>> Riiight. Stereotypes of Blacks and gays are a crime against humanity, but Southerns are fair game. Got it.
Good! Because you ARE fair game. First of all, you guys are the worst abusers of "stereotypes of blacks and gays" on the planet. You trade racist jokes like us Yankees trade complaints about the weather. Your southern states have horrendous human rights records, you have a long history of institutionalized racism, you voted George W. Bush in TWICE because you were afraid "them homos were gonna get hitched", you're COMPLETELY gun-crazy, your laws are backward and religiously fanatical (like that poor guy who got ten years in prison in Georgia for going down on his wife?) and in general, you've demonstrated a remarkable lack of intelligence and culture.
Why SHOULDN'T we make fun of you? You've earned it over and over again. Vote democratic next time, then we'll talk.
Develop in Java on Linux, it's the best of all worlds. You can move your code anywhere you want, you don't have to spend a bazillion dollars on Microsoft licensing, and it's got a richer "ecosystem" than anything Microsoft has ever produced. Best of all, you never have to touch another Microsoft product again if you don't want to.
And I understood the article better than YOU did, apparently. Or maybe you just don't WANT to.
Microsoft is a beached killer whale, drying and dying, occasionally wheezing out a gasp at the seagulls who are coming to eat it, thinking "Not the EYES! Please, not the EYES!" Articles like this Hilf character's, and Ballmer's ludicrous IP FUD, are all just part of a long, drawn-out death rattle. It's quite entertaining, really.
Ok, that's valid, but I've always felt that pure spite was an excellent motivator. I'd love to see someone erase Microsoft's patent portfolio. I bet Ballmer would throw a fit.
As far as software development in the USA goes, well... I've noticed something unusual. In the online dating services I lurk in, all the hot chicks seem to live in Toronto, Ontario or various places in Australia. So if all of us programmers were to cut bait and move to other countries, it'd be like, you know...
So don't let the developers do it. Have an independent, right-minded group of open-source friendly lawyers act as spoilers, ferreting out stupid, obvious patents and invalidating them. Microsoft uses third-party think tanks all the time; why can't us normal folk?
Imagine how IRRITATING it'll be for Gates et. al to suddenly have their patent portfolio start evaporating in little puffs of logic!
Even that, and I think you're giving him WAY too much credit here, misses the mark by far. Open Source as a whole runs the gamut from the software Libre crowd all the way into the commercial sector. Open Source is a big, big world and there's plenty of room for everyone in it.
A tool like Hilf probably only notices the SuSEs and the Red Hats of the world because he reads Fortune, so naturally he doesn't realize how many completely ordinary, software libre type people there are out there making software. Remember that guy who, as a hobby, wrote like, 200 webcam drivers for the heck of it? The idea that just because SuSE is about profit, all these guys are going to go back to watching Star Trek or something is utterly ludicrous.
Maybe that's what he WISHES would happen, but it's not very likely.
By saying that the Linux kernel has crossed X patents, and that the GUI has crossed Y patents, Microsoft has told people what, in general, they need to look for.
All it takes is a few industrious lawyers or student lawyers to check out the Microsoft patent portfolio and try to see which patents (if any) they might be talking about.
Then, simply start attacking their entire portfolio on the basis of obviousness. While you may not be able to eliminate ALL Microsoft patents, you can probably kill off enough of them to give their board of directors an aneyurism (and their stock price a hefty kick in the balls).
I'm not skilled in this art myself, but I'm sure there are plenty of slashdotters who will be able to pull it off.
How about it, guys? Feel like kicking uncle Ballmer in the shins?
> I'm eagerly awaiting your your explanation how that could be ethical. > Oh dang - you expected an argument from me explaining why lying an cheating is unethical, right?
No, I expected you to GET my POINT, which is that this guy didn't do anything worth grumbling about. Who cares? I mean, really. At least he's not shooting people.
> Neither did he burn yours - very lucky too, all the straw men would have gone up in flames...
How very mature of you!
> That's exactly what puzzles me. Why?
