I was just talking with someone today about how something like a speeding ticket to Bill Gates is no punishment at all.
But a public whipping would be pretty punishing no matter who you are (well maybe not to masochists)
Isn't it one of the northern European countries that ties fines for things like speeding tickets to your total income for the year? I seem to recall something a year or two ago about someone who received a speeding ticket for tens of thousands of dollars, but whose stock holdings tanked before he could actually pay it. True or urban legend?
What bugs me is when I get an email that says only "Please read the attached memo." Then you open the memo (starting Word or Acrobat for the first time that day, and thus taking about 30 seconds to load up), and I see "We're closed next Monday for the holiday. Please turn in your timesheets a day early." or something else like that. I mean, like two lines or so -- not even a nice letterhead!
Be happy. What's really nasty is the people who do that with a letterhead template that includes a high-resolution image of the company logo (so it'll look nice when it's printed) as a portable image. 250KB messages announcing the promotion of some sales shmoe 2000 miles away to area manager are the ones that suck, particularly when your remote office has a fairly slow connection.
Fortunately, there are IS folks who actually enjoy stomping on those people.
I did not grant others the rights to my works then. Neither did Bill G.
I'll quote one of my postings in comp.society.privacy back when Deja first showed up:
How is Deja News different from a local Usenet spool with huge expire times[see example below]? The answer is that it's more limited. I can't write a program to do my search - I can only do the searches that they've decided to allow me.
Sure, they've built indexes, but as an end user, how can I tell? There are all kinds of things that can result in fast response times.
One of the perpetual goals of computer usage has been making the possible easier, and that's what Deja News does. If there are items you post that you don't want associated with your name, find a
different way to post them, such as through an anonymous remailer or a pseudonymous account.
Complaining about Deja News and Alta Vista is like complaining that someone's written a program that will automatically find what port on your unix box will take commands and execute them as root. Privacy through obscurity is no better than security through obscurity.
I left the example out - it seems a bit silly now, though still accurate. The basic gist was that what was being provided by Deja (and what is now provided by Google) is comparable to a publically-accessible newsreader (e.g. 'trn') account with read-only access to a server that never expires articles. "/searchstring/a" anyone?
The thread on Author Profiles at Deja News might be interesting reading for folks, as might the thread on Usenet Privacy and Dejanews. There were other similar discussions in the Privacy Digest (gatewayed with the comp.society.privacy) at the time, but these are pretty representative.
If you're looking for moderately large dark bodies in space, you do it by watching the stars. Dark bodies like asteroids and comets are, surprisingly enough, dark (and generally opaque). Stars, on the other hand, are bright and have a tendency to not flicker out.
What all this means is that the way you find dark bodies in space is by comparing lots of pictures of starfields and looking for stars that go out and come back. Since it's unlikely that the star flickered, if it seems to do so then there's a good chance something passed between you and it.
I'm pretty sure I get to take the credit for that one - something like it would certainly have existed eventually, but this is the earliest discussion (by ~5 months) that even mentions anything like it, even if I did suggest it as X-NoArchive instead.
The other thing you should do about this is send a copy of it (much as you've written it above, but with the last line removed, no PayPal info, and with the card numbers) on paper to Carl Pascarella (President & CEO) at Visa USA and to the equivalent person at Chase. You might also send it to Malcolm Williamson (P&CEO of Visa International), but that might be counterproductive. You're the wronged party here, but you let yourself get tangled up in the part of Chase's Visa division that deals with deadbeats so the very best you could hope for from them was that they'd decide you weren't a deadbeat.
Keep the letter to no more than one and a half pages, ideally just one - a bulleted summary is much more likely to be read than a long diatribe. Write it, let it sit for a day or two without looking at it (there's no rush, you've already cancelled the account), get someone to proof it, then send it.
