Well, it may be one of the first comments that started with "In Soviet Russia..." that was relevant.
Hopefully, "In Soviet Russia" posts will continue to remain oddities. I don't like to contemplate the prospect of it becoming a popular theme. The fewer parallels we can find between the USA and Soviet Russia the better.
In Soviet Russia, anyone who owned a typewriter was required to send a sample page to the government.
The theory of course being that they would use it to try and track down any subversive content.
And now the US government has made it quick, easy and automated to do the same.
I want to know who the bastards are that are adding this technology to their printers so I can avoid them like the plague.
Yes, I know I could just not send in the registration card, but what if the government decided to crack down on those who critisize the war? Suddenly when they confiscate my printer, they can find out if any of the documents they've declared subversive came from my printer.
I hate to say it, but if you "Just say no to MS" then all you have left is the RIM and Palm platforms for PDAs. While Palm has an arguably better interface, it's stability leaves much to be desired. You're crippling yourself by switching away from MS alternatives for the PDA market. Palm just isn't reliable enough for the enterprise.
The problem is, the Palm platform has been going downhill for ages.
The only reason they still get new customers is because of their brand name. As they spend that name recognition capital, they'll either fade away or be forced to refocus on quality.
I don't see them focusing on quality. Before long, the only reason left to buy a Palm will be "It's not from Microsoft" which is hardly a good reason to choose a product.
Palm has also said this was in the works for well over a year and a half, with no resolution. What gives that they finally got this out the door, all-be-it in a feature-missing version?
The stock price must be slipping. Since they don't have anything like a stable, reliable product to release, they have to announce a new feature.
If it works as well as the rest of the Palm OS, then we can expect it to crash regularly, and a non-trivial percentage of the e-mail to vanish into the ether.
Let me guess, you're using a Palm III or Palm V device, aren't you?
If so, then I could see your point, but if you're talking about the newer kit, then I'd have to ask what planet you're on, and how you get that unstable crap to sync without crashing and requiring a plethora of hardware resets.
Palm's strategy is simple. They used to make decent, reliable devices. Now, they just make crap that crashes on a regular basis and scrambles user data.
They had two options.
They could have rallied and done their best to return to the days of producing quality devices worth the money.
Instead, they chose to ride on the value of their brand name, coasting until they run out of steam.
The company is on a long, slow death march, and the quality of their recent products demonstrates that.
This is just another cynical attempt to delay the inevitable. They don't want to put REAL work or money into producing something good, so they toss some dollars at implementing something that will get press and sucker in a few more buyers.
And the massive vortex of SUCK that results will cause the PDA market to collapse back in upon itself.
Having used Palm Pilots for a few years, I can confidently say that anyone partnering with Palm on product development is clearly a nit-wit with no understanding of what quality hardware or software really is.
I'm a Palm user who plans to buy a Pocket PC device as my next PDA. I'd go into detail, but I've already made a number of posts on this site detailing WHY Palm Pilots are poorly conceived pieces of flotsam that should never be relied upon.
I've actually found that using my iPod to view my contacts is more reliable than the Palm Pilot. I learned form hard experience that if you enter data into your Palm Pilot and try to sync it, you stand a significant chance of losing that data.
Palm Pilot, for people who remember the Palm III line, and don't realize everything's been downhill from there.
The iTunes books are in a DRMed Apple format. You can only play them of five different computers, and on iPods that are properly configured to work with one of those computers.
Wait, no it wasn't. It's full of con artists and idiots.
I had one twit who sent me a check, even though I said "Paypal only" in the auction, and hand wrote the shipping address. Thing was, it was too messy to read. All I could tell was that it was a different city than the return address on the letter.
I sent it back with a polite letter explaining the problem, asking her to send a typed or printed copy of the address.
The moron mailed back the exact same piece of paper.
I never did manage to get a shipping address out of her, or any kind of a reply. I ended up shredding the check and moving on with life, swallowing the $0.30 fee ebay charged me for the transaction..
Oh well, at least the twit didn't leave me any bad feedback.
Hmmm. Come to think about it, I probably don't want to deal with the consequences should I prove God exists. Leaving aside the atheists and agnostics who'll be pissed, can you imagine the fallout form all the religions that I'd just proved wrong?
"What do you mean there's PROOF that a God exists that's different than the one I believe in?"
I'd probably be MEETING God in short order.
