These days you can't sunbathe in your backyard without appearing on Google Earth. Forget to draw a curtain and you might end up on Google StreetView. Giving you the chance to opt-out-after-the-fact is disingenuous.
We've seen people hugging, fondling, urinating, staring and even coming out of sex shops. Google doesn't give a toss (sic) about anyone else's privacy. Privacy laws were written in a time when you could wander behind the barn if you wanted a quiet conversation. These days, we have Google peeping and probing us, tracking everything they can about us. Privacy laws need to be rewritten to cater for the omniscient peeping-tom that is Google.
Google pretend there is no problem. Tell you what: If Larry Page and Sergey Brin install webcams in every room of their house so we can see them in the nude, urinating and making love (StreetView has already caught that) then their shrugs of "What's the big deal" might seem more believable.
> "Microsoft is currently exploring options for the future of ESP and will announce details at the appropriate time," Sarah Tatone, a Microsoft spokesperson told The Industry Standard.
Why do software companies always fire the programmers yet keep the PR people and the executives which have served them so badly?
* IT manager
* a US west coast design company
* a branch office in Beijing with 5 employees
Can't be that many of them... I reckon half an hour on Google and I can work out who you are...
> When I called the local office manager on this, he shrugged and replied, 'Well, every other shop here does it.' So I was wondering if there are any IT manager Slashdotters here in the the US
> It looks like the CEO would prefer to see me stay, as she is offering me ten percent of shares in the company in exchange for five additional years of my services
Your boss doesn't sound very bright. She's offering you a 10% share, in perpetuity, for just five years service? I have a friend who had a company who made a similar offer to keep a "valued employee", and when he eventually left to tour the world he expected the founders to bust their ass so he could collect dividend payments. He was a drain on the company. Another case: Anita Roddick, when she wanted to open the second body shop store, rather than borrow from the bank took a small capital-only injection from a friend; 44,000 pounds. She was saddled that for the entire existence of the company, and when she eventually sold that investment was worth something like 250,000,000 pounds. Great return for him, but in hindsight she should have borrowed.
Businesses should be very careful handing out shares, and that your boss is willing to go to such lengths to keep you doesn't reflect well on her. No employee is that important to a business. Yeah, I know you think you're hot, and maybe you are, but there are many, many hot people out there and rather than keep you an increasingly expensive employee, she should shake your hand, wish you well and find someone new.
Personal advice: Don't take it. If you stay, it'll be for money. That's not a bad thing given the current economic crisis, but you'll be in prison for five years and regret your decision. It's not a bad chance to take a chunk of your boss' business of course, but be warned: What my friend did with his leach shareholder? He shut down the company and started a new one, and advised me after that never to give away equity.
> It was limited to 800 x 600 resolution, classic mode only - no theming, only three applications running, and a network restricted to an internet connection, not home networking.
Ouch! Why would anyone bother with it? Presumably Microsoft think by splitting Windows into an absurd number of variations, they'll make more money. Does it? I remember lots of laptops sadly loaded with Windoze Home, but do you reckon anyone is going to pay for a Pro upgrade? No. They'll either keep it and get peed off about the reduced function, or borrow and load a copy of XP Pro instead. Why not? They've paid for it.
You really have to wonder what idiots at Microsoft think this stuff up? Presumably some idiot proposed crippling it to absurdity as "a way to combat piracy" and the co-idiots in the room nodded enthusiastically: "Hey! That'll work." They really needed someone, as Bill used to say, to tell them "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard. You're fired, and everyone who worked on Vista too." (I made up the last part, but it's true).
How do they choose these 'trusted' users? On many topics in Wikipedia a gauntlet is formed by a Wikithugs. They decide they own the topic, and sit there and revert every change that comes along for the most trite of reasons. Most of these translate to "I wrote this article and I don't want anyone to change it." You can revert it back yourself of course, but they'll just revert it back. And they have more time that you: they seem to have nothing better to do. Challenge their credentials and you'll be directed to some pretty Wikihomepage declaring all the wonderful Wikicliques they belong to. I've seen wikithugs sitting on insignificant topics, but on larger ones they form a circlejerk and jump to each others defenses. "Oh sure. Don't put down BasementDweller215 - they've been a Wikipedia editor for X years". Since these cliques are self-policing, there's a lot of back scratching and no reason for them to be responsible. Basically it smells of "We were here first - Keep out the Noobs."