Because what he did didn't matter. Who cares? Why are you, individually, getting all up in a lather about something that doesn't even involve you? To quote Pulp Fiction, "you scamps... are like a sewing circle". The guy didn't actually hurt anyone. He didn't even manage to EFFECT anyone. Why do you even CARE? What's your problem? Are you nuts?
* Linux doesn't exist because it's actually everywhere, distributed by gigantic companies which make zillions of dollars off it.
* The Open Source Movement doesn't exist because it's been adopted by companies both large and small, which are all merrily making a profit from it.
* Because Open Source is mostly commercial and very successful, making lots of money for the large and small companies that are involved in it, the only way to "grow the ecosystem" is to switch to the Microsoft products nobody wants to buy anymore.
* Linux is only popular because it's the foundation for the LAMP web-development stack, which has been trouncing.Net in the market (this makes me wonder if Hilf, back in high school, used to grumble that "the only reason Randy the Quarterback gets laid is because he has a Mustang...").
* Because Open Source Software runs on Windows too, all those Apache guys are probably running Windows.
* Standards are a communist plot started by those hippies at IBM because darnit, they just don't like Microsoft. It's not fair (hilf makes pouty face).
* WPF-E needs a better name so everybody will want to program in it. If WPF-E gets a cool name like Flash, everybody will use it immediately.
* Because Programming is Hard and that's Just Not Cool, Microsoft wants to make it like "turning a knob" so that developers don't have to work in high-paying jobs anymore, and can go find something new to do for minimum wage that'll probably be funner.
Did I miss anything? I swear reading his comments is like being hit with one Zen Koan after another, machine gun style. What is the sound of one hand clapping?
Phew. Too much, too much. I've gotta go do something fun for a while. Hmm...
Warhammer 40K! Death to the False Emperor! C'mere, you Eldar hussy, you...
Actually I was mostly kidding about the whole "down south" thing. You know the whole stereotype -- the gangly southern sherrif, the mysterious backwoods guys, the doomed foreigner (or yankee!) who has NO IDEA what he's about to get into...
It was a funny thought. Envision Dieter the German Film School Nihilist walking smack-dab into a back-woods Cajun town, complaining to the guy that runs the hotel about the sheets and window treatments... One wonders what terrible fate would await him...
Maybe so; I was only kidding, anyway -- the reference is to the movie "Deliverance" and a demented scene in which one giant redneck remarks that a city boy has "purty lips" and asks him to "squeal like a pig" before doing something unfriendly to him.:)
Anyway, I find the whole "snobby European finds himself on the wrong side of highly irritated cajuns" fantasy really amusing. C'mon, admit it -- it'd be funny.
First of all, don't compare "Europeans" to "Americans". The titles are so broad as to be utterly meaningless. The continental United States and Europe are about the same size, geographically. The 48 states that comprise the continental U.S. vary culturally just as widely as the countries that make up Europe do. Do you think a Frenchman would react or think the same way a Romanian would? How about comparing a Welshman to an Italian? Or maybe a Swede with a Spaniard? The ONLY reason you Europeans think it makes sense to lump us all together is that we've all agreed to speak English (most of the time). To YOU people, that implies homogeneity, because your own "tower of babel" makes the differences jump out at you.
Even if we speak a similar language, New Yorkers (such as myself) are as different from Texans or Alabamans as Englishmen are from Greeks. Even our language is only barely compatible; local dialects are often impenetrable to outsiders. I would go so far as to say that every state in the U.S. is different, with a different subculture and a different set of laws.
Here's another example: if you, a European, were to hang around New York for a few days you wouldn't find too much you didn't like. The same would probably go for most of New England, possibly Pennsylvania, the Pacific Northwest, and California. You'd LOVE Hawaii, of course. Everybody does.
But if you were to accidentally find yourself somewhere down South, like maybe the back woods of Louisiana, well... Let's just say that if you hear the phrase "purty lips" you'd better run like hell.:)
All the guy did was kill a story about Apple (that was tongue in cheek anyway) and ask his editor in chief to be nice to the advertisers that actually fund the magazine.
