We all knew this day would probably come, just as soon as the usefulness of the SCO lawsuit ended. Guess this means Microsoft has decided SCO is no longer enough to scare people off.
It also means they have decided the odds of getting Europe to adopt software patents had become too low for it to make sense on holding their fire any longer. Because this will almost certainly put the pro patent forces in the EU on defense while everyone decides that waiting to see how this afair shakes out is the prudent course.
It also means they feel threatened. Now normally that would be sorta good news, but Microsoft is paranoid and fearful as a matter of policy, always afraid of being knocked off their perch. They never choose to wait and 'hope for the best' when attack is an option for dealing with any real of imagined competitive threat. I suspect the only reason they have held their fire for so long was they felt they could use SCO to buy time to come up with a better plan that risking a Patent War that will have unpredictable results.
But SCO is used up and they only came up with the one twist to a plain patent fight, the Novell deal. It a) takes Novell out of the fight and b) offers an escape path for any corporation who decides the risk is too great, just throw Novell money and opt out of the fight. It will probably clear the field of everyone except the principles, which was the plan. Before it is over we will be following, at a minimum, RedHat V Microsoft, probably IBM v Microsoft and since this will probably trigger another anti-trust action we will also get DOJ v Microsoft.
> The economic value of free software as used by global 1000 companies may be found to trump whatever interests Microsoft may have.
Wouldn't help for over a decade. Think about it, if any of those patents prove to be really valid and sit squarely athwart a useful F/OSS environment it won't matter if it so infuriates Congress that they instantly end software patents. You can't remove one already issued without invalidating it as prior art, obvious or one of the already established ways. That nasty ex post facto clause of the US Constituition would get invoked, after all we know Microsoft has competent representation. The only option would be to try an anti-trust attack. And look how long the feared Nazgul have battled unsuccessfully against a small entity without a real case or especially competent representation.
No, when this war enters the hot phase, and I'm convinced that it WILL go hot and sooner rather than later, things are going to get messy, Blackberry or Vonage messy. Injunctions against shipment messy. Win or lose will take years and somebody is going to have to be able to pony up a crapload (metric) of cash to feed lawyers. The only sure winners in fact are going to be the lawyers on both sides.
> Shouldn't his action have been protected under the First Amendment?
Eh? What's that? Sounds like some antiquated 19th Century notion. Now we have Hate Crimes laws, Campaign Finace laws, attempts to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, etc. Congress shall make no law..... just a fairy story, was never really there ya know. Anybody who says otherwise is just a dirty doubleplus ungood traitor.
Seriously, this crap is the end product of political correctness. Once we crossed the threshold into "Crime Think" it was only a matter of time before everybody could point to a situation where their ox was getting gored. Yea you might think it is just grand when you are wielding the sword to shut up somebody YOU don't want to listen to or some obnoxious protester who is really pissing you off, but sooner or later it gets wielded by somebody ya don't like and THEN you get all pissy. Sorry citizen, the time to have fought this war was when it was first getting started. Congress shall make NO law was a defensible line in the sand, Congress shall make no law that I don't like is a fight you will never win.
> On the X300 in my laptop I can't even log into SL
Have you tried the Free Xorg driver? I'm not into SL but I have watched it run on an X700 with the Xorg driver, seemed to work just fine. You get the 3D bling bling desktop also.
Everything up to the X850 is now supported, still marked experimental but it seems pretty stable. Granted it won't perform quite as fast as the closed driver, but would you rather a Free and increasingly stable experience that gets updated cleanly with your distro's normal update methods or futz around with the slightly faster but unstable closed driver?
On my machine at home I still have to use the closed driver though. The free radeon driver and VIA chipsets have hated each other for a decade now.:(
> There's just too much money involved in politics. That makes the stakes high, which means > more money gets poured in, and so on.
The money is there because the stakes are high, you can't seperate em and bluntly I wouldn't want to. What I would prefer is attack the root cause of the problem.
Put government back into the limited role the Founding Fathers envisioned for it and it won't be important enough to attract the money it currently does. Because government consumes half of the economy and it is done mostly based on political decisions rewarding political favors everyone, rightly mind you, decides they would be fools to ignore the government. So they buy lobbists and found/fund PACs. Because a whim from an influential Committee Chairman or Dept Secratary can either ruin your whole industry or throw obscene amounts of money at you.