If you think there's any chance that Pascarella or Williamson will read it themselves, use a 12-point font. I have no idea how their vision is, but if they're in their 50s or 60s they're at the point where a lot of people have problems with small type. Use good paper too. Little things like not having to squint make a difference.
You'll have to dig up Chase's physical address yourself, but the quest for Visa's got me interested so here it is (from their corporate report, findable at corporate.visa.com as a PDF). The address is enough of a pain to find that a physical letter is pretty much guaranteed to get attention, though they may not be able to do anything about Chase.
Carl Pascarella
Visa USA
P.O. Box 194607
San Francisco, CA 94105-4607
USA
Malcolm Williamson
Visa International
P.O. Box 8999
San Francisco, CA 94128-8999
USA
I don't know that FedExing would help any, but if you want to do that you should be able to get the street addresses from the Post Office since the P.O. Boxes are being used for business.
Don't expect CDPD to last all that much longer - at the very least its lifespan will end when analog cellular service (AMPS) does. It's also relatively expensive and slow (max 19.2Kbps) compared to what's going to be coming down the pike.
It is fairly widely available in urban areas.
Interface-wise most CDPD adapters seem to act as network cards; IBM at least also made a CDPD modem that actually had a modem interface, but it was fairly large.
Anti-virus programs can detect anything that can be identified by a signature.
And if you don't believe him, just go read this about Symantec being polite enough to warn everyone that a competitor's product was infected with "W32.Nimda.enc(dr)" even though it wasn't.
"Symantec's Antivirus software, Norton Antivirus, has been reporting F-Prot Antivirus for Windows as being infected with W32.Nimda.enc(dr) following the November 9th release of Symantec's virus definitions. This is a false positive due to what appears to be a lack of quality assurance on their part."
I believe that several of the TDMA carriers are planning on switching to GSM over the next couple of years.
Here's a ZDNet article from late October about Cingular's plans to do so; the article mentions that Verizon is considering doing the same:
Analysts and industry insiders say the Cingular announcement Tuesday coupled with a possible switch by Verizon could swing enough new customers into GSM-based networks to ensure it remains the dominant global standard.
The Manhattan Project referenced, which is where this was used, was the one responsible for the development of the atomic bomb in World War II. I suspect there's been some fluctuation in prices in the last 60 years, particularly since the US isn't currently on a war economy regardless of media hype.
The reports I've heard that silver basically disappeared from the market make me think that they may well have purchased a large quantity and driven prices up before they attempted to borrow it from the Treasury, which could also account for a high price.
I've heard reports that one of the things that raised questions was "Where did all the silver go," but while it's clear that it was used I haven't found any notes about what impact (if any) this might have had on market prices.
Copper was being used elsewhere in the war effort, so:
At one point during the Manhattan Project, they needed a lot of copper. They were going to build plants in Utah to manufacture uranium and needed an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 metric tons of copper. Unfortunately, due to other war requirements, this much copper was not available. Someone suggested that the Manhattan Project go to the United States Treasury and ask for silver. Which they did.
and
For the record we should note two things about our story. First, the Manhattan Project eventually used somewhere around 13,000 metric tons of silver. A current valuation would be about $6,000,000,000. Second, they gave it all back.
Note that the CD Selectors (how they work) do also include carrying handles.
I've glanced at these at local computer shows but only recently started to get enough CDs that I may pick a couple up. The way they work is to have a slider on the outside that lines up with entries on a sheet listing what CD is in which slot. You move the selector to the right spot, then open the case and it lifts that CD out for you. If you're not trying to keep the CDs together with other things like jewel case inserts, it's a very good solution.
The 50 and 100 are more geared for permanent use with a home theater or on a desk - they don't have the carry handle, and they're one-touch access which IIRC means that you just slide the selector and push it to pop the thing open (the normal ones close more securely for travel).
When doing fixed-cost bids, it's also important that there be a structure in place for handling requests to make changes to the specification. That means all changes - customer-initiated or developer-initiated.
