Re:Wow, they requested this?
on
Spam Bits
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· Score: 1
Who with an ounce of sense would request any sort of e-mail promotion, given the tendency those things have to multiply of those accord? Don't answer that.
I do, when they're giving me coupons for things I'm going to buy anyway, but having used the same email address for a bajillion years, I'm not especially concerned about *more* spam (if they try to sell my address, seems likely any given buyer will say "rats, already got that one...")
I do tag each address so I'll know who violated their privacy agreement, and so far I haven't seen any. Of course, I'm dealing with the online versions of brick-and-mortar companies, so in theory they're capable of making money without underhanded tactics like that (at least, no *new* ones). There's always the chance they'll farm it out to somebody less reputable, or that they'll screw up their opt-in-or-out stuff, but so far it hasn't happened that I can tell.
wget's no more a robot than, say, Firefox is, though.
Some days I need a longer delay than 20 seconds before posting. That should read something more like "wget's *not necessarily* more a robot..."
(It's a fuzzy line, though, between "manually-run" processes and "things that should respect robots.txt". I've seen idiotically-caching browsers cause more havoc than most true robots.)
wget's no more a robot than, say, Firefox is, though. You can *incorporate* wget into a robot more easily than you can Firefox, but that's not the same.
I prefer the opt in model for unsolicitated email rather than the opt out model for spam telephone calls in any case.
I agree, and would like to someday see the phone DNC list go opt-out as well... but hey, one step at a time.
OTOH, when you realize the amount of unsolicited software (read: spyware) that gets loaded on (nontechnical) people's PCs, you start to wonder if they'd manage *not* to opt-in.
Come to that, I know people who willingly sign up for uproar.com stuff, considering the resulting spam "worth it." I don't actually think a required opt-in would hurt the spammers as much as they'd like us to think it would.
Its a pity however that a large and powerfull beast with teeth and claws to match, hasnt found some justification for defenestrating cold telephone callers.
The do-not-call list seems to be working pretty well over here, FWIW. I'm not ecstatic about the exceptions, since I still get the occasional "survey," but it's nothing like it used to be.
which is less stable, less compatible and less resource-efficient than O2k
My crufty old P133 runs OpenOffice just fine, more efficiently than Word97 (and I'd be really surprised to learn the O2K is *more* resource-efficient than an older version...) Less compatible? I haven't had any trouble with any Word docs anybody sends me (though they do tend to have trouble with sxw docs I send *them* when I forget to do a save-as).
I think we've discovered yet another Common Geek Trait. I read the dictionary, too, same as another post has mentioned. And yeah, I seldom actually read the encyclopedia straight through because of all the cross-references.
In fact, despite the web and all its wonders, there's a 1976 World Book set (along with ten or fifteen years' worth of Yearbooks) mostly scattered around the computer room. It's a bit dated, but still interesting...
Avalon Hill had some decent stuff, true... but they're gone now. All the good games are coming out of Germany these days, seems like.
(Which is annoying, since both sides of the family don't quite grasp anything beyond "They like games! In boxes!" and so we have a whole shelf of unopened "party games," because that's what's widely available in the US. Sigh.)
Actually I'm sure it has more to do with board games sucking when compared to video games.
American board games (generally) suck. Settlers of Catan, Carcassone, things like that... those are much better. Only American board game I can think of that's any good is RoboRally. Don't even get me started on "party games"... with the possible exception of Balderdash, with the right crowd.
The problem with board games is you gotta have enough people. Most people are too busy.
Re:Cha ching, reloaded.
on
Gates on Spam
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· Score: 1
won't it do the same for legitimate mass-mailing efforts as well?
Mod me redundant because I say a variant on this theme every time this comes up anymore, but...
Speaking as a smallish mass-mailer (majordomo-style mailing lists, mostly under 30-40 subscribers), in a way, it's not going to hurt us any more than spam already does. People change their email address more often than their underwear and forget to update their subscriptions, they forget how to unsubscribe and decide we're spamming them, they forget to put us in their whitelist and can't figure out why they don't receive our mail, et infinite cetera.
We're looking at all sorts of alternate delivery routes... right now, I'm putting the finishing touches on a critter that supports reading the group messages by mail, *or* NNTP, *or* web forum (more like a web-based NNTP server that can display an entire thread at once), and we'll probably have RSS feeds in the mix as well. Heck, I'll code in an IM version too if I can figure out how.
Far as the legitimate mass-mailer is concerned, at least those targeting a non-tech audience, email is darn close to dead already.