He didn't burn your peaceful peasant village. He didn't rape the fields or pillage your women. He didn't even salt your children, or sell your soil into slavery.
Lighten up on the guy. He's not Hitler. He's not even the Soup Nazi. Chill.
Well, obviously, it's unethical. I wouldn't do it, even if the 'board told me to.
My point is that what the guy did isn't all that evil given the current state of the country, and it's barely evil at ALL compared to all the other crazy evils that are going on all around us.
The president in the white house, right this instant, not only started a war for no particularly good reason, he's been busy destroying the constitution, creating a Stasi-like secret police out of the NSA and CIA, ordering his minions to go around kidnapping, transporting across the planet and torturing people, destabilizing our relations with Russia (hint: the only other world power that could maybe BEAT us in a war) by pursuing an unlikely missle defense, and performing god knows what else we don't know about.
But everyone's hair is on fire because some CEO told his editor to be nice to advertisers?
First of all, the guy tried to do something mildly shady with the intent of increasing ad revenue (which would have been good for the magazine's bottom line, and in line with his duty as CEO). My understanding is, he asked the editor to take it easy on favored advertisers. As sins go in this day and age, that's pretty mild. If you want to see something REALLY nasty, look at Enron or Halliburton. So the guy's not evil, and he tried to help out his magazine, which is his job.
Second, he was probably reacting to orders from his board of directors, so you can hardly blame them for not beating the guy up over it! They probably felt that he did his best to carry out their will, and it didn't work out. No harm, no foul. Shift him somewhere else in the company and defuse the situation, problem solved.
Third, really, what's the big deal anyway? He asked McCraken to suck up to some advertisers, McCracken said no, the whole world beat him up online in forums like this, and the magazine transferred him and re-hired McCracken without ever actually going soft on its advertisers. No harm has been done, nobody has been lied to, really, NOTHING has HAPPENED. They tried it, it didn't work out.
I didn't get the impression she was trying to guilt me into keeping my cable; she didn't try to convince me or anything. But she really did seem genuinely hurt that I'd stop watching TV! It was really surprising. When she asked me "But why???" it was like I'd forced her to question her assumptions about the world or something. Very strange!
Sounded like a nice girl, too. Our phone call was very polite, subdued, and brief. I hope she's cheered up, maybe gotten some Haagen Dazs.
Nah, I don't think I use very much bandwidth. Mostly I just browse the web, check out webcomics, read slashdot...
Besides, I'm lucky. In my neighborhood, Verizon FIOS and Time Warner are competing head to head. I'm going to sign up for the fifty dollar a month FIOS deal with 5Gbits upstream, 20Gbits downstream, and a phone with free long distance. I'll have two separate broadband carriers, AND STILL save fifty bucks a month on my old cable bill!
I can get two boxes of bottles of Corona and a squeeze bottle of lime juice for around 25 bucks... Hmm... Or a couple of cases of Old Milwaukee, I think, or PBR, or budweiser...
Maybe I should take the high road like you, though. Sam Adams sure sounds good! I love their Cherry Wheat...
I recently got a bill from Time Warner Cable for 160.00. 140 of it was for cable, internet, and etc. 22 was for Girls Gone Wild and something even dirtier. Of course, I have no problem with THAT, heh heh...
But jeez, 140 bucks for TV???
I called them and cancelled everything except my broadband internet connection. My monthly bill went from 144 bucks to 44 bucks. I saved a hundred bucks a month by dropping cable television!
The girl on the line sounded positively HURT by this. She asked me "But why do you want to cancel TV?" I told her it just wasn't interesting and she said "oh" in a quiet voice.
I felt at that moment as if I'd just dumped a sweet, loving girlfriend and broken her heart. It was a bizarre thing.
It didn't stop me from saving a hundred bucks, though! Woo HOO! That's two cases of beer a week!
We are not "bad" at all. We are doing our jobs. What are our jobs? Our role is to keep our systems operational and secure.