Depending on who wins the PR & lobbying spin war you are either a valuable (and worthy of billions in subsidies) alternative energy producer or an evil (that must prevented from destroying the 'family farmers') agri business conglomerate. But if the Federal government were reigned back into the limits set out in the 9th and 10th Amendments it would have neither the power to decide how big a farming operation 'should' be, nor would they be in the business of deciding to take money from one group of people and subsidize another. So ADM would have little reason to buy lobbyists. And the same logic would work with 90% of the rest of the current pressure groups, not just picking on ADM, they are just playing the game by the current rules.
> However, the telephone company will check that the number you are requesting is actually assigned to you.
Totally depends on a) whether your telco has enough clue for that and b) whether you really NEED such an ability. Sometimes a phone system can get really spread out and and hairy. In the end, the PBX - Telco barrier is pretty close to a Telco - Telco barrier and not enough thought has went into securing those, until fairly recently they were always between big corporate entities and everyone pretty much trusted the other not to do anything overly abuse or stupid.
Plus there is what the phone company SAYS and what they DO. In theory they should be helping shut down rogue telemarketing and junk fax operations. In reality they value those high volume customers and will help them avoid justice.... just as long as their check clears every month.
> On a land line, the caller ID is sent -- from the called party's local telephone exchange -- after > the line polarity reversal and before the first burst of ringing voltage.
Sigh, people who haven't even seen shinola trying to explain the difference.
All you need is a PRI circuit to spoof caller id. Because calls often originate at a different location from the terminal ID the call is leaving a pbx on most Bells (US at least) allow a PRI customer to put whatever they want in the fields that make caller id work. (Note that the caller ID info is NOT the same as the billing info, Ma Bell DOES know where that illegal telemarketing or junk fax call really originated but to protect their high volume PRI customer they won't tell you.) Including leaving them blank (unavailable) or stuffing in an 800 number. Most larger fax spammers are going to have enough phone lines banging away to justify a PRI, especially since they can just plug that puppy into an Asterisk box and let it spew faxes down all 23 lines at once. And if that isn't enough they just upgrade to a quad PRI card. Yup, 92 lines humming out faxes with a single PCI slot. Now you understand why their cost is so low they can spew em out blindly. And even IF you manage to get a call back to one of those numbers and if they have Asterisk configured to even receive faxes, all it will do is drop a.tiff or.pdf file so you can't waste their ink or toner.
> You would have also been laughed off of the local BBS in those days for suggesting something such as an email 'virus'.
Yea, it is a trusim that it took Microsoft to turn a hoax into reality.
But on the other hand, while Microsoft's ignorance, stupidity and arrogance made it a daily event we can't be totally smug either. We (including me, I was so sure back then too) have seen it happen to us as well. PINE, Evolution, Moz, all have had remote exploits in email. Gaim, etc has had remote IM exploits possible against it. And yes we too had the one I would tell people with confidence wasn't possible, a GIF/JPEG that would infect your computer just by looking at it.
Oh yea, I'd tell people the 'truth' about how only an executable could get ya, pure data like a picture was safe; so watch those file extensions carefully over there on DOS and it would be all right. But all that depends on programmers being good at defense, to keep on going and check every bit of data for sanity, every system call for an error return, etc. To not stop and release as soon as it 'seems to work' and move on to a more interesting problem.
Follow the errata stream from a major Linux distro for a few years and it will change your attitude. Thankfully though the trial by fire does help us. Sendmail went through it and emerged. Bind likewise, used to be a problem but fairly rare for a new bug. Now the meat grind seems to be focused more on the graphical apps like Mozilla/Firefox, OpenOffice, Gaim(whatever it is today) Ethereal/Wireshark. PHP, the databases and Squid seems to be the whipping boys in server space now.
> But then shouldn't you be okay with The People democratically deciding to give up guns?
Remember that we are not a Democracy, we have a Constuitional Republic based on the idea that we have inalianable rights. Now with that out of the way we come to the core of your argument. Could We The People, acting through our elected representitves violate the 2nd Amendment? No. That is why we have a Constituition, to prevent us from descending into mob rule. If we were really hell bent on such a wicked and stupid notion though we do have the ability to amend our Constituition to remove the limitation. Doing so has a much higher bar than a simple majority vote, this is an intentional design feature, not a bug.