It's why I don't waste my time editing Wikipedia any more. Why waste time researching and writing a change when it'll be reverted and re-reverted until you go up? Any system for choosing "trusted editors" from the wikithug crowd is doomed to fail. Hell. It would make the system even worse. Bad idea.
Our company's flagship product was written 15 years ago. When we did it, we had to choose a language. Nearly considered Pascal and all the other flavors of the month. C has its shortcomings for sure, but all these years later we're still here, it's still well supported and plenty of people know how to write it. Improvements like recompile-while-running, modern debuggers and error trapping have made it a much more productive environment.
Yes. It certainly has its flaws, but I don't think we could have made a better choice. If I had to pick another language to still be active in another 15 years, that would be it.
What sucked in this case was that GoDaddy handed over all those domains without a fight, but Network Solutions fought the suit for their customers and won. Network Soluions > GoDaddy.
Yeah; true. Pretty clear they were going to get rid of me, but I put myself in that position by doing such a good job of documenting and handing over a stable system. Ironic, huh? I've worked on some projects with seasoned contractors, and they're very good at stringing out what they do and looking sincere about it. (One admitted to me, months after a project ended, of course that is what they were doing.) You're right; It was the right thing to do, but in today's economic climate and especially with a family to support, I wouldn't do the same thing.
I've worked with some great companies where the employers respect their employees and vice versa; They tell you when the contract is going to end and there are no surprises. In theory you could walk out on them, but of course you don't. It's about mutual respect. In this case the company was stupid anyway: There were employees there who were as incompetent as hell but kept their job by not writing anything down. If that's the sort of mediocrity they want retain, that's their problem.
> As the inevitable cuts came, who do you think hung on to their job?
I was in a contract with a great boss where I had to educate someone as a backup and knew he would eventually become my replacement. Now I could have stonewalled and tricked him, but being a professional I documented everything to a high-standard, walked him through and mentored him well. I figured I'd already proved my worth to the firm, and anyway jobs weren't that hard to find.
So took an pre-agreed holiday, came back and was told my contract was canceled. As it turns out, jobs are no longer easy to find.
So I'd never do that again. It sucks, but if you have to choose between "doing the right thing" and survival, always choose survival.
Great Idea China. In the face of falling property prices, your economy slumping and people losing their jobs and riots growing... take away their porn.
BTW If anyone meets a Microsoft employee please take time to explain the URL concept to them and that it is possible to download something without six pages of JavaScript/ActiveX/Java.
Yeah, it doesn't work on Firefox. Why do you insist on putting all your eggs in one basket Microsoft, a la DirectX 10 and Vista?
However if you edit the download web page source you will find an embedded JavaScript link:
http://wb.dlservice.microsoft.com/download/....
copy and paste that and you'll get another web page telling you:
" If you have not already installed ActiveX control or the JavaTM applet, an information box will appear in your Microsoft Internet Explorer browser prompting you to install "ActiveX control:... If the Download Manager can not install the ActiveX control or the JavaTM applet in your browser, you may have system restrictions.
If you have system restrictions, please: * Download products using the Web Browser method * Contact your organizationâ(TM)s Administrator to download products using the Download Manager method"
Blah Blah Blah. Look, Microsoft. This is easy. You give us a link, and we download it. Why do you have to drown something AS SIMPLE AS DOWNLOADING A FILE UNDER TONNES OF YOUR INSECURE ACTIVEX RUBBISH or even Java? You've got a separate ProductID you assign people, so what is your problem here (beyond your own myopic bureaucratic stupidity?)
Well okay Microsoft. I can't be bothered wading through your hopeless web programmers inane crap, so I'll wait for the torrent to appear and use my ProductID with that.
PS. I tried Vista for two months, thought it was total crap deleted it and reinstalled XP. I gave you another chance but you're really trying my patience. Please fire everyone who worked on Vista (especially your marketing) and your goober web programmers. They are really getting on my nerves.