Think of it in terms of roles.
Sys Admin: Protects and defends the infrastructure of your company. Prevents people from shooting themselves in the foot. Enforces good security policies. Identifies poorly performing software and forces its developers to improve it (or get shut down). Keeps your systems patched and ready. An iron fist in a velvet glove. An enigma wrapped in a mystery. A big, sexy man!
Programmer Type 1: Cooperative with sysadmin. Tries to write solid code. Doesn't break stuff. Often has a good rapport with sysadmin and finds, mysteriously, that his jobs get run on time, every time. Filled with the Tao.
Programmer Type 2: Bastard child of Peter Lorre and Marty Feldman (with the voice and the eyes). Doesn't care about correct practice, only what he can bang out in an hour. Takes ridiculous shortcuts, risks crashing servers and services. Source of all memory leaks. Tries to be clever and fails. Mortal enemy of all sysadmins and Type 1 programmers!
User: Whirling dervish of chaos in an otherwise orderly world. Between downloading P2P apps, questionable freeware, and trojan and adware corrupted hacks of popular programs, spends time inviting the wrath of the RIAA and MPAA by sharing his entire music collection from the main file server. Browses pr0n instead of working. Plays solitaire instead of working. Cries like a little girl every time he's forced to comply with official policy. Complains bitterly about those nasty sysadmins. Secretly wishes he was a pr0n star and has been stalking Shelly down in accounting. She'll mace him in the cafeteria later on in the week.
Bullshit. A used CD is worth maybe two or three bucks. Nobody, not even a crackhead, is going to steal your CD collection to fence it for cash. If they're already in your house, they're going to ignore the CDs and grab your TV or laptop.
Don't be a dumbass.
What this is really about is the record companies trying to sell CDs for fifteen to twenty bucks each, and finding out that competing with used CDs at five bucks is damned hard.
They've dished out their worst, trying to get tough with record stores, and the record stores told them (rightfully so) to go fuck themselves.
This is the record companies' standard operating procedure: if you can't get what you want by asking, try and take it by buying some politicians and cooking up some stupid laws. It's all bullshit, you're full of it (and probably know it -- you're a shill, right?) and I'm DAMN GLAD I live in New York, where the government is run by people who can read at more than a sixth grade level.
OH, well excuse me for a typo! I got excited, alright?
Ok, since you doubt me, you nasty man, you, I don't have much luck with the Krootox, so I usually ignore the Kroot tech tree and go with the teachings of Mont'ka; I dig the tanks.
For defense, I go with a few squads of fire warriors and a squad of scouts so I can paint targets. I use broadside battlesuits inside the base, maybe ten or twenty meters behind my fire warriors. I put two squads of Kroot outside my firing line to tie up melee units while my guys blast away at them. And I usually put at least a few devilfish off to the side outside the defensive line for a nice crossfire.
I go after the enemy base with a crowd of devilfish and maybe the two big tanks if I've teched up enough. If I'm feeling mischevious, I'll use a drone harbinger to tie up and confuse their defenses while a bunch of devilfish drive around breaking stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
>> Riiight. Stereotypes of Blacks and gays are a crime against humanity, but Southerns are fair game. Got it.
Good! Because you ARE fair game. First of all, you guys are the worst abusers of "stereotypes of blacks and gays" on the planet. You trade racist jokes like us Yankees trade complaints about the weather. Your southern states have horrendous human rights records, you have a long history of institutionalized racism, you voted George W. Bush in TWICE because you were afraid "them homos were gonna get hitched", you're COMPLETELY gun-crazy, your laws are backward and religiously fanatical (like that poor guy who got ten years in prison in Georgia for going down on his wife?) and in general, you've demonstrated a remarkable lack of intelligence and culture.
Why SHOULDN'T we make fun of you? You've earned it over and over again. Vote democratic next time, then we'll talk.
Blah, blah, blah.