And I'd fight such a movement to amend any single article of the Bill of Rights tooth and nail. But if it were done through the proper channels it would be fair and I'd have no moral right to shoot politicians in the head over it. However, knowing the axiom that a government that doesn't trust it's people with arms shouldn't I'd realize the hell on earth that was coming and start looking for a new place to call home. Too bad there ain't any good candidates right now but if a few million Americans moved somewhere we might be able to get something going.... we did it once ya know.
> Try to avoid being posted on slashdot, unless you have a profesional grade server capable of handling > ten thousand something simultaineous hits on your site.
Depends. It appears that it isn't the web server or internet connection that fail in a typical slashdotting, it is the database server. Static content is the best defense against slashdot or any other flash mob event. Either avoid the temptation to go with dynamic content in the first place or have a way to switch into overflow mode when the load gets too heavy for your database server to cope.
I happened to take a full slash assault on my workplace server while I was out of town and never lost the ability to get in remotely, the server stayed available and work continued. The webserver was a lowly dual proc Pentium II fed from a single T1. The key was all of the content was hand generated static html.
Even CNN goes to a static homepage when a major news event happens. If it is big enough they disable everything else. If they can't buy enough iron to serve dynamic content during a surge YOU can't either. To not design around it is illogical.
> The chances of a total gun-ban ever gaining the support of 50% or more of the public seems slim at best.
Only because of the eternal vigilence of the NRA, Gun Owners of America, etc. Personally I resent feeling obligated to pay the NRA $35 per year to have them remind congresscritters that there are consequences for attempting to violate our "SELF EVIDENT, INALIENABLE RIGHTS." In a sane world it would be the least of our problems. But we live in a world where Democratic Socialists are allowed to roam freely, teach our children, vote and even hold elective office. Sooner or later we have to come to the sad realization that allowing people who are philosophically opposed to representitive government to participate in one is suicidal. We have avoided the end product of that mistake that other nations have suffered (one man, one vote, one time) by some miracle, but one must wonder for how much longer our luck can hold.
> It is very difficult to kill someone with a pen. A gun, on the other hand...
There are a few hundred million people in shallow graves around the world who's ghosts would like to shout at you and call you unprintable names... but they are dead so I'll just call you a fool. A gun is only a tool, it is the hand that holds it that is important and that hand is moved by a mind. Who controls that mind controls the gun, and it is words that control (hearts and) minds.
> Do you really want mentally-ill violent ex-cons able to buy guns legally?
No. But since I don't want mentally ill violent criminals on the streets in general I could care less whether they can buy guns. If they are in mental hospitals or prisons the point is moot, and if they are on the street whether they kill me with a blunt instrument, a legal pistol or one bought from their drug dealer is of minor importance since the common thread there is I'm dead.
On the other hand, once an ex-con has completed his probation/parole/etc they SHOULD be restored to full citizenship, including the right to bear arms and vote. If the idea isn't that they have repaid their debt and are a ready to be a member of society again we should be keeping em in prison.
> If not, then those who aren't mentally-ill or ex-cons will have to agree to submit to certain checks to > ascertain which group they belong to.
Ok, how about a compromise. Showing a voter registration card should be sufficient proof of fitness to buy a weapon since a ballot is more dangerous. After all the insane/etc aren't supposed to be voting either. So instead of building two parallel systems why not just the one? Oh, I forgot, violent felons and illegal aliens need to be able to vote because they tend to vote for Democrats.
> The odd congressman saying something along those lines is a huge step away from any sort of conspiracy.
Oh I don't know, a conspiracy to violate/repeal/ignore the 2nd Amendment publicly supported by the senior Senator from California, the senior Senator from New York, the Mayors of two of our largest cities; New York and Chicago, most of the major news outlets in the nation, etc. isn't what I'd dismiss as "the odd minor nut." Then add in Mayor Nagin's totally over the top illegal confiscation still burning in recent memory and conspiracy isn't really that harsh a term.
But as I state in another post nearby, it isn't a dark conspiracy that drives this wickedness, it is a dark vision of what America is and should be that drives them. They don't have to gather in covens and conspire at a Starbucks somewhere, they all share the same disturbed vision.
> Why is it that a certain segment of the gun-owning populace immediately jumps to the conclusion that there's some grand-scale > movement to try to completely ban guns every time limitations on gun ownership are brought up?