At the least, this should include documenting what the change is, why the change is needed, who the change is for, what the impact on the final cost will be, what the impact on the schedule will be, and approvals for the change from the project management on both sides.
The group I used to work for used to do fixed-cost bids without this, and it worked fine until we had a combination of a customer who didn't know what they wanted and a project manager who didn't keep control on the customer requests. We kept the customer and actually had a good relationship and multiple projects with them for several years (until they were swallowed whole), but that particular project was a mess.
Computer programs are intended primarly for human-machine communication, at least that's the way most programming languages are designed.
You must be an advanced Perl programmer - it's always looked like machine code to me.... Personally I prefer Python and coding styles that enhance readability.
True executable computer programs (compiled executables) may be intended primarily for communication with machines, but the primary goal of many programming languages and the source code written in them is human-human communication, with any inefficiencies dealt with by optimization during the translation (compile/link/assemble/etc.) process.
I haven't read the decision yet, but one concern may have been "What is a programming language?"
I'd contend that it's a way to tell a computer how to do something. If you set a precedent that computer languages are not protected speech, what happens when eventually software reaches the point where natural language becomes a viable way to control a computer? The difference between assembly, C, Perl, Python, 4GLs and Star Trek's "Computer: Do XYZ" is just a question of the sophistication of the filters, compilers or interpreters that the commands go through before actions are taken.
I don't envy the court that has to decide whether "Bob, handle my guests" is protected while "Bob, open the front door, greet them, lead Jim and Alice to the living room and ask whether they would like drinks," is not protected (assuming that my house computer is named "Bob") or is protected (assuming that my not-too-bright butler is named "Bob").
The model number for the drive is MK5002MPL, and there are two vendors that list it on Pricewatch - one at $332+8 and one at $364+9. It's probably available elsewhere as well.
Anytime I've been advising people on laptop purchases I've tended to push them toward getting as good a warranty as the manufacturer provided, particularly with on-site coverage.
My reasoning for this was that while they may say "business addresses only," it's easy to bring a laptop to the office. A field person may not be able to do anything to fix a laptop, but the other comfort is that in theory at least it gives you more leverage if there is a problem and you have to push for a resolution - if it's a continuing problem, there's the implied threat that you'll keep calling and they'll have to keep sending someone out. Eventually the third-party company that they contract with for field service may start giving them flack because of all the calls, and if you get the same field service person regularly they may have more clout with the manufacturer's tech support. Besides, the cost increase isn't that much, maybe a couple hundred dollars that spread over the life of the machine is insignificant compared to the cost of sending it away for weeks.
One thing I have learned though: when buying a laptop, find out what it takes to remove the HD so you can yank it (at least to make a backup) before sending the machine in. I've heard enough horror stories from people whose systems died, they couldn't extract data & didn't have a good backup, they sent it in for service and got it back with the drive restored to the original shipping configuration.
Re:You forget the anti-spam nazi's have blocked th
on
MSN Forces Outlook POP
·
· Score: 2
That depends on the ISP. Not all block outbound SMTP (in fact, it seems mostly to be the larger national ones that do) and not all enforce the From: address. For the second point, MSN is actually the first that I've seen doing this.
Using Worldnet's consumer service as an example:
outbound SMTP is blocked, but after your account has been active for 30 days you can request that that be lifted
there's not a restriction on what return address you use, though there may be headers added with identification information - I've not sent much mail through Worldnet to find out
the mail server is generally not reachable from the rest of the Internet, but you can adjust your account settings to allow you to get mail from outside addresses via either browser or SSL tunneled POP3
With smaller regional ISPs even these steps may not be necessary, but it'll vary by ISP. Some hosting providers may also start providing alternatives for connecting to send mail (SSL tunneling, redirected ports, etc.) if there's demand for them.
The way it's currently set up you'd best not put too much processor in there if you have a PCI card or have a drive in the back bay (if you do without a floppy, you could put a DVD & HD in the front bays). As they say, a drive back there would interfere with airflow for the processor; they don't mention cards but a card would be below the drive.