Nothing against God, but I figure I'll be meeting him or her in the end anyhow, so there's no need to rush the encounter.
What are your sources? I'd be interested in reading some alternate interpretations of the existing documentation.
It's important to keep in mind that the IBM of today doesn't share much (if any) staff with the IBM of 1935. They aren't the same corporation at this point.
Regardless of the example I chose, my point remains. Western countries providing the tools necessary to support oppressive regimes is nothing new. You can reach back further if you want to the American companies manufacturing guns in the 19th century. My point is, this is hardly news, and it's depressing that there are people so ignorant of history and how the world works that they think this is somehow a "new" development, just because it's software instead of hardware.
IBM provided the hardware that the NAZIs used to run the concentration camps.
Those Holocaust Numbers? IBM serial numbers.
The west has ALWAYS made money supporting repressive regimes. It makes sense in a capitalistic sort of way. SOMEONE has to write the software, so the profits might as well go to a FREE country, Right?
They've learned that you can't survive, let alone thrive in American business for long without being evil, so they're looking to partner with AOL-Time-Warner, known masters at being evil, in order to have them do the dirty work.
Absolute brilliance. Someone must have gotten a nice bonus for that idea.
Oh! I just realized the best part. They're outsourcing their evil to AMERICAN workers, not an overseas seat shop, so even while outsourcing their evil, they themselves aren't being evil.
The market is ripe for any half witted twit who can code his or her way out of a paper bag. If you finished "Perl for Dummies" and understood the content, you already have the programming skills to run circles around most the current LMS vendors.
And trust me, writing a migration tool would make the sales process that much easier.
"Oh, you mean we won't have to enter all our course ware a second time? We can just let you do it and all the courses will just BE there?"
Trust me, this will blow the mind of many, and there will be some users who can't wrap their minds around the concept. A lot of people have gotten used to the concept of having to reload everything from scratch when switching LMS vendors.
Oh, and Lectora integration is a MUST, as well as SCORM and AICC compliance.
So if anyone needs a utility to migrate their course ware OUT of IntraLearn, let me know.
I've already written code for exporting IntraLearn courses form one server to another, and from IntraLearn to Lectora. I can't reuse that code for professional reasons, but there's nothing that would prevent me from using the knowledge I gained in the process to do another implementation.
IntraLearn, the LMS written in Cold Fusion that doesn't scale past 500 logins a day.
Well, not without a LOT of custom code by yours truly.
In 2004,they were STILL shipping a SQL Server based product without database indexes! Their lead developer had never HEARD of indexes!
Blind SQL writes, so if you try to add an identity column to the database, the program breaks. I never even knew you COULD write to a SQL table without specifying the columns, since it's such an incredibly bad idea to do so, but they did it in 90% of the queries.
Raw SQL errors sent to the users, NO error trapping.
No version control. Want to release a new version of a course? You can't fork off the old one, make the changes, and then replace the old one, you have to do it all manually.
Let's not forget the bug that would cause an 80% score on an exam to be randomly recorded as an 8%. Never happened to any other scores, but 80% passing grades routinely became 8% failing grades. I had to write custom code to get around this absurd bug. Mind you, this is a bug that was around for four years at least, and as far as I know, unpatched to this very day.
And forget having the system just GIVE you a list of all the studnets assigned to a course, you have to go into SQL for that.
The LMS market is full of scam artists who have a few years of teaching if that. Programmers are hired based on who will work for less and no other factors, and the "design" decisions of a man with no actual programming experience are considered gospel because "he used to work in corporate education."
And these guys are considered to be a GOOD LMS.
Make no mistake, this is a market ripe for the OSS picking, if the programmers can just get past the contacts that keep IntraLearn and their ilk in business.
Slashdot Mirror
there are a lot of Americans in this crowd.
Yes, you are the only one who thinks this is messed up.
Does that mean Russell Davies is to Dr. Who as Rick Berman is to Star Trek?
I'm very impressed by their server-foo.
They were down at the time I'd posted, but it looks like they weren't down for long.
I'm sorry, I'm just disturbed by the thought of being wang slash farked
Well, it may be one of the first comments that started with "In Soviet Russia..." that was relevant.
Hopefully, "In Soviet Russia" posts will continue to remain oddities. I don't like to contemplate the prospect of it becoming a popular theme. The fewer parallels we can find between the USA and Soviet Russia the better.