Oh I dunno, perhaps because there IS such a grand scale movement? There were only two things certain when the VT shooting story broke, that Sarah Brady was racing to the closest sat uplink and that it would be a mad scramble to see who would get to interview her first. Sen Schumer was even honest enough to admit he still wants more gun control but that since the Democrats have figured out they lose seats every time they try it that he wasn't going to start a new push and hose the chance to take the White House. So yes, they still want our guns; they just want the White House more.
> I think the great majority of the country (even the blue states) is okay with gun-ownership in the hands of responsible adults, but > there should be certain barriers before being allowed to purchase a gun. Psychological evaluations....
Oh that makes me feel so much better. No I don't have the inalienable Right to Keep and Bear, but if I'll submit to hours of abuse at the hands of some government hack, pay out the ass, and generally jump through as many hoops as it takes for the last pantiwaist to feel 'comfortable' I'll be granted a License to buy a weapon... after I agree to keep it unloaded and locked away in a vault.
Listen up cornholio, that sort of unreason just doesn't fly. The 2nd is either just as much part of the social contract or the 1st won't hold either. Hell, look how much abuse #1 has been taking lately at the hands of the same preening pansy elitists. No, ordinary people aren't safe to be entrusted with Free Speech, only the government can decide who can speak near elections.
Or how about we just recast your silly statement:
I think the great majority of the country (even the blue states) is okay with media licenses in the hands of responsible adults, but there should be certain barriers before being allowed to purchase a purchase a newspaper or TV station. Psychological evaluations (especially for a license to blog or post anonymous), a background check, and a mandatory waiting period without any Internet loopholes seem perfectly reasonable to me. It's not something I feel particularly strong about, but I also don't see any reason media licenses should be 100% easy to obtain.
After all, the pen IS mightier than the sword... or the gun. Dan Rather with a gun might could cap one or two people before he was gunned down by the police as the mad dog he is. But with a irresponsible lying Pen he damned near got to pick the leader of the Free World. Tell me guns should be licensed while irresponsible journalists are free to operate without the slightest safeguards against the danger they can present to society.
But in the end it comes down to two competing visions of what society should be. In mine government derives it's just powers from the People. The People are generally sane, trustworthy people who are capable of self government. I trust my neighbor with a ballot so I have no problem with trusting him with a gun cabinet. And then there is the vision of the gun control gang.
The ignorance of the writer does track with the general ignorance of the subject by those hellbent on banning guns. Generally a gun banner is someone who doesn't know anything about firearms, doesn't WANT to know and most especially wants to wallow in the fear their ignorance produces. They are also highly likely to be unstable people projecting their own instability onto the public at large.
This is a stupid thread inspired by a stupid press article on a stupid subject. eBay is not in any way responsible for facilitating lawful commerce in lawful products. Cho bears sole responsibility for his insane rampage, nobody has to share the guilt with the possible exception of whoever made the decision to keep his court judgement of mental unfitness out of the instant check system. But even there it is doubtful he could have been prevented from going on a killing spree, there is always homemade explosives, poison gas, car bombs, black marget weapons, etc.
> I conclude anonymity should take a backseat when someone registers a domain - this from a privacy freak and eternal AC.
Yup. The whole point of whois was to have a contact person of record for a domain. i.e. somebody to go to if that domain is causing problems for other sites. The whole idea behind the Internet, of a network of peers interconnecting for mutual benefit, breaks down if you can't contact the other systems.
Personally I think the solution is to disconnect/firewall off any system without a contact person. If ICANN can't stand up and do the right thing we could come up with a distributed list of the IP blocks of the rogue systems and simply black hole them. And yes if Russia insists on withholding their Whois records that would mean blackholing the entire IP allocation for Russia and IP hosting a.ru site elsewhere, eventually being exanded to just blackholing whole ISPs who didn' t get the hint and continued to host unlisted sites.
> Given the subsidies solar research has had since the 70s, I can't figure out why progress has been so slow for the past 30 years.
There are several limits on cheap solar. Start with an absolute upper limit on efficiency. 100% is not likely in our lifetime, I'd doubt exceeding 50% is likely in the next hundred years. There are already panels in the marketplace in the 15-20% range and we are always reading about better stuff in the labs. So there probably isn't even another whole doubling of output power to research. It isn't like semiconductor transistor counts and operating speeds that apparently can keep on increasing for another couple of decades according to Moore's Law.