More proof that politicians pass laws to please their political donors and lobbyists, without understanding their implications. These infringement notices have been shown to be unreliable and easily spoofed.
So today's Political Enemy of the Internet Award goes to New Zealand's Judith Tizard, who joins Australia's Stephen Conroy and Britains Andy Burnham. I could handle it when all politicians did was rort the system, but this is getting really annoying. I don't recall voting for any of this stuff, and I'll put them last on the ballot next time.
> here are lots of ways of extending the number of regenerations too... implied... regeneration... Time Lords who are joined with time capsules... connected to the Eye of Harmony... the black hole... so the amount of energy
Here's an idea. We have a special-combo episode where the TARDIS meets The Enterprise whose crew beam aboard with Chief Scientific Officer Deus Ex Machina who adlibs technobabble, not just giving the doctor as many regens as the BBC needs but tying up all the plot holes since the series began. Everyone knows Tie ins help ratings and since Dr Who is increasingly a "Beautiful People" show, what about one with Bay Watch too?
Very True. Instead of charging you £10 a month for broadband, the BBC should instead be charging maybe £200 a month for selfish people who insist on having their programs delivered through the horrendously expensive terrestrial TV system?
But let's face it; Bureaucrats see it as their job to think of new ways to through levies, fees, taxes and charges at customers.
> I have several friends who have tried this over the years, and know other people who have tried this. The bottom line is: friendships can fail under the strain of a business relationship...
This is so true. I've worked on a number of projects with friends and have to conclude it's a bad idea. People, even those who hang out a lot and met in the same organization have very different expectations about how to go about work. Being friends, it's so much harder to confront the issues because you don't want to end up fighting them. Even if you agree lets be upfront as soon as we think there's a problem and we'll head it off, well, that doesn't work either. People hold it in.
Trick to resolving problems WITH ANYONE is you need to jump on them asap. Putting it off only makes it worse. Being friends, you put that off (and it gets worse) until one of you blows a fuse, then it's so much harder to undo the damage.
And hate to say it, but money changes most people. Sure there are people it doesn't, but at the moment my sample rate shows 100% and that includes some awfully nice people. One stage I was owed $100K by someone I thought was a friend. But when they had to decide between me and $100K, from their luxury waterfront beachhouse, well, Satan likes water views.
> where two friends created a business, had a falling out, and the business collapsed as a result.
I've never *lost* a friendship because of business. When it did go bad, we agreed to put it behind us and never do it again. That required a lot of forgiving in some cases, but learned the lesson.
I'm a C++head and I've a friend who is a Perlhead. One thing I really envy about Perl is the sense of community; you get the feeling they're all in it together, and CSPAN gives them a massive library of contributor functions. Stuff I have to write in C+++, he can just reach into CSPAN and find a module, well documented, all ready to go.
Now compare that with C++. We've finally got BOOST.ORG which is supposed to be C++'s answer to CSPAN, but its too little too late. Well, maybe not too little, but it's tiny. There's just too much function it doesn't have. So what can you do? If you need some function you can google around to find a library someone else has done, but since C++ never dictated things like geometry or template libraries (STL was an unpopular pig at first, so many codeshops rolled their own instead). Everything is different. The standard of documentation for open libraries isn't great; you're lucky if you get any doc at all, and usually you'll have a few poorly strung together test programs you need to reverse engineer. Despite POSIX, portability is still a problem. Microsoft C++ doesn't like GNU C++, and this affects packages which you wouldn't think would have any OS dependent code at all (e.g. NOVA).
But worst of all, what C/C++ code there is out there was smithed in the days of "I will get rich off this hundred line program ha ha royalty holidays forever". Nearly everything has a non-commercial clause. Even the most piddling things or everyday stuff like triangulation. Where does that leave you? Well you can get a payware library like Alan Murthra's Polygon Clipper library for which he charges a whopping $2K a license. Prices most of us out of the market (an educational, no-profit exemption is useless). ie. GTFO. So in C++, almost always, you'll find yourself rolling your own code. And when people roll libraries, they're seldom open-sourced. There are a few honourable exceptions; LIBPNG, LIBJPEG, LIBZIP, FFTW. But these are few and far between.