:)
Develop in Java on Linux, it's the best of all worlds. You can move your code anywhere you want, you don't have to spend a bazillion dollars on Microsoft licensing, and it's got a richer "ecosystem" than anything Microsoft has ever produced. Best of all, you never have to touch another Microsoft product again if you don't want to.
And I understood the article better than YOU did, apparently. Or maybe you just don't WANT to.
Microsoft is a beached killer whale, drying and dying, occasionally wheezing out a gasp at the seagulls who are coming to eat it, thinking "Not the EYES! Please, not the EYES!" Articles like this Hilf character's, and Ballmer's ludicrous IP FUD, are all just part of a long, drawn-out death rattle. It's quite entertaining, really.
Don't mistake contempt for anger, by the way.
Ok, that's valid, but I've always felt that pure spite was an excellent motivator. I'd love to see someone erase Microsoft's patent portfolio. I bet Ballmer would throw a fit.
As far as software development in the USA goes, well... I've noticed something unusual. In the online dating services I lurk in, all the hot chicks seem to live in Toronto, Ontario or various places in Australia. So if all of us programmers were to cut bait and move to other countries, it'd be like, you know...
SCHWING!
Just thinking aloud.
So don't let the developers do it. Have an independent, right-minded group of open-source friendly lawyers act as spoilers, ferreting out stupid, obvious patents and invalidating them. Microsoft uses third-party think tanks all the time; why can't us normal folk?
Imagine how IRRITATING it'll be for Gates et. al to suddenly have their patent portfolio start evaporating in little puffs of logic!
That's all I'm suggesting.
Even that, and I think you're giving him WAY too much credit here, misses the mark by far. Open Source as a whole runs the gamut from the software Libre crowd all the way into the commercial sector. Open Source is a big, big world and there's plenty of room for everyone in it.
A tool like Hilf probably only notices the SuSEs and the Red Hats of the world because he reads Fortune, so naturally he doesn't realize how many completely ordinary, software libre type people there are out there making software. Remember that guy who, as a hobby, wrote like, 200 webcam drivers for the heck of it? The idea that just because SuSE is about profit, all these guys are going to go back to watching Star Trek or something is utterly ludicrous.
Maybe that's what he WISHES would happen, but it's not very likely.
Anyway, I think he's a hoser.
A patent portfolio is a matter of public record.
By saying that the Linux kernel has crossed X patents, and that the GUI has crossed Y patents, Microsoft has told people what, in general, they need to look for.
All it takes is a few industrious lawyers or student lawyers to check out the Microsoft patent portfolio and try to see which patents (if any) they might be talking about.
Then, simply start attacking their entire portfolio on the basis of obviousness. While you may not be able to eliminate ALL Microsoft patents, you can probably kill off enough of them to give their board of directors an aneyurism (and their stock price a hefty kick in the balls).
I'm not skilled in this art myself, but I'm sure there are plenty of slashdotters who will be able to pull it off.
How about it, guys? Feel like kicking uncle Ballmer in the shins?
> How very mature of you.
Why, thank you!
> I'm eagerly awaiting your your explanation how that could be ethical.
> Oh dang - you expected an argument from me explaining why lying an cheating is unethical, right?
No, I expected you to GET my POINT, which is that this guy didn't do anything worth grumbling about. Who cares? I mean, really. At least he's not shooting people.
> Neither did he burn yours - very lucky too, all the straw men would have gone up in flames...
How very mature of you!
> That's exactly what puzzles me. Why?
Because what he did didn't matter. Who cares? Why are you, individually, getting all up in a lather about something that doesn't even involve you? To quote Pulp Fiction, "you scamps... are like a sewing circle". The guy didn't actually hurt anyone. He didn't even manage to EFFECT anyone. Why do you even CARE? What's your problem? Are you nuts?
Honest question. Are you?
* Linux doesn't exist because it's actually everywhere, distributed by gigantic companies which make zillions of dollars off it.
.Net in the market (this makes me wonder if Hilf, back in high school, used to grumble that "the only reason Randy the Quarterback gets laid is because he has a Mustang...").