So that leaves existing power/area systems becoming more affordable sweetened with a little more efficiency now and then. But any panel based photovoltaic system can't escape needing a lot of surface area of fairly hi tech material along with the basic expenses involved in manufacturing, transporting and installing large bulky things. Heck, basic roofing material ain't exactly cheap when you have to buy enough to cover your roof and pay people to go up there and install it. It also implies a pretty hard limit to the maximum power load a home can have and still be a candidate for solar. Environmental control is the big drain now and can be greatly reduced with better home design. But other power drains are growing and if they exceed what can be collected that will scuttle the notion of independence from the grid.
And last there is the final part of a solar system, the control and storage system. Hi current electronics built and installed to code isn't cheap and isn't likely to experience more than a halving in price anytime soon. Storage for now means batteries and we all know they are THE limit on so much modern tech. So until somebody cracks that nut alternative power is going to be held back along with electric cars and portable electronics.
> I'm curious as to how the US Army plans to stifle the free speech of a civilian family member.
Perhaps by the simple expedient of educating them that breaking OPSEC can kill. Which is the whole point of the exercise, despite the deranged ravings already showing up on/. about 'censorship.'
Plus if the carrot doesn't work there IS the stick which an AC has already posted about in another reply to your post.
BUt really, just what is the big freaking deal here people? What is NEW? The military has ALWAYS been paranoid about secrecy during wartime, or has everyone forgotten all those over the top posters from WWII? But I think I know what really has most of/. pissed about this article... that last line. How dare they imply you idiots 'are in this war' or that you are Americans!
Ok, that was flamebait but dammit some of you loons make it all too easy.
> If they've owned your BIOS, reinstalling won't help.
Something I'm suprised doesn't actually happen more often.
But even if it ever does, I'm as ready as I can be for it. I write protect the BIOS whereever possible and it is usually possible.
I really like the Gigabyte DualBios feature as well, for a belt & suspenders approach. You can't write the BIOS without keyboard intervention during POST and even IF you screw up or opt to enable writes (I guess the Windoze folk prefer the GUI update util) you can still reboot, hit a hotkey and with a few keystrokes get back to a known good BIOS.
A lot of other reputable hardware makers at least give you a BIOS rescue mode of some sort. Just enough smarts in in a protected space for Hold a key / move a jumper and it blindly flashes from a floppy. Prefer those vendors, for sooner or later somebody IS going to make a serious run at BIOS. Of course we tend to ignore the OTHER flashable parts, most optical drives and even some HD drives. Yet to see a drive with a flash write protect jumper.
If you are a gamer, XP is an upgrade from Vista. Helped one build a new system recently. Of course they they bought a copy of (32bit OEM) Vista. 3D performace (with a 512MB NVidia card running current drivers) was pitiful and the machine only saw 2GB of the 4GB installed. They are in an area with no broadband so PeoplePC being unable to get them connected via dialup was the final insult.
So they bought a copy of XP and reinstalled. 3D looked like what a top of the line card should be able to do and dialup worked. Performance in general was vastly improved. Still had the 2GB memory limit though, probably not much to there except go to a 64bit system and suffer the issues involved with that... not worth it.
Yes most of their problem was probably driver related. Doesn't matter, Vista is now facing the same problem we Linux users deal with every day. Users don't want to hear excuses, if the OS doesn't work with their hardware NOW they don't want to hear "maybe it will work someday". Especially since right now it doesn't appear a Vista user has any good options. NVidia doesn't perform well, ATI doesn't even have a DX10 hard out and Intel only has low end onboard stuff.
Three years late and they still couldn't manage to bully the key hardware players to have proper support available for launch. Doesn't sound like an 800lb gorilla to me. This fiacso is going to be long remembered.
> Look, you're hired to do a job. If you can't or won't do it, find a different job...
Exactly. Even Zonk got this one right when he picked the Dept for this article. This IS the Free Market in action. Women are putting different priorities on the work/family problem and coming up with different choices. I thought that was what we all wanted, freedom to choose our own course through life. Women are DIFFERENT, guess some people are just noticing that isn't just a case of some people having boobies and some not. I say whatever works for them, regardless if HR people have nightmares because it is messing with their quotas. (That they don't have of course.)
The suggested 'solution', grossly inflating the compensation packages and reducing the job description for a position based on gender, should be seen as a condescending insult. But of course it won't. In fact it is exactly what will be done because it is ALL about the numbers.