I truly envy Perl. I'd like to blame the C++ Community for not doing an equivalent of CSPAN sooner, but there is no community to blame. I welcome Boost, but it has such a long way to go. Really what C++ misses is community.
These Bail outs are out of control. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd just bailed out Australian Car Dealers to the tune of $2B -- yes! That's car salesman! -- , hot on the heals of an $6B Bailout of Australia's world famous COUGH COUGH car industry. Not that America's $15B car industry is any more deserving. Oh and he just bailed out a failed child car company to the tune of $40M, but no one noticed. Hey real estate agents and IT workers are hurting too. What about bailing out us?
Now I understand bailing out banks via FIDC, but now we're bailing out investment banks too, and now of all things DRAM Makers? Because they overmanufactured? There comes a time to let nature take its course and let more efficient *smarter* companies rise from the ashes. Why are we propping up dinosaurs? With taxpayer dollars at that?
I really don't get the band thing. If you have to get a band to get people to attend a political rally, you might as well be offering them free food and beer, or why not just give them the money directly. When you say 'Look how many people attended our rally' the powers that be can sniff 'so what. they were there for the band.' We live in a difficult age. People are apathetic as hell, and our politicians have got manipulating us to such a fine art they can do stupid stuff like the Aussie Internet Filter (or Wars), and still get re-elected.
BTW in Australia two parties: Liberal (Centre-right) and Labor (Centre-right). They're both so similar you'll be hard pressed to tell the difference. Liberal is supposed to be conservative and the party of business, but that's strictly big business. Labor is from the trade union movement, but they're now so right wing it hardly matters. (the minister in charge of censoring the internet is an ex-trade union official.) If you're a conservative you could join either one and it wouldn't matter.
Turn out was disappointing. The Brisbane protest was probably the most successful, but of the thousand people on Facebook who said they'd attend only a hundred turned up. Kudos to those who did.
The Sydney rally was a disaster. Poorly organized, it was supposed to start at 11AM but didn't start till 11:40AM. When they did it was a very poor speech by of all people some wannabe-politician from the "Sex Party", and by some dufus with a guitar who thought this was going to be his break into the music world. Those few who attended just wandered off.
> there was 1/2 a million for the anti Iraq rallies, I guess since the public couldn't stop the government on that one they just can't be bothered anymore.
True. The people got out and protested but the then Howard government ignored them. The people said "well, what can you do?", went home and re-elected Howard anyway. LOL Western Two-party Democracy.
But back to the protests... the organizers of the Sydney one should be shot. I went to a few of a the war rallies after the big one and they were a poor effort: organized by students whose egos were overblown at their now found (and very short lived) celebrity. If they try these anti-censorship rallies again, they need some decent organizers. Get rid of the hangers on like marginal parties no one will ever vote for and any wannabe musician who is friends of the organizer. Get someone from the Greens or even the Liberal Party to speak. My enemy's enemy is my friend if you will. This was an opportunity lost through sheer ego. Sure the Greens/Liberals would have got on board if anyone asked them. Next time get EFA: they've got far more experience at lobbying than the Sex Party clowns do.
I noticed the protests received marginal coverage from the mainstream media (at least for the Sydney protest their lack of coverage was deserved). They're probably hoping the net dies anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
These days you can't sunbathe in your backyard without appearing on Google Earth. Forget to draw a curtain and you might end up on Google StreetView. Giving you the chance to opt-out-after-the-fact is disingenuous.
We've seen people hugging, fondling, urinating, staring and even coming out of sex shops. Google doesn't give a toss (sic) about anyone else's privacy. Privacy laws were written in a time when you could wander behind the barn if you wanted a quiet conversation. These days, we have Google peeping and probing us, tracking everything they can about us. Privacy laws need to be rewritten to cater for the omniscient peeping-tom that is Google.
Google pretend there is no problem. Tell you what: If Larry Page and Sergey Brin install webcams in every room of their house so we can see them in the nude, urinating and making love (StreetView has already caught that) then their shrugs of "What's the big deal" might seem more believable.