Between Fark.com and slashdot.org, the poor Penny Arcade server never had a chance.
/. Effect on the same day.
/. Fark.
Farked, and hit by the
And thus they have invented the
Poor Bastards
In Soviet Russia, anyone who owned a typewriter was required to send a sample page to the government.
The theory of course being that they would use it to try and track down any subversive content.
And now the US government has made it quick, easy and automated to do the same.
I want to know who the bastards are that are adding this technology to their printers so I can avoid them like the plague.
Yes, I know I could just not send in the registration card, but what if the government decided to crack down on those who critisize the war? Suddenly when they confiscate my printer, they can find out if any of the documents they've declared subversive came from my printer.
This is too Big Brother for my tastes.
I hate to say it, but if you "Just say no to MS" then all you have left is the RIM and Palm platforms for PDAs. While Palm has an arguably better interface, it's stability leaves much to be desired. You're crippling yourself by switching away from MS alternatives for the PDA market. Palm just isn't reliable enough for the enterprise.
The problem is, the Palm platform has been going downhill for ages.
The only reason they still get new customers is because of their brand name. As they spend that name recognition capital, they'll either fade away or be forced to refocus on quality.
I don't see them focusing on quality. Before long, the only reason left to buy a Palm will be "It's not from Microsoft" which is hardly a good reason to choose a product.
Palm has also said this was in the works for well over a year and a half, with no resolution. What gives that they finally got this out the door, all-be-it in a feature-missing version?
The stock price must be slipping. Since they don't have anything like a stable, reliable product to release, they have to announce a new feature.
If it works as well as the rest of the Palm OS, then we can expect it to crash regularly, and a non-trivial percentage of the e-mail to vanish into the ether.
Palms hardware is proven, as is Palm OS
Let me guess, you're using a Palm III or Palm V device, aren't you?
If so, then I could see your point, but if you're talking about the newer kit, then I'd have to ask what planet you're on, and how you get that unstable crap to sync without crashing and requiring a plethora of hardware resets.
Palm's strategy is simple. They used to make decent, reliable devices. Now, they just make crap that crashes on a regular basis and scrambles user data.
They had two options.
They could have rallied and done their best to return to the days of producing quality devices worth the money.
Instead, they chose to ride on the value of their brand name, coasting until they run out of steam.
The company is on a long, slow death march, and the quality of their recent products demonstrates that.
This is just another cynical attempt to delay the inevitable. They don't want to put REAL work or money into producing something good, so they toss some dollars at implementing something that will get press and sucker in a few more buyers.
And the massive vortex of SUCK that results will cause the PDA market to collapse back in upon itself.
Having used Palm Pilots for a few years, I can confidently say that anyone partnering with Palm on product development is clearly a nit-wit with no understanding of what quality hardware or software really is.
I'm a Palm user who plans to buy a Pocket PC device as my next PDA. I'd go into detail, but I've already made a number of posts on this site detailing WHY Palm Pilots are poorly conceived pieces of flotsam that should never be relied upon.
I've actually found that using my iPod to view my contacts is more reliable than the Palm Pilot. I learned form hard experience that if you enter data into your Palm Pilot and try to sync it, you stand a significant chance of losing that data.
Palm Pilot, for people who remember the Palm III line, and don't realize everything's been downhill from there.
The iTunes books are in a DRMed Apple format. You can only play them of five different computers, and on iPods that are properly configured to work with one of those computers.
It's all in the DRM baby.
Hello, I work for the RIAA.
Fair use is a myth. You are guilty of piracy.
Please send your check for $24,000 to the RIAA with the next 30 days, or we will initiate legal proceedings.
Well, ebay was nice while it lasted.
Wait, no it wasn't. It's full of con artists and idiots.
I had one twit who sent me a check, even though I said "Paypal only" in the auction, and hand wrote the shipping address. Thing was, it was too messy to read. All I could tell was that it was a different city than the return address on the letter.
I sent it back with a polite letter explaining the problem, asking her to send a typed or printed copy of the address.
The moron mailed back the exact same piece of paper.
I never did manage to get a shipping address out of her, or any kind of a reply. I ended up shredding the check and moving on with life, swallowing the $0.30 fee ebay charged me for the transaction..
Oh well, at least the twit didn't leave me any bad feedback.