Just another anchor large operations get to carry around in the global marketplace to satisfy PC stupidity. In a way it is their own fault because large corporations love to use the power of the State to keep competitors small, problem is a government big enough for that is also big enough to be used for PC silliness by OTHER special interests. Won't matter though, small nimble upstarts continually chew up and recycle old stale corps.... and become new megacorps who beat down thier competition with similar tactics, become old and lumbering, repeat.
[yes, if I don't get modded troll for what follows I'll be disappointed];)
Of course what is really throwing the sand in the vaginas of the feminists is how this represents yet another sign of the total failure of their philosophy. They had a dream. Men and women were interchangable units, not just equal but identical in ability, ambition and goals... if only they could deprogram women from their incorrect notions.. and convince them that their only unique role in propagating the species was childbirth.
And for a generation it almost worked. Women bought the pitch and entered the workforce and the professions with a will, many forgoing children entirely and the rest tossing their kids into daycare (or buying a nanny for the upperclass feminist leaders) as soon as they recovered from delivery enough to work again. And it was working! The glass ceiling was only a speed bump, another generation and total victory was in sight.
Then something unexpected happened. Those abandoned kids grew up. Disfunctional in ways never seen, but apparently not willing to repeat the mistakes of their parents. Looking at THEIR offspring it is apparent that most haven't a clue HOW to parent, but they are trying. In a world gone stark raving mad, still bent on destroying the notions that make a traditional family impossible by law, policy, custom and culture more and more of em seem determined to try. Guess it is now the counter culture thing to do? Being 'normal' is now an act of rebellion?
> After all, at first I imagine many companies failed to see the relevance of a corporate website. > They may never have imagined hiring someone specifically for managing it: let alone an entire staff for some.
Huh? A simple minded idiot could see the potential for webpages the first time they saw one. For corporations, governments, individuals, anybody. Instant communication with a mass audience for close to no incremental cost. As soon as a critical mass of web users existed the one time cost to covert materials was a no brainer, witness the WWW of today.
At the time the web was invented companies were already spending good money maintaining complicated faxback services to distribute documents, millions and millions on telephone support operations, public relations departments, etc. To the extent any/all of those operations could be replaced or supplemented by web service the cost savings and efficiences over existing practices were clearly obvious. And many of the totally new ways of interracting with customers, potential customers, stockholders, analysts, the press, etc. we now take for granted were immediatly obvious.
Now compare and contrast to Second Life. Fancy virtual 'press conferences?' Not seeing too many advantages of tech support via SL. Explain what SL brings to the table other than media buzz for being a 'hip' company setting up a SL presence?
> It's a story like the one about Asbestos and DDT.
Exactly. Fear over reason. Asbestos isn't nearly so dangerous, if handled correctly, as to outweigh the benefits it provides. Yes when it was used carelessly (even if from ignorance at the time) and people were working daily in a cloud of the stuff without even a filter mask, it caused some nasty side effects. But on the other hand it could have been tamed with a bit of effort and kept on saving lives. Had the World Trade Center buildings been finished with asbestos many experts believe they would have survived.
Same with DDT. Sprayed indiscriminately with no though there were enough bad side effects it was a net harm. But since the scare and ban a few million people have died from malaria who could have been saved with a more sensible use of the stuff. But they are poor brown and black people so screw em if the spotted owls are OK, right? After all we still need to lose a couple of billion people if we are going to stop global warming.
Same here. We will overly worry over a few people who MIGHT be spared from cancer or some other horrible disease and carefully ignore how many WILL die or be horribly maimed because we eliminated yet another fire retardant material.
Manufacturers should stop bending over and taking this. Give em exactly what they asked for! Make special products for WA without the material but with a big label marked thus:
"This product was made especially for Washington State. It does not contain PBDEs in accordance with local law. Because of this it IS LESS SAFE and DOES NOT qualify for a UL listing because it does not meet the requirements for being flame retardant. Purchase and use of this unlisted product may void your homeowners insurance policy. At point of sale the attached contract must be completed and signed stating that buyer understands the risks and assumes all liability for any damages due to fire.
It also carries a $20 surcharge to cover our expenses in stocking a special version of this product.
See our website at [url of manufacturer] for more information and to obtain a list of the mental defectives who passed the law responsible for this state of affairs."
> De-emphasizing it amounts to lowering the bar, and that isn't acceptable in any field.