> "Microsoft is currently exploring options for the future of ESP and will announce details at the appropriate time," Sarah Tatone, a Microsoft spokesperson told The Industry Standard.
Why do software companies always fire the programmers yet keep the PR people and the executives which have served them so badly?
Well, I don't. But Let's see...
* IT manager
* a US west coast design company
* a branch office in Beijing with 5 employees
Can't be that many of them... I reckon half an hour on Google and I can work out who you are...
> When I called the local office manager on this, he shrugged and replied, 'Well, every other shop here does it.' So I was wondering if there are any IT manager Slashdotters here in the the US
Oh he knows who you are already...
Good luck in your new career.
> It looks like the CEO would prefer to see me stay, as she is offering me ten percent of shares in the company in exchange for five additional years of my services
Your boss doesn't sound very bright. She's offering you a 10% share, in perpetuity, for just five years service? I have a friend who had a company who made a similar offer to keep a "valued employee", and when he eventually left to tour the world he expected the founders to bust their ass so he could collect dividend payments. He was a drain on the company. Another case: Anita Roddick, when she wanted to open the second body shop store, rather than borrow from the bank took a small capital-only injection from a friend; 44,000 pounds. She was saddled that for the entire existence of the company, and when she eventually sold that investment was worth something like 250,000,000 pounds. Great return for him, but in hindsight she should have borrowed.
Businesses should be very careful handing out shares, and that your boss is willing to go to such lengths to keep you doesn't reflect well on her. No employee is that important to a business. Yeah, I know you think you're hot, and maybe you are, but there are many, many hot people out there and rather than keep you an increasingly expensive employee, she should shake your hand, wish you well and find someone new.
Personal advice: Don't take it. If you stay, it'll be for money. That's not a bad thing given the current economic crisis, but you'll be in prison for five years and regret your decision. It's not a bad chance to take a chunk of your boss' business of course, but be warned: What my friend did with his leach shareholder? He shut down the company and started a new one, and advised me after that never to give away equity.
> It was limited to 800 x 600 resolution, classic mode only - no theming, only three applications running, and a network restricted to an internet connection, not home networking.
Ouch! Why would anyone bother with it? Presumably Microsoft think by splitting Windows into an absurd number of variations, they'll make more money. Does it? I remember lots of laptops sadly loaded with Windoze Home, but do you reckon anyone is going to pay for a Pro upgrade? No. They'll either keep it and get peed off about the reduced function, or borrow and load a copy of XP Pro instead. Why not? They've paid for it.
You really have to wonder what idiots at Microsoft think this stuff up? Presumably some idiot proposed crippling it to absurdity as "a way to combat piracy" and the co-idiots in the room nodded enthusiastically: "Hey! That'll work." They really needed someone, as Bill used to say, to tell them "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard. You're fired, and everyone who worked on Vista too." (I made up the last part, but it's true).
How do they choose these 'trusted' users? On many topics in Wikipedia a gauntlet is formed by a Wikithugs. They decide they own the topic, and sit there and revert every change that comes along for the most trite of reasons. Most of these translate to "I wrote this article and I don't want anyone to change it." You can revert it back yourself of course, but they'll just revert it back. And they have more time that you: they seem to have nothing better to do. Challenge their credentials and you'll be directed to some pretty Wikihomepage declaring all the wonderful Wikicliques they belong to. I've seen wikithugs sitting on insignificant topics, but on larger ones they form a circlejerk and jump to each others defenses. "Oh sure. Don't put down BasementDweller215 - they've been a Wikipedia editor for X years". Since these cliques are self-policing, there's a lot of back scratching and no reason for them to be responsible. Basically it smells of "We were here first - Keep out the Noobs."
It's why I don't waste my time editing Wikipedia any more. Why waste time researching and writing a change when it'll be reverted and re-reverted until you go up? Any system for choosing "trusted editors" from the wikithug crowd is doomed to fail. Hell. It would make the system even worse. Bad idea.
Our company's flagship product was written 15 years ago. When we did it, we had to choose a language. Nearly considered Pascal and all the other flavors of the month. C has its shortcomings for sure, but all these years later we're still here, it's still well supported and plenty of people know how to write it. Improvements like recompile-while-running, modern debuggers and error trapping have made it a much more productive environment.