* The Open Source Movement doesn't exist because it's been adopted by companies both large and small, which are all merrily making a profit from it.
* Because Open Source is mostly commercial and very successful, making lots of money for the large and small companies that are involved in it, the only way to "grow the ecosystem" is to switch to the Microsoft products nobody wants to buy anymore.
* Linux is only popular because it's the foundation for the LAMP web-development stack, which has been trouncing
* Because Open Source Software runs on Windows too, all those Apache guys are probably running Windows.
* Standards are a communist plot started by those hippies at IBM because darnit, they just don't like Microsoft. It's not fair (hilf makes pouty face).
* WPF-E needs a better name so everybody will want to program in it. If WPF-E gets a cool name like Flash, everybody will use it immediately.
* Because Programming is Hard and that's Just Not Cool, Microsoft wants to make it like "turning a knob" so that developers don't have to work in high-paying jobs anymore, and can go find something new to do for minimum wage that'll probably be funner.
Did I miss anything? I swear reading his comments is like being hit with one Zen Koan after another, machine gun style. What is the sound of one hand clapping?
Phew. Too much, too much. I've gotta go do something fun for a while. Hmm...
Warhammer 40K! Death to the False Emperor! C'mere, you Eldar hussy, you...
Ah, irony. Like silvery and goldy, but sturdier!
Actually I was mostly kidding about the whole "down south" thing. You know the whole stereotype -- the gangly southern sherrif, the mysterious backwoods guys, the doomed foreigner (or yankee!) who has NO IDEA what he's about to get into...
It was a funny thought. Envision Dieter the German Film School Nihilist walking smack-dab into a back-woods Cajun town, complaining to the guy that runs the hotel about the sheets and window treatments... One wonders what terrible fate would await him...
Poor Dieter!
Maybe so; I was only kidding, anyway -- the reference is to the movie "Deliverance" and a demented scene in which one giant redneck remarks that a city boy has "purty lips" and asks him to "squeal like a pig" before doing something unfriendly to him. :)
Anyway, I find the whole "snobby European finds himself on the wrong side of highly irritated cajuns" fantasy really amusing. C'mon, admit it -- it'd be funny.
First of all, don't compare "Europeans" to "Americans". The titles are so broad as to be utterly meaningless. The continental United States and Europe are about the same size, geographically. The 48 states that comprise the continental U.S. vary culturally just as widely as the countries that make up Europe do. Do you think a Frenchman would react or think the same way a Romanian would? How about comparing a Welshman to an Italian? Or maybe a Swede with a Spaniard? The ONLY reason you Europeans think it makes sense to lump us all together is that we've all agreed to speak English (most of the time). To YOU people, that implies homogeneity, because your own "tower of babel" makes the differences jump out at you.
:)
Even if we speak a similar language, New Yorkers (such as myself) are as different from Texans or Alabamans as Englishmen are from Greeks. Even our language is only barely compatible; local dialects are often impenetrable to outsiders. I would go so far as to say that every state in the U.S. is different, with a different subculture and a different set of laws.
Here's another example: if you, a European, were to hang around New York for a few days you wouldn't find too much you didn't like. The same would probably go for most of New England, possibly Pennsylvania, the Pacific Northwest, and California. You'd LOVE Hawaii, of course. Everybody does.
But if you were to accidentally find yourself somewhere down South, like maybe the back woods of Louisiana, well... Let's just say that if you hear the phrase "purty lips" you'd better run like hell.
Not the same. Different. Get it?
Take a breath and switch to decaf.
All the guy did was kill a story about Apple (that was tongue in cheek anyway) and ask his editor in chief to be nice to the advertisers that actually fund the magazine.
He didn't burn your peaceful peasant village. He didn't rape the fields or pillage your women. He didn't even salt your children, or sell your soil into slavery.
Lighten up on the guy. He's not Hitler. He's not even the Soup Nazi. Chill.
Well, obviously, it's unethical. I wouldn't do it, even if the 'board told me to.