What they don't mention is that this case could probably have been configured differently to allow a PCI card to be put in vertically with the back bay also vertical. That would leave plenty of clear space above the processor; the back fan could be moved over. With an air gap above the PCI card and the HD hot air could get up to that back fan for exhaust, though I don't think you'd want to put in a card that required its own fan.
More reason to get a domain or forwarding service
on
MSN Forces Outlook POP
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
If you have friends, family, etc. that are using just an ISP-based email address, this is one more way to point out to them the advantages of either a personal domain or a mail forwarding service for permanent non-ISP email addresses.
Neither one really requires technical knowledge to use, both are cheap (avoid the free mail forwarding services - if they're not making money, they're not going to be "permanent"), and they're generally simple to set up particularly if all you need is to have mail forwarded to your current ISP. ISP gets bought out? New terms are something you don't like? Switch ISPs. Once you're set up with your own address, the ISP just becomes a bandwidth provider.
(it's on a different and non-connected system, typos are mine)
We have experienced some unexpected delays in production of the CD-Roms. The 8.1 sets were originally planned to be produced at our corporate headquarters in Europe. The combined delays in European production and international shipping has caused us to re-think our original plan. MandrakeSoft Inc has started production of 8.1 here in North America. Getting 8.1 production up and running in North America has been a slow and expensive process.
We expect to have your order No [# removed] processed and shipped by mid-October.
Depending on how they're trying to get these set up (high-volume burns vs. pressing), I don't see a 2-week delay as unreasonable considering that they probably had to:
find companies that could create the CDs (including labeling or possibly silkscreening),
get quotes from them (probably at least 3, and possibly a day or two each),
arrange payment (MandrakeSoft is probably considered a dot-com, and does anyone give credit to dot-coms these days?) and
probably all sorts of other stuff.
It's the kind of thing that as an individual you could probably do in just a couple days, but even fast companies have more baggage to carry through the whole process.
That explains some things....
on
LWN in Trouble
·
· Score: 2
Like why LeechFTP (now orphaned, but still pretty good and free) didn't seem to exist on it.
Worldnet is an option, though they don't make it easy to sign up without their software. Dig around on www.wurd.com to find a link to a completely web-based signup page.
Restrictions:
must explicitly enable Internet access to email via the web-based configuration if you're retrieving from outside their dialups;
must use SSL tunneling to the mail server for the same;
outbound SMTP is blocked, but the block can be removed by request after the account's been active for 30 days;
Can't get the el-cheapo accounts, which require an ad banner while you're connected anyway.
I also do a lot of shopping at drug stores instead of grocery stores.
Some drug stores (particularly the chains, which are also the ones most likely to have groceries) have started using these cards as well. I know that CVS (one of the major national drugstore chains in the US) has them, and while I haven't seen them at Walgreens I wouldn't be surprised if they're working on adding them.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't it one of the northern European countries that ties fines for things like speeding tickets to your total income for the year? I seem to recall something a year or two ago about someone who received a speeding ticket for tens of thousands of dollars, but whose stock holdings tanked before he could actually pay it. True or urban legend?
Be happy. What's really nasty is the people who do that with a letterhead template that includes a high-resolution image of the company logo (so it'll look nice when it's printed) as a portable image. 250KB messages announcing the promotion of some sales shmoe 2000 miles away to area manager are the ones that suck, particularly when your remote office has a fairly slow connection.
Fortunately, there are IS folks who actually enjoy stomping on those people.
I'll quote one of my postings in comp.society.privacy back when Deja first showed up:
I left the example out - it seems a bit silly now, though still accurate. The basic gist was that what was being provided by Deja (and what is now provided by Google) is comparable to a publically-accessible newsreader (e.g. 'trn') account with read-only access to a server that never expires articles. "/searchstring/a" anyone?The thread on Author Profiles at Deja News might be interesting reading for folks, as might the thread on Usenet Privacy and Dejanews. There were other similar discussions in the Privacy Digest (gatewayed with the comp.society.privacy) at the time, but these are pretty representative.
