposedly conservative is just silly. Conservatives bashing Obama for doing something conservative is even sillier still. If it was so right for Bush to wiretap, then, shouldn't conservatives be defending Obama at least on this issue? If it was so wrong for Bush to wiretap, well, conservatives, where were you for eight years?
Or we could say that Bush wasn't really a conservative. I mean, isn't the whole idea behind conservatism that less government is better and that the real role of a federal government is the regulation of commerce between states? One of my conservative coworkers dubbed the entire Bush administration as "democrat-lite" in terms of spending and government expansion policies.
Anyway, my question was largely rhetoric. If I'm reading your post correctly, you're implying that it was wrong for Conservatives to have been so silent about warrentless wiretapping with one President and not the other. At least, that's my whole take on your post.
If you look at his overall record, Obama is acting like the dyed in the wool hardcore liberal that he is. Come on, Obama has spent his last European trip apologizing for everything the USA has ever done - a typical liberal thing to do. Do you think Bush would ever apologize for American foreign policy? Don't think so.
That's dangerously along the lines of ultra-nationalistic thinking, where every and any foreign policy action that is ever done is right and too bad if you don't agree with it. I don't agree with that line of thinking as it tends to get countries in trouble, and I also don't agree with the flip-side -- continuously apologizing for everything forever. I believe that showing remorse for truly wronging another party is healthy and a sign of showing respect. A line must be drawn, however, and apologizing is pointless if you plan on repeating the action over and over again.
Let me ask you this - when do you feel it is appropriate to apologize for past foreign policy, if ever? (Not a loaded question - I'm genuinely curious...)
Here's quote from a USAToday article.
Pezzopane, the provincial president, said residents may have been lulled into complacency because so many smaller quakes had jolted the area, including two or three earlier in the night.
"Considering what happened, a bit more concern, more attention might have saved lives," she said.
National officials insisted no quake can ever be predicted and that no evacuation could have been ordered on the basis of the recent jolts.
"There is no possibility of making any predictions on earthquakes. This is a fact in the world's scientific community," Civil protection chief Guido Bertolaso told reporters
Talk about saving face...
They're not completely wrong - there currently is no scientifically acceptable method of predicting earthquakes that is time-tested, but at the very least, they could give some credit to Giuliani for seemingly predicting this earthquake, and offer him a full apology for calling him an imbecile.
MODS!! How are Shakrai's posts in this thread considered flamebait, when all they did was restate a fact based on common sense? You don't break company policy and then nonchalantly describe it in a column that you're getting paid to write.
Flamebait mod != "I don't agree with this person" Next time, just click the reply button.
Anyway, I hate to see anyone get fired (there are some conflicting reports about that...) but he pretty much admitted to pirating a movie that his parent company owns the rights to. As interesting as the column was, he did disobey company policy. That typically results in being reprimanded or fired. I'm not happy that he lost his job, but am not surprised at the outcome, if he was indeed fired.
But if they're already using XP, and know that it works, then they can save that money on your suggested development lab, by simply telling people to keep using XP.
I guess this is where we say "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." :-) I agree with you on that point.
I don't really mean though spending a huge sum of the budget on a state-of-the-art lab or anything, just have a few machines dedicated to getting installed with the latest tech that would actually be of some benefit, then wipe them when you're done and satisfied with your findings. I mean, Microsoft will eventually stop supporting XP completely, and the department will have to migrate anyway.
It makes sense - some of the agencies in the county I worked for were still on Windows 2000 when the main IT department was getting ready to roll out Vista.
Why squander money on testing al your ancient legacy systems against a new OS that doesn't give you anything new that's obviously worthwhile for the jobs your employees are doing, and which seems likely to be obsolete soon anyway?
I guess we go back to our "If it ain't broke..." quote. Only spend the money and resources on tech that will give your employees a clear benefit. Don't do it for the sake of just having the latest.
Good points all around.
By the way, how do you know if it isn't precisely the IT department's advice that made Texas Senate decide for this policy? Something like "This OS is too unstable, we advise avoiding to upgrade to it for now unless there are imperative reasons to do so."
You're absolutely right - this could have been a possibility. I read the article and it made no mention as to how they came to this decision. There was one part of the article, though, where they said:
According to Texas Department of Information Resources data shared with The Houston Chronicle, 44 state agencies have already spent a total of $6.1 million to upgrade to Vista in the last several years. They range from a low of $122 spent by the Texas Board of Professional Land Surveying to $1.6 million spent by the Health and Human Services Commission.
State agencies make their own IT purchasing decisions independent of the DIR. They may, however, buy through contracts procured by the DIR, according to DIR spokesman David Duncan.
"As a state agency, we are prohibited from saying anything that is positive or negative towards legislation," he said. "We will comply with the will of the legislature."
So it almost sounds like they're going along with whatever policy that's put out, which they're supposed to, but again, the article is light on details of whether the DIR had anything to do with influencing the legislation.
If Texas' state IT minions are so incompetent that they need politicians to tell them what software to use, based on anecdotal evidence, then they should be fired at once. If not, then they should be treated like reasonably responsible adults, and allowed to do their jobs to the best of their expertise.
Why would they want Vista anyway when they could just go with Microsoft Mojave, which is a clear upgrade!
Jokes aside, I agree that this bill is stupid. Why have an I.T. department if they need the state politicians to tell them what software to use? Rather than legislate a "no-vista-upgrade" rider, they should instead devote a portion of the budget to setting up a development lab so that they can test their applications against whatever operating system they want to go with.
I had a brief three-year stint with a county government here in Northern VA and they had done just that -- they had a core group of testers test the shit out of every piece of legacy software the county used against Vista. When Vista came out, the county said "no-way" to upgrading until almost a year went by. The upgrade to Vista was definitely on their schedule, but they wanted to be sure that everything played nice together. Once their testing was done, they slowly rolled out in a beta fashion where select employees would use Vista (usually the I.T. guys within individual agencies) and then eventually upgrade everyone else.
Anyway, that was the vision of the I.T. director and NOT the county superintendent, board of directors, Virginia General Assembly, county executive or any other politician.
I would also add that the obvious subjects are ruining the April Fools gags, and unfortunately, even if Slashdot were to post a real-looking April Fools gag, nobody would buy it.
I still enjoy searching around websites to see what April Fools gags are being posted; it used to be like looking for easter eggs.
I'd love to see the number of double-takes if you had, say, a biker look, but were carrying around a pink netbook with Hello Kitty stickers. :)