Yes. It certainly has its flaws, but I don't think we could have made a better choice. If I had to pick another language to still be active in another 15 years, that would be it.
What sucked in this case was that GoDaddy handed over all those domains without a fight, but Network Solutions fought the suit for their customers and won. Network Soluions > GoDaddy.
http://www.gambling911.com/gambling-news/kudos-network-solutions-standing-online-gambling-sites-100708.html
Your situation sounds very similar.
Yeah; true. Pretty clear they were going to get rid of me, but I put myself in that position by doing such a good job of documenting and handing over a stable system. Ironic, huh? I've worked on some projects with seasoned contractors, and they're very good at stringing out what they do and looking sincere about it. (One admitted to me, months after a project ended, of course that is what they were doing.) You're right; It was the right thing to do, but in today's economic climate and especially with a family to support, I wouldn't do the same thing.
I've worked with some great companies where the employers respect their employees and vice versa; They tell you when the contract is going to end and there are no surprises. In theory you could walk out on them, but of course you don't. It's about mutual respect. In this case the company was stupid anyway: There were employees there who were as incompetent as hell but kept their job by not writing anything down. If that's the sort of mediocrity they want retain, that's their problem.
> As the inevitable cuts came, who do you think hung on to their job?
I was in a contract with a great boss where I had to educate someone as a backup and knew he would eventually become my replacement. Now I could have stonewalled and tricked him, but being a professional I documented everything to a high-standard, walked him through and mentored him well. I figured I'd already proved my worth to the firm, and anyway jobs weren't that hard to find.
So took an pre-agreed holiday, came back and was told my contract was canceled. As it turns out, jobs are no longer easy to find.
So I'd never do that again. It sucks, but if you have to choose between "doing the right thing" and survival, always choose survival.
Great Idea China. In the face of falling property prices, your economy slumping and people losing their jobs and riots growing... take away their porn.
http://www.propertywire.com/news/asia/property-prices-fell-sharply-china-2008-200901072355.html http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jYY3ugKb9diKGictWunUrDVu-aBw http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/07012009/323/china-fears-recession-riots-europe-joblessness-grows.html http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/20/china.jobs/index.html http://uk.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUKPEK226188 http://libcom.org/news/chinese-factory-workers-riot-26112008
Hey Thanks!
BTW If anyone meets a Microsoft employee please take time to explain the URL concept to them and that it is possible to download something without six pages of JavaScript/ActiveX/Java.
However if you edit the download web page source you will find an embedded JavaScript link: http://wb.dlservice.microsoft.com/download/.... copy and paste that and you'll get another web page telling you:
" If you have not already installed ActiveX control or the JavaTM applet, an information box will appear in your Microsoft Internet Explorer browser prompting you to install "ActiveX control:... If the Download Manager can not install the ActiveX control or the JavaTM applet in your browser, you may have system restrictions. If you have system restrictions, please: * Download products using the Web Browser method * Contact your organizationâ(TM)s Administrator to download products using the Download Manager method"
Blah Blah Blah. Look, Microsoft. This is easy. You give us a link, and we download it. Why do you have to drown something AS SIMPLE AS DOWNLOADING A FILE UNDER TONNES OF YOUR INSECURE ACTIVEX RUBBISH or even Java? You've got a separate ProductID you assign people, so what is your problem here (beyond your own myopic bureaucratic stupidity?)
Well okay Microsoft. I can't be bothered wading through your hopeless web programmers inane crap, so I'll wait for the torrent to appear and use my ProductID with that.
PS. I tried Vista for two months, thought it was total crap deleted it and reinstalled XP. I gave you another chance but you're really trying my patience. Please fire everyone who worked on Vista (especially your marketing) and your goober web programmers. They are really getting on my nerves.
> Let's put the blame squarely where it lies... on the stupid freakin' parents who were letting a 6-year-old play GTA!
That's terrible. Next thing he'll stop paying his hookers.
My family was so poor that if I wanted to play GTA I had to steal a real car.