If you're looking for moderately large dark bodies in space, you do it by watching the stars. Dark bodies like asteroids and comets are, surprisingly enough, dark (and generally opaque). Stars, on the other hand, are bright and have a tendency to not flicker out.
What all this means is that the way you find dark bodies in space is by comparing lots of pictures of starfields and looking for stars that go out and come back. Since it's unlikely that the star flickered, if it seems to do so then there's a good chance something passed between you and it.
I'm pretty sure I get to take the credit for that one - something like it would certainly have existed eventually, but this is the earliest discussion (by ~5 months) that even mentions anything like it, even if I did suggest it as X-NoArchive instead.
I just wish I'd saved the original email as well.
Keep the letter to no more than one and a half pages, ideally just one - a bulleted summary is much more likely to be read than a long diatribe. Write it, let it sit for a day or two without looking at it (there's no rush, you've already cancelled the account), get someone to proof it, then send it.
If you think there's any chance that Pascarella or Williamson will read it themselves, use a 12-point font. I have no idea how their vision is, but if they're in their 50s or 60s they're at the point where a lot of people have problems with small type. Use good paper too. Little things like not having to squint make a difference.
You'll have to dig up Chase's physical address yourself, but the quest for Visa's got me interested so here it is (from their corporate report, findable at corporate.visa.com as a PDF). The address is enough of a pain to find that a physical letter is pretty much guaranteed to get attention, though they may not be able to do anything about Chase.
Carl Pascarella
Visa USA
P.O. Box 194607
San Francisco, CA 94105-4607
USA
Malcolm Williamson
Visa International
P.O. Box 8999
San Francisco, CA 94128-8999
USA
I don't know that FedExing would help any, but if you want to do that you should be able to get the street addresses from the Post Office since the P.O. Boxes are being used for business.
It is fairly widely available in urban areas.
Interface-wise most CDPD adapters seem to act as network cards; IBM at least also made a CDPD modem that actually had a modem interface, but it was fairly large.
And if you don't believe him, just go read this about Symantec being polite enough to warn everyone that a competitor's product was infected with "W32.Nimda.enc(dr)" even though it wasn't.
Here's a ZDNet article from late October about Cingular's plans to do so; the article mentions that Verizon is considering doing the same:
The reports I've heard that silver basically disappeared from the market make me think that they may well have purchased a large quantity and driven prices up before they attempted to borrow it from the Treasury, which could also account for a high price.
Copper was being used elsewhere in the war effort, so:
and Swiped from http://members.aol.com/fmcguff/dwmodel/intro.htmI've glanced at these at local computer shows but only recently started to get enough CDs that I may pick a couple up. The way they work is to have a slider on the outside that lines up with entries on a sheet listing what CD is in which slot. You move the selector to the right spot, then open the case and it lifts that CD out for you. If you're not trying to keep the CDs together with other things like jewel case inserts, it's a very good solution.
The 50 and 100 are more geared for permanent use with a home theater or on a desk - they don't have the carry handle, and they're one-touch access which IIRC means that you just slide the selector and push it to pop the thing open (the normal ones close more securely for travel).
At the least, this should include documenting what the change is, why the change is needed, who the change is for, what the impact on the final cost will be, what the impact on the schedule will be, and approvals for the change from the project management on both sides.
The group I used to work for used to do fixed-cost bids without this, and it worked fine until we had a combination of a customer who didn't know what they wanted and a project manager who didn't keep control on the customer requests. We kept the customer and actually had a good relationship and multiple projects with them for several years (until they were swallowed whole), but that particular project was a mess.
You must be an advanced Perl programmer - it's always looked like machine code to me.... Personally I prefer Python and coding styles that enhance readability.