My point is that what the guy did isn't all that evil given the current state of the country, and it's barely evil at ALL compared to all the other crazy evils that are going on all around us.
The president in the white house, right this instant, not only started a war for no particularly good reason, he's been busy destroying the constitution, creating a Stasi-like secret police out of the NSA and CIA, ordering his minions to go around kidnapping, transporting across the planet and torturing people, destabilizing our relations with Russia (hint: the only other world power that could maybe BEAT us in a war) by pursuing an unlikely missle defense, and performing god knows what else we don't know about.
But everyone's hair is on fire because some CEO told his editor to be nice to advertisers?
Gimme a break!
That's all I'm saying.
Harsh, man...
First of all, the guy tried to do something mildly shady with the intent of increasing ad revenue (which would have been good for the magazine's bottom line, and in line with his duty as CEO). My understanding is, he asked the editor to take it easy on favored advertisers. As sins go in this day and age, that's pretty mild. If you want to see something REALLY nasty, look at Enron or Halliburton. So the guy's not evil, and he tried to help out his magazine, which is his job.
Second, he was probably reacting to orders from his board of directors, so you can hardly blame them for not beating the guy up over it! They probably felt that he did his best to carry out their will, and it didn't work out. No harm, no foul. Shift him somewhere else in the company and defuse the situation, problem solved.
Third, really, what's the big deal anyway? He asked McCraken to suck up to some advertisers, McCracken said no, the whole world beat him up online in forums like this, and the magazine transferred him and re-hired McCracken without ever actually going soft on its advertisers. No harm has been done, nobody has been lied to, really, NOTHING has HAPPENED. They tried it, it didn't work out.
I think it's kind of a non-issue.
I didn't get the impression she was trying to guilt me into keeping my cable; she didn't try to convince me or anything. But she really did seem genuinely hurt that I'd stop watching TV! It was really surprising. When she asked me "But why???" it was like I'd forced her to question her assumptions about the world or something. Very strange!
Sounded like a nice girl, too. Our phone call was very polite, subdued, and brief. I hope she's cheered up, maybe gotten some Haagen Dazs.
Nah, I don't think I use very much bandwidth. Mostly I just browse the web, check out webcomics, read slashdot...
:)
Besides, I'm lucky. In my neighborhood, Verizon FIOS and Time Warner are competing head to head. I'm going to sign up for the fifty dollar a month FIOS deal with 5Gbits upstream, 20Gbits downstream, and a phone with free long distance. I'll have two separate broadband carriers, AND STILL save fifty bucks a month on my old cable bill!
Totally! Worth! It!
I can get two boxes of bottles of Corona and a squeeze bottle of lime juice for around 25 bucks... Hmm... Or a couple of cases of Old Milwaukee, I think, or PBR, or budweiser...
Maybe I should take the high road like you, though. Sam Adams sure sounds good! I love their Cherry Wheat...
Hmm...
Cherry Wheat!
I recently got a bill from Time Warner Cable for 160.00. 140 of it was for cable, internet, and etc. 22 was for Girls Gone Wild and something even dirtier. Of course, I have no problem with THAT, heh heh...
But jeez, 140 bucks for TV???
I called them and cancelled everything except my broadband internet connection. My monthly bill went from 144 bucks to 44 bucks. I saved a hundred bucks a month by dropping cable television!
The girl on the line sounded positively HURT by this. She asked me "But why do you want to cancel TV?" I told her it just wasn't interesting and she said "oh" in a quiet voice.
I felt at that moment as if I'd just dumped a sweet, loving girlfriend and broken her heart. It was a bizarre thing.
It didn't stop me from saving a hundred bucks, though! Woo HOO! That's two cases of beer a week!
YouTube and AtomFilms are better anyway...
They used to bring me new hires, but now they just tell me about them.
I overheard a boardmember say that as long as I keep biting the interns, they can't let any of them into my cage.
What bullshit! I didn't draw blood ONCE. And two of them LIKED it.
Life. What a gyp.