I think he does... From the horse's mouth: http://openidexplained.com/ "With OpenID you only have to remember one username and one password."
More proof that politicians pass laws to please their political donors and lobbyists, without understanding their implications. These infringement notices have been shown to be unreliable and easily spoofed.
http://dmca.cs.washington.edu/
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080605-study-paints-grim-picture-of-automated-dmca-notice-accuracy.html
http://torrentfreak.com/study-reveals-reckless-anti-piracy-antics-080605/
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/the-inexact-science-behind-dmca-takedown-notices/
So now any New Zealander can have their internet connection cut if anyone knows their IP address: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/95089
So today's Political Enemy of the Internet Award goes to New Zealand's Judith Tizard, who joins Australia's Stephen Conroy and Britains Andy Burnham. I could handle it when all politicians did was rort the system, but this is getting really annoying. I don't recall voting for any of this stuff, and I'll put them last on the ballot next time.
> here are lots of ways of extending the number of regenerations too ... implied ... regeneration ... Time Lords who are joined with time capsules ... connected to the Eye of Harmony ... the black hole ... so the amount of energy
Here's an idea. We have a special-combo episode where the TARDIS meets The Enterprise whose crew beam aboard with Chief Scientific Officer Deus Ex Machina who adlibs technobabble, not just giving the doctor as many regens as the BBC needs but tying up all the plot holes since the series began. Everyone knows Tie ins help ratings and since Dr Who is increasingly a "Beautiful People" show, what about one with Bay Watch too?
> If anyone knows why my comments recently started appearing with score 1, despite "Excellent" karma, I'd love to hear.
You should call your mother.
I always figured one day humans would evolve into machines, and machines would continue to evolve.
But Vista changed my opinion about that.
Very True. Instead of charging you £10 a month for broadband, the BBC should instead be charging maybe £200 a month for selfish people who insist on having their programs delivered through the horrendously expensive terrestrial TV system?
But let's face it; Bureaucrats see it as their job to think of new ways to through levies, fees, taxes and charges at customers.
> I have several friends who have tried this over the years, and know other people who have tried this. The bottom line is: friendships can fail under the strain of a business relationship ...
This is so true. I've worked on a number of projects with friends and have to conclude it's a bad idea. People, even those who hang out a lot and met in the same organization have very different expectations about how to go about work. Being friends, it's so much harder to confront the issues because you don't want to end up fighting them. Even if you agree lets be upfront as soon as we think there's a problem and we'll head it off, well, that doesn't work either. People hold it in.
Trick to resolving problems WITH ANYONE is you need to jump on them asap. Putting it off only makes it worse. Being friends, you put that off (and it gets worse) until one of you blows a fuse, then it's so much harder to undo the damage.
And hate to say it, but money changes most people. Sure there are people it doesn't, but at the moment my sample rate shows 100% and that includes some awfully nice people. One stage I was owed $100K by someone I thought was a friend. But when they had to decide between me and $100K, from their luxury waterfront beachhouse, well, Satan likes water views.
> where two friends created a business, had a falling out, and the business collapsed as a result.
I've never *lost* a friendship because of business. When it did go bad, we agreed to put it behind us and never do it again. That required a lot of forgiving in some cases, but learned the lesson.
I'm a C++head and I've a friend who is a Perlhead. One thing I really envy about Perl is the sense of community; you get the feeling they're all in it together, and CSPAN gives them a massive library of contributor functions. Stuff I have to write in C+++, he can just reach into CSPAN and find a module, well documented, all ready to go.
Now compare that with C++. We've finally got BOOST.ORG which is supposed to be C++'s answer to CSPAN, but its too little too late. Well, maybe not too little, but it's tiny. There's just too much function it doesn't have. So what can you do? If you need some function you can google around to find a library someone else has done, but since C++ never dictated things like geometry or template libraries (STL was an unpopular pig at first, so many codeshops rolled their own instead). Everything is different. The standard of documentation for open libraries isn't great; you're lucky if you get any doc at all, and usually you'll have a few poorly strung together test programs you need to reverse engineer. Despite POSIX, portability is still a problem. Microsoft C++ doesn't like GNU C++, and this affects packages which you wouldn't think would have any OS dependent code at all (e.g. NOVA).