They teach "Propaganda 101" in 'Rhode Island Schools'?
They did in at least one Indiana school when I was growing up. Part of Social Studies, I think, though it might have been part of the Reading curriculum (it's been a lot of years, okay?)
Yes, but it leaves the do-it-yourselfer in the lurch.
Sort of. Around here the DIYer has to have it inspected by a licensed electrician anyway, so they're already in the lurch, as it were.
And yeah, it certainly seems to me that the NFPA really ought to be a government agency anyway. But at least it's a non-profit.
Saying that you have to comply to a tome of standards (or else the inspector can tell you you're in violation of code, section xyz, and nothing more) without the standards being freely available is BS.
I would hope that at the least you can bop down to your local government offices (at whatever level the law is set) and look at *their* copy. It *ought* to work that way, at least (call me an idealist).
Some laws are copyrighted, and you need to pay hundreds of dollars just to get a copy of that law.
Not quite.
The laws themselves aren't copyrighted, but they may say things like "we incorporate National Electric Code 99 by reference." NEC 99 is copyrighted, and that's what you have to pay to get a copy of.
The effect is the same, of course, but it's not as if a government can run around copyrighting laws willy-nilly and then busting you for violating them. If you're an electrician, you pretty much had to have access to a copy of NEC 99 to get certified in the first place, so it's not really a hugely onerous requirement.
They are... from state to state, even. But in any case, legally recognized unions can legally strike in the US, at least under legally mandated conditions. ("Wildcat strikes" are another matter.)
I've never worked in a union shop, so that's about the extent of my knowledge... other than when the machinist's union at Boeing settles in for a protracted strike, it's a great time to shop the classifieds for a used boat, motorcycle, plasma TV or other big-ticket luxury item.
Re:I'm not trolling, really...
on
Postfix
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· Score: 4, Interesting
We bought the book, since we're switching from Sendmail to Postfix Real Soon Now, and you're right. We really didn't need it. "Thin on details" meant, for me, "thin on all the details that were the whole reason for buying the book instead of just reading MAN PAGES. GEEZ!"
It's a nice, well-written book. It just should have been "Learning Postfix." And then I would have known not to buy it.
"Practical mod_perl" is another misnamed book. It's really "Practical[ly everything you could ever need to know about running an Internet server that happens to have] mod_perl [on it.]" Heck, I bet it'll tell me how to run Postfix in the next chapter or so. In more depth than the Postfix book.
I wonder if Tom Galvin and Darl spend late nights together working on clever metaphors to use in press releases related to their lawsuits...
Well, considering that the expression "nibbled to death by ducks" isn't anything new, I'd say not.
No, wait. If he's learning from Darl, then next thing we're going to see from Verisign is a lawsuit against Robert Campbell, J. Michael Straczynksi, and anyone else who hasn't paid $699 to use the expression...
Two sheets of bounty with a little Pledge sprayed between makes an excellent, cheap replacement for those damn swifter rags.
So does a damp paper towel. (I'm *really* cheap, I guess.)
Unfortunately, most of the time I'm wanting the fur-collecting capability of the dry ones (I have a German Shepherd Dog and a whole lotta laminate flooring... )
What I really need is a Roomba to hack. But like I said... I'm *really* cheap, I guess.
He wasn't *my* boss (I said "his IT people," not "my IT people"), I worked for a support company. So while we mocked the customers' decisions, provided they weren't *so* bad we couldn't fix them, bad decisions were actually better for us. If they'd made the right decision in the first place, they wouldn't have even hired us because their POS vendor would have done the job...
If someone could break into an ATM and install a camera and reader, why not just take the money inside instead of leaving all that gear around?
Aside from the fact that skimmers generally don't involve getting into the ATM at all, "getting into" the ATM is quite a bit different from getting into the cash safe inside. In fact, in any case where the ATM is serviced by an armored-car service, generally the owning bank can open the ATM but even they can't open the cash safe.
When I worked at the bank, we had someone take an ax to one of our brand-new ATMs. It was annoying all around because on his side, (1) it wasn't live yet, so there wasn't any money to steal, (2) he couldn't get into the safe anyway, (3) he cut himself trying; and on our side (1) the ATM itself was a loss, and worth more than the amount of money it could hold, (2) we'd *just* finished configuring and testing it and now had to start over, and (3) the video camera wasn't live yet so we didn't get to see the guy. (We did have some nice blood samples, and bloody fingerprints, but I never heard if anybody got caught/charged.)