True executable computer programs (compiled executables) may be intended primarily for communication with machines, but the primary goal of many programming languages and the source code written in them is human-human communication, with any inefficiencies dealt with by optimization during the translation (compile/link/assemble/etc.) process.
I haven't read the decision yet, but one concern may have been "What is a programming language?"
I'd contend that it's a way to tell a computer how to do something. If you set a precedent that computer languages are not protected speech, what happens when eventually software reaches the point where natural language becomes a viable way to control a computer? The difference between assembly, C, Perl, Python, 4GLs and Star Trek's "Computer: Do XYZ" is just a question of the sophistication of the filters, compilers or interpreters that the commands go through before actions are taken.
I don't envy the court that has to decide whether "Bob, handle my guests" is protected while "Bob, open the front door, greet them, lead Jim and Alice to the living room and ask whether they would like drinks," is not protected (assuming that my house computer is named "Bob") or is protected (assuming that my not-too-bright butler is named "Bob").
Are they going to add MozColander as well?
The model number for the drive is MK5002MPL, and there are two vendors that list it on Pricewatch - one at $332+8 and one at $364+9. It's probably available elsewhere as well.
My reasoning for this was that while they may say "business addresses only," it's easy to bring a laptop to the office. A field person may not be able to do anything to fix a laptop, but the other comfort is that in theory at least it gives you more leverage if there is a problem and you have to push for a resolution - if it's a continuing problem, there's the implied threat that you'll keep calling and they'll have to keep sending someone out. Eventually the third-party company that they contract with for field service may start giving them flack because of all the calls, and if you get the same field service person regularly they may have more clout with the manufacturer's tech support. Besides, the cost increase isn't that much, maybe a couple hundred dollars that spread over the life of the machine is insignificant compared to the cost of sending it away for weeks.
One thing I have learned though: when buying a laptop, find out what it takes to remove the HD so you can yank it (at least to make a backup) before sending the machine in. I've heard enough horror stories from people whose systems died, they couldn't extract data & didn't have a good backup, they sent it in for service and got it back with the drive restored to the original shipping configuration.
Using Worldnet's consumer service as an example:
With smaller regional ISPs even these steps may not be necessary, but it'll vary by ISP. Some hosting providers may also start providing alternatives for connecting to send mail (SSL tunneling, redirected ports, etc.) if there's demand for them.
What they don't mention is that this case could probably have been configured differently to allow a PCI card to be put in vertically with the back bay also vertical. That would leave plenty of clear space above the processor; the back fan could be moved over. With an air gap above the PCI card and the HD hot air could get up to that back fan for exhaust, though I don't think you'd want to put in a card that required its own fan.
Neither one really requires technical knowledge to use, both are cheap (avoid the free mail forwarding services - if they're not making money, they're not going to be "permanent"), and they're generally simple to set up particularly if all you need is to have mail forwarded to your current ISP. ISP gets bought out? New terms are something you don't like? Switch ISPs. Once you're set up with your own address, the ISP just becomes a bandwidth provider.
It's not illegal for you to possess that DVD player because you own it. It is illegal to commit an illegal act to retrieve it.
- find companies that could create the CDs (including labeling or possibly silkscreening),
- get quotes from them (probably at least 3, and possibly a day or two each),
- arrange payment (MandrakeSoft is probably considered a dot-com, and does anyone give credit to dot-coms these days?) and
- probably all sorts of other stuff.
It's the kind of thing that as an individual you could probably do in just a couple days, but even fast companies have more baggage to carry through the whole process.Like why LeechFTP (now orphaned, but still pretty good and free) didn't seem to exist on it.
Restrictions:
Some drug stores (particularly the chains, which are also the ones most likely to have groceries) have started using these cards as well. I know that CVS (one of the major national drugstore chains in the US) has them, and while I haven't seen them at Walgreens I wouldn't be surprised if they're working on adding them.