But worst of all, what C/C++ code there is out there was smithed in the days of "I will get rich off this hundred line program ha ha royalty holidays forever". Nearly everything has a non-commercial clause. Even the most piddling things or everyday stuff like triangulation. Where does that leave you? Well you can get a payware library like Alan Murthra's Polygon Clipper library for which he charges a whopping $2K a license. Prices most of us out of the market (an educational, no-profit exemption is useless). ie. GTFO. So in C++, almost always, you'll find yourself rolling your own code. And when people roll libraries, they're seldom open-sourced. There are a few honourable exceptions; LIBPNG, LIBJPEG, LIBZIP, FFTW. But these are few and far between.
I truly envy Perl. I'd like to blame the C++ Community for not doing an equivalent of CSPAN sooner, but there is no community to blame. I welcome Boost, but it has such a long way to go. Really what C++ misses is community.
These Bail outs are out of control. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd just bailed out Australian Car Dealers to the tune of $2B -- yes! That's car salesman! -- , hot on the heals of an $6B Bailout of Australia's world famous COUGH COUGH car industry. Not that America's $15B car industry is any more deserving. Oh and he just bailed out a failed child car company to the tune of $40M, but no one noticed. Hey real estate agents and IT workers are hurting too. What about bailing out us?
Now I understand bailing out banks via FIDC, but now we're bailing out investment banks too, and now of all things DRAM Makers? Because they overmanufactured? There comes a time to let nature take its course and let more efficient *smarter* companies rise from the ashes. Why are we propping up dinosaurs? With taxpayer dollars at that?
I really don't get the band thing. If you have to get a band to get people to attend a political rally, you might as well be offering them free food and beer, or why not just give them the money directly. When you say 'Look how many people attended our rally' the powers that be can sniff 'so what. they were there for the band.' We live in a difficult age. People are apathetic as hell, and our politicians have got manipulating us to such a fine art they can do stupid stuff like the Aussie Internet Filter (or Wars), and still get re-elected. BTW in Australia two parties: Liberal (Centre-right) and Labor (Centre-right). They're both so similar you'll be hard pressed to tell the difference. Liberal is supposed to be conservative and the party of business, but that's strictly big business. Labor is from the trade union movement, but they're now so right wing it hardly matters. (the minister in charge of censoring the internet is an ex-trade union official.) If you're a conservative you could join either one and it wouldn't matter.
Turn out was disappointing. The Brisbane protest was probably the most successful, but of the thousand people on Facebook who said they'd attend only a hundred turned up. Kudos to those who did.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/rally-rejects-rudds-internet-filter/2008/12/13/1228585168416.html
The Sydney rally was a disaster. Poorly organized, it was supposed to start at 11AM but didn't start till 11:40AM. When they did it was a very poor speech by of all people some wannabe-politician from the "Sex Party", and by some dufus with a guitar who thought this was going to be his break into the music world. Those few who attended just wandered off.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1102985&p=35
> there was 1/2 a million for the anti Iraq rallies, I guess since the public couldn't stop the government on that one they just can't be bothered anymore.
True. The people got out and protested but the then Howard government ignored them. The people said "well, what can you do?", went home and re-elected Howard anyway. LOL Western Two-party Democracy.
But back to the protests... the organizers of the Sydney one should be shot. I went to a few of a the war rallies after the big one and they were a poor effort: organized by students whose egos were overblown at their now found (and very short lived) celebrity. If they try these anti-censorship rallies again, they need some decent organizers. Get rid of the hangers on like marginal parties no one will ever vote for and any wannabe musician who is friends of the organizer. Get someone from the Greens or even the Liberal Party to speak. My enemy's enemy is my friend if you will. This was an opportunity lost through sheer ego. Sure the Greens/Liberals would have got on board if anyone asked them. Next time get EFA: they've got far more experience at lobbying than the Sex Party clowns do.
I noticed the protests received marginal coverage from the mainstream media (at least for the Sydney protest their lack of coverage was deserved). They're probably hoping the net dies anyway.