If you're going to go to the trouble to tell people that POS is not an acronym for piece of shit, you could at least have mentioned that it does does stand for Point of Sale (in this case)
If you've ever had to support them (particularly those that some PHB has picked out without consulting his IT people), you'll know that that's generally a fully dual-meaning acronym.
For many, the answer to these questions has to do with the likelihood that SCO might succeed in its legal endeavors. It's like basing the decision to get collision insurance for your car on the likelihood that you're going to get into a fender bender while traveling down a desolate stretch of highway.
That is to say, he doesn't sound like he thinks SCO might succeed (it's a "desolate stretch of highway"), but that perhaps you should get indemnification *before* more "traffic" (somebody with a legit claim... say, somebody with a "defensive" patent...) comes along.
What the hell was he doing in Vegas? Doesn't the "C" in "CHiPs" stand for "California"? And what's this about a car? Has he lost his bike?
He had a Trans Am off-duty. (As was hammered into my head by a CHiPS-fanatic best friend. I actually considered buying one of the after-market flaming-chicken stickers to put on her (parent's) Pinto, but on measuring it I found out the wingtips would have wrapped onto the fenders. I did consider doing it anyway.)
Especially true in the AS/400 world. My boss (for a very short while) was an accountant-prematurely-turned SVP, and was more-than-slightly intimidated by IT people. When I hired a new manager and, in quick succession, one contract cabler and two IBM CE's came in and said "Steve! Howinnahecka you doin!" the accountant started giving him some really weird looks. "You know Steve?" The cabler (who'd been brought in by the builder, not me) pointed out that he'd known not only Steve but me as well, and the accountant started to look worried. I gave him my best surprised look and said didn't all *accountants* know each other and have secret handshakes and stuff?
Poor guy. He may have been qualified to deal with the company books and stuff, but he was definitely not prepared for rambunctious IT personnel.
Keeping it on-topic, that's one of the anecdotes you generally *don't* want to share in an interview. It's often a fine line between giving a legitimate reason for leaving a company, and trash-talking them. You need to do the former, but doing the latter (or giving the appearance of doing so) is generally a sign you're not going to get the job.
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Who with an ounce of sense would request any sort of e-mail promotion, given the tendency those things have to multiply of those accord? Don't answer that.
I do, when they're giving me coupons for things I'm going to buy anyway, but having used the same email address for a bajillion years, I'm not especially concerned about *more* spam (if they try to sell my address, seems likely any given buyer will say "rats, already got that one...")
I do tag each address so I'll know who violated their privacy agreement, and so far I haven't seen any. Of course, I'm dealing with the online versions of brick-and-mortar companies, so in theory they're capable of making money without underhanded tactics like that (at least, no *new* ones). There's always the chance they'll farm it out to somebody less reputable, or that they'll screw up their opt-in-or-out stuff, but so far it hasn't happened that I can tell.
wget's no more a robot than, say, Firefox is, though.
Some days I need a longer delay than 20 seconds before posting. That should read something more like "wget's *not necessarily* more a robot..."
(It's a fuzzy line, though, between "manually-run" processes and "things that should respect robots.txt". I've seen idiotically-caching browsers cause more havoc than most true robots.)
wget's no more a robot than, say, Firefox is, though. You can *incorporate* wget into a robot more easily than you can Firefox, but that's not the same.
I prefer the opt in model for unsolicitated email rather than the opt out model for spam telephone calls in any case.
I agree, and would like to someday see the phone DNC list go opt-out as well... but hey, one step at a time.
OTOH, when you realize the amount of unsolicited software (read: spyware) that gets loaded on (nontechnical) people's PCs, you start to wonder if they'd manage *not* to opt-in.
Come to that, I know people who willingly sign up for uproar.com stuff, considering the resulting spam "worth it." I don't actually think a required opt-in would hurt the spammers as much as they'd like us to think it would.
Its a pity however that a large and powerfull beast with teeth and claws to match, hasnt found some justification for defenestrating cold telephone callers.
The do-not-call list seems to be working pretty well over here, FWIW. I'm not ecstatic about the exceptions, since I still get the occasional "survey," but it's nothing like it used to be.
which is less stable, less compatible and less resource-efficient than O2k
My crufty old P133 runs OpenOffice just fine, more efficiently than Word97 (and I'd be really surprised to learn the O2K is *more* resource-efficient than an older version...) Less compatible? I haven't had any trouble with any Word docs anybody sends me (though they do tend to have trouble with sxw docs I send *them* when I forget to do a save-as).