Hmmm. Come to think about it, I probably don't want to deal with the consequences should I prove God exists. Leaving aside the atheists and agnostics who'll be pissed, can you imagine the fallout form all the religions that I'd just proved wrong?
"What do you mean there's PROOF that a God exists that's different than the one I believe in?"
I'd probably be MEETING God in short order.
Nothing against God, but I figure I'll be meeting him or her in the end anyhow, so there's no need to rush the encounter.
Know what I mean?
We can't use God's archives. "Separation of Church and State" and all that.
The fossil record however, might be usable.
We clearly have different sources on the matter.
IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation
Justice Delayed: IBM 's Collaboration with Nazi Germany
Profits uber Alles! American Corporations and Hitler
What are your sources? I'd be interested in reading some alternate interpretations of the existing documentation.
It's important to keep in mind that the IBM of today doesn't share much (if any) staff with the IBM of 1935. They aren't the same corporation at this point.
Regardless of the example I chose, my point remains. Western countries providing the tools necessary to support oppressive regimes is nothing new. You can reach back further if you want to the American companies manufacturing guns in the 19th century. My point is, this is hardly news, and it's depressing that there are people so ignorant of history and how the world works that they think this is somehow a "new" development, just because it's software instead of hardware.
IBM provided the hardware that the NAZIs used to run the concentration camps.
Those Holocaust Numbers? IBM serial numbers.
The west has ALWAYS made money supporting repressive regimes. It makes sense in a capitalistic sort of way. SOMEONE has to write the software, so the profits might as well go to a FREE country, Right?
Brilliant!
They've learned that you can't survive, let alone thrive in American business for long without being evil, so they're looking to partner with AOL-Time-Warner, known masters at being evil, in order to have them do the dirty work.
Absolute brilliance. Someone must have gotten a nice bonus for that idea.
Oh! I just realized the best part. They're outsourcing their evil to AMERICAN workers, not an overseas seat shop, so even while outsourcing their evil, they themselves aren't being evil.
You're right.
The market is ripe for any half witted twit who can code his or her way out of a paper bag. If you finished "Perl for Dummies" and understood the content, you already have the programming skills to run circles around most the current LMS vendors.
And trust me, writing a migration tool would make the sales process that much easier.
"Oh, you mean we won't have to enter all our course ware a second time? We can just let you do it and all the courses will just BE there?"
Trust me, this will blow the mind of many, and there will be some users who can't wrap their minds around the concept. A lot of people have gotten used to the concept of having to reload everything from scratch when switching LMS vendors.
Oh, and Lectora integration is a MUST, as well as SCORM and AICC compliance.
So if anyone needs a utility to migrate their course ware OUT of IntraLearn, let me know.
I've already written code for exporting IntraLearn courses form one server to another, and from IntraLearn to Lectora. I can't reuse that code for professional reasons, but there's nothing that would prevent me from using the knowledge I gained in the process to do another implementation.
On the Brute Squad? You ARE the brute squad!
IntraLearn, the LMS written in Cold Fusion that doesn't scale past 500 logins a day.
Well, not without a LOT of custom code by yours truly.
In 2004,they were STILL shipping a SQL Server based product without database indexes! Their lead developer had never HEARD of indexes!
Blind SQL writes, so if you try to add an identity column to the database, the program breaks. I never even knew you COULD write to a SQL table without specifying the columns, since it's such an incredibly bad idea to do so, but they did it in 90% of the queries.
Raw SQL errors sent to the users, NO error trapping.
No version control. Want to release a new version of a course? You can't fork off the old one, make the changes, and then replace the old one, you have to do it all manually.
Let's not forget the bug that would cause an 80% score on an exam to be randomly recorded as an 8%. Never happened to any other scores, but 80% passing grades routinely became 8% failing grades. I had to write custom code to get around this absurd bug. Mind you, this is a bug that was around for four years at least, and as far as I know, unpatched to this very day.
And forget having the system just GIVE you a list of all the studnets assigned to a course, you have to go into SQL for that.
The LMS market is full of scam artists who have a few years of teaching if that. Programmers are hired based on who will work for less and no other factors, and the "design" decisions of a man with no actual programming experience are considered gospel because "he used to work in corporate education."
And these guys are considered to be a GOOD LMS.
Make no mistake, this is a market ripe for the OSS picking, if the programmers can just get past the contacts that keep IntraLearn and their ilk in business.
And have better data integrity as a result.
Of course copying your address book is a bit of a pain...