We are not "bad" at all. We are doing our jobs. What are our jobs? Our role is to keep our systems operational and secure.
Think of it in terms of roles.
Sys Admin: Protects and defends the infrastructure of your company. Prevents people from shooting themselves in the foot. Enforces good security policies. Identifies poorly performing software and forces its developers to improve it (or get shut down). Keeps your systems patched and ready. An iron fist in a velvet glove. An enigma wrapped in a mystery. A big, sexy man!
Programmer Type 1: Cooperative with sysadmin. Tries to write solid code. Doesn't break stuff. Often has a good rapport with sysadmin and finds, mysteriously, that his jobs get run on time, every time. Filled with the Tao.
Programmer Type 2: Bastard child of Peter Lorre and Marty Feldman (with the voice and the eyes). Doesn't care about correct practice, only what he can bang out in an hour. Takes ridiculous shortcuts, risks crashing servers and services. Source of all memory leaks. Tries to be clever and fails. Mortal enemy of all sysadmins and Type 1 programmers!
User: Whirling dervish of chaos in an otherwise orderly world. Between downloading P2P apps, questionable freeware, and trojan and adware corrupted hacks of popular programs, spends time inviting the wrath of the RIAA and MPAA by sharing his entire music collection from the main file server. Browses pr0n instead of working. Plays solitaire instead of working. Cries like a little girl every time he's forced to comply with official policy. Complains bitterly about those nasty sysadmins. Secretly wishes he was a pr0n star and has been stalking Shelly down in accounting. She'll mace him in the cafeteria later on in the week.
Oh, come on. Your cute little pretend application is at best a "hello world". This is Slashdot, you're not fooling anyone.
Let me put this to you politely.
The "seven things" you mentioned are actually three things. Java, HTML/CSS/Javascript, and SQL.
Every programmer who went to college even temporarily knows all three things and can probably do them in his sleep.
More than that, most programmers ENJOY working with them and don't consider them the great hardship you're pretending they are.
Your whole position is ludicrous! If you stick with an "easy" language (Water???) you'll only be able to do easy things.
Man up. Take the bull by the horns.
Java is your friend.
A determined programmer can write Fortran in ANY language. :)
Bullshit. A used CD is worth maybe two or three bucks. Nobody, not even a crackhead, is going to steal your CD collection to fence it for cash. If they're already in your house, they're going to ignore the CDs and grab your TV or laptop.
Don't be a dumbass.
What this is really about is the record companies trying to sell CDs for fifteen to twenty bucks each, and finding out that competing with used CDs at five bucks is damned hard.
They've dished out their worst, trying to get tough with record stores, and the record stores told them (rightfully so) to go fuck themselves.
This is the record companies' standard operating procedure: if you can't get what you want by asking, try and take it by buying some politicians and cooking up some stupid laws. It's all bullshit, you're full of it (and probably know it -- you're a shill, right?) and I'm DAMN GLAD I live in New York, where the government is run by people who can read at more than a sixth grade level.
Sell your lies somewhere else, suit.
Makes me glad I live in New York, where there are used CD stores everywhere and the stoned counterperson barely notices you.
Hey! Is this first post? I think it is! Umm... W00t?
OH, well excuse me for a typo! I got excited, alright?
Ok, since you doubt me, you nasty man, you, I don't have much luck with the Krootox, so I usually ignore the Kroot tech tree and go with the teachings of Mont'ka; I dig the tanks.
For defense, I go with a few squads of fire warriors and a squad of scouts so I can paint targets. I use broadside battlesuits inside the base, maybe ten or twenty meters behind my fire warriors. I put two squads of Kroot outside my firing line to tie up melee units while my guys blast away at them. And I usually put at least a few devilfish off to the side outside the defensive line for a nice crossfire.
I go after the enemy base with a crowd of devilfish and maybe the two big tanks if I've teched up enough. If I'm feeling mischevious, I'll use a drone harbinger to tie up and confuse their defenses while a bunch of devilfish drive around breaking stuff.
I love the Tau. Now, kiss my grey alien butt.