I think we've discovered yet another Common Geek Trait. I read the dictionary, too, same as another post has mentioned. And yeah, I seldom actually read the encyclopedia straight through because of all the cross-references.
In fact, despite the web and all its wonders, there's a 1976 World Book set (along with ten or fifteen years' worth of Yearbooks) mostly scattered around the computer room. It's a bit dated, but still interesting...
Avalon Hill had some decent stuff, true... but they're gone now. All the good games are coming out of Germany these days, seems like.
(Which is annoying, since both sides of the family don't quite grasp anything beyond "They like games! In boxes!" and so we have a whole shelf of unopened "party games," because that's what's widely available in the US. Sigh.)
Being the nerd that I was, I would randomly pick a volume and then random turn to a page and read an article about something.
I used to do that. Drove my younger sister nuts.
"What are you reading?"
"M."
"You're just *reading* the whole thing?"
"Yep. I really liked 'L'. This is the sequel."
"You are SO WEIRD!"
Actually I'm sure it has more to do with board games sucking when compared to video games.
American board games (generally) suck. Settlers of Catan, Carcassone, things like that... those are much better. Only American board game I can think of that's any good is RoboRally. Don't even get me started on "party games"... with the possible exception of Balderdash, with the right crowd.
The problem with board games is you gotta have enough people. Most people are too busy.
Or, The Archive Formerly Known As SOAR.
http://www.recipesource.com/
I recommend the apple roast hadrosaur.
won't it do the same for legitimate mass-mailing efforts as well?
Mod me redundant because I say a variant on this theme every time this comes up anymore, but...
Speaking as a smallish mass-mailer (majordomo-style mailing lists, mostly under 30-40 subscribers), in a way, it's not going to hurt us any more than spam already does. People change their email address more often than their underwear and forget to update their subscriptions, they forget how to unsubscribe and decide we're spamming them, they forget to put us in their whitelist and can't figure out why they don't receive our mail, et infinite cetera.
We're looking at all sorts of alternate delivery routes... right now, I'm putting the finishing touches on a critter that supports reading the group messages by mail, *or* NNTP, *or* web forum (more like a web-based NNTP server that can display an entire thread at once), and we'll probably have RSS feeds in the mix as well. Heck, I'll code in an IM version too if I can figure out how.
Far as the legitimate mass-mailer is concerned, at least those targeting a non-tech audience, email is darn close to dead already.
They teach "Propaganda 101" in 'Rhode Island Schools'?
They did in at least one Indiana school when I was growing up. Part of Social Studies, I think, though it might have been part of the Reading curriculum (it's been a lot of years, okay?)
Yes, but it leaves the do-it-yourselfer in the lurch.
Sort of. Around here the DIYer has to have it inspected by a licensed electrician anyway, so they're already in the lurch, as it were.
And yeah, it certainly seems to me that the NFPA really ought to be a government agency anyway. But at least it's a non-profit.
Saying that you have to comply to a tome of standards (or else the inspector can tell you you're in violation of code, section xyz, and nothing more) without the standards being freely available is BS.
I would hope that at the least you can bop down to your local government offices (at whatever level the law is set) and look at *their* copy. It *ought* to work that way, at least (call me an idealist).
Some laws are copyrighted, and you need to pay hundreds of dollars just to get a copy of that law.
Not quite.
The laws themselves aren't copyrighted, but they may say things like "we incorporate National Electric Code 99 by reference." NEC 99 is copyrighted, and that's what you have to pay to get a copy of.
The effect is the same, of course, but it's not as if a government can run around copyrighting laws willy-nilly and then busting you for violating them. If you're an electrician, you pretty much had to have access to a copy of NEC 99 to get certified in the first place, so it's not really a hugely onerous requirement.
Wow, laws in the USA must be very different!
They are... from state to state, even. But in any case, legally recognized unions can legally strike in the US, at least under legally mandated conditions. ("Wildcat strikes" are another matter.)
I've never worked in a union shop, so that's about the extent of my knowledge... other than when the machinist's union at Boeing settles in for a protracted strike, it's a great time to shop the classifieds for a used boat, motorcycle, plasma TV or other big-ticket luxury item.
We bought the book, since we're switching from Sendmail to Postfix Real Soon Now, and you're right. We really didn't need it. "Thin on details" meant, for me, "thin on all the details that were the whole reason for buying the book instead of just reading MAN PAGES. GEEZ!"
It's a nice, well-written book. It just should have been "Learning Postfix." And then I would have known not to buy it.
"Practical mod_perl" is another misnamed book. It's really "Practical[ly everything you could ever need to know about running an Internet server that happens to have] mod_perl [on it.]" Heck, I bet it'll tell me how to run Postfix in the next chapter or so. In more depth than the Postfix book.
I wonder if Tom Galvin and Darl spend late nights together working on clever metaphors to use in press releases related to their lawsuits...
Well, considering that the expression "nibbled to death by ducks" isn't anything new, I'd say not.
No, wait. If he's learning from Darl, then next thing we're going to see from Verisign is a lawsuit against Robert Campbell, J. Michael Straczynksi, and anyone else who hasn't paid $699 to use the expression...
Two sheets of bounty with a little Pledge sprayed between makes an excellent, cheap replacement for those damn swifter rags.
So does a damp paper towel. (I'm *really* cheap, I guess.)
Unfortunately, most of the time I'm wanting the fur-collecting capability of the dry ones (I have a German Shepherd Dog and a whole lotta laminate flooring... )
What I really need is a Roomba to hack. But like I said... I'm *really* cheap, I guess.
Why do your PHBs mistrust you so?
He wasn't *my* boss (I said "his IT people," not "my IT people"), I worked for a support company. So while we mocked the customers' decisions, provided they weren't *so* bad we couldn't fix them, bad decisions were actually better for us. If they'd made the right decision in the first place, they wouldn't have even hired us because their POS vendor would have done the job...
If someone could break into an ATM and install a camera and reader, why not just take the money inside instead of leaving all that gear around?
Aside from the fact that skimmers generally don't involve getting into the ATM at all, "getting into" the ATM is quite a bit different from getting into the cash safe inside. In fact, in any case where the ATM is serviced by an armored-car service, generally the owning bank can open the ATM but even they can't open the cash safe.
When I worked at the bank, we had someone take an ax to one of our brand-new ATMs. It was annoying all around because on his side, (1) it wasn't live yet, so there wasn't any money to steal, (2) he couldn't get into the safe anyway, (3) he cut himself trying; and on our side (1) the ATM itself was a loss, and worth more than the amount of money it could hold, (2) we'd *just* finished configuring and testing it and now had to start over, and (3) the video camera wasn't live yet so we didn't get to see the guy. (We did have some nice blood samples, and bloody fingerprints, but I never heard if anybody got caught/charged.)
If you're going to go to the trouble to tell people that POS is not an acronym for piece of shit, you could at least have mentioned that it does does stand for Point of Sale (in this case)
If you've ever had to support them (particularly those that some PHB has picked out without consulting his IT people), you'll know that that's generally a fully dual-meaning acronym.
For many, the answer to these questions has to do with the likelihood that SCO might succeed in its legal endeavors. It's like basing the decision to get collision insurance for your car on the likelihood that you're going to get into a fender bender while traveling down a desolate stretch of highway.
That is to say, he doesn't sound like he thinks SCO might succeed (it's a "desolate stretch of highway"), but that perhaps you should get indemnification *before* more "traffic" (somebody with a legit claim... say, somebody with a "defensive" patent...) comes along.
What the hell was he doing in Vegas? Doesn't the "C" in "CHiPs" stand for "California"? And what's this about a car? Has he lost his bike?
He had a Trans Am off-duty. (As was hammered into my head by a CHiPS-fanatic best friend. I actually considered buying one of the after-market flaming-chicken stickers to put on her (parent's) Pinto, but on measuring it I found out the wingtips would have wrapped onto the fenders. I did consider doing it anyway.)
everyone in IT knows everyone else in IT
Especially true in the AS/400 world. My boss (for a very short while) was an accountant-prematurely-turned SVP, and was more-than-slightly intimidated by IT people. When I hired a new manager and, in quick succession, one contract cabler and two IBM CE's came in and said "Steve! Howinnahecka you doin!" the accountant started giving him some really weird looks. "You know Steve?" The cabler (who'd been brought in by the builder, not me) pointed out that he'd known not only Steve but me as well, and the accountant started to look worried. I gave him my best surprised look and said didn't all *accountants* know each other and have secret handshakes and stuff?
Poor guy. He may have been qualified to deal with the company books and stuff, but he was definitely not prepared for rambunctious IT personnel.
Keeping it on-topic, that's one of the anecdotes you generally *don't* want to share in an interview. It's often a fine line between giving a legitimate reason for leaving a company, and trash-talking them. You need to do the former, but doing the latter (or giving the appearance of doing so) is generally a sign you're not going to get the job.