More importantly, since EVERY school isn't likely to redefince what CS is you will end up with with a two tiered system of degrees, "Real CS" and "Women's Studies CS" and employers will weight them accordingly while swearing as loudly as they can they aren't. Which one do YOU want to spend a crapload of cash aquiring? If your CS Dept is becoming feminized, transfer NOW lest you get stuck with a worthless piece of paper.
And since there won't be detailed records, even those who graduate under a real CS program will see their degree devalued if their Alma Mater switches so recent Alumni have cause to howl. Stand up and fight this now and it can be beat back. Either women ARE roughly equal[1] to men and can suck it up and succeed by the same rules as men or they AREN'T and have no place in a man's world. Ladies, you can't have it both ways or even worse pick and choose as the whim hits. And if women, for whatever reason, don't tend to like CS I fail to see the crisis, so long as those few who DO have the hankering are allowed in and aren't persecuted for their choice. The world would suck if everyone had exactly the same interests.
[1] All men/women are NOT created equal, that is socialist twaddle. Both genders and all races ARE equal enough that the spread overlaps enough to ignore it and just leave the differences to individual variations.
> If the students were armed, as provided for by the 2nd amendment, someone could have dropped > that guy early on and saved 30 or more people.
Normally I'd agree with that, I'm a paid up NRA member and all that. Not sure how much it would have helped in this incident though because this guy was good. Most shooters only bag a handful because they are losers, its WHY they end up as nutjobs running around with a gun shooting random people. One good guy with a concealed weapon could probably deal with a random idiot. Still wouldn't mind a law striking gun free zones out of any/all government controlled/funded places. All they do is paint big targets on the innocent.
But we are now about ten hours in and haven't heard a peep about the perp except one comment on fox news that he was 'Asian.' Now look at how effective this guy was compared to the usual. Starting to smell like a Religion of Peace job by someone with some jihad training instead of Sudden Jihad Syndrome or a random nutter stressing about finals or a failed relationship.
Other signs it isn't a random nut:
We aren't getting the profile of the perp wall to wall. No experts discussing why he went off.
Ms. Brady hasn't been given wall to wall coverage to spout her usual attempts to turn tragedy into political hay.
>...but they can't enforce upgrades. I for one simply won't be installing this on my computer.
Well then you just won't be allowed to view the 'protected content.' And this pretty much kills off both free flash projects with one stroke. Sure they will struggle on a bit outside the US but no distribution will touch em now. Best case scenario is after the DRMis cracked and included in the free players they will be available post install to those who know how to add in the unfree/non-us repos.
Slashdot Mirror
We all knew this day would probably come, just as soon as the usefulness of the SCO lawsuit ended. Guess this means Microsoft has decided SCO is no longer enough to scare people off.
It also means they have decided the odds of getting Europe to adopt software patents had become too low for it to make sense on holding their fire any longer. Because this will almost certainly put the pro patent forces in the EU on defense while everyone decides that waiting to see how this afair shakes out is the prudent course.
It also means they feel threatened. Now normally that would be sorta good news, but Microsoft is paranoid and fearful as a matter of policy, always afraid of being knocked off their perch. They never choose to wait and 'hope for the best' when attack is an option for dealing with any real of imagined competitive threat. I suspect the only reason they have held their fire for so long was they felt they could use SCO to buy time to come up with a better plan that risking a Patent War that will have unpredictable results.
But SCO is used up and they only came up with the one twist to a plain patent fight, the Novell deal. It a) takes Novell out of the fight and b) offers an escape path for any corporation who decides the risk is too great, just throw Novell money and opt out of the fight. It will probably clear the field of everyone except the principles, which was the plan. Before it is over we will be following, at a minimum, RedHat V Microsoft, probably IBM v Microsoft and since this will probably trigger another anti-trust action we will also get DOJ v Microsoft.
> The economic value of free software as used by global 1000 companies may be found to trump whatever interests Microsoft may have.
Wouldn't help for over a decade. Think about it, if any of those patents prove to be really valid and sit squarely athwart a useful F/OSS environment it won't matter if it so infuriates Congress that they instantly end software patents. You can't remove one already issued without invalidating it as prior art, obvious or one of the already established ways. That nasty ex post facto clause of the US Constituition would get invoked, after all we know Microsoft has competent representation. The only option would be to try an anti-trust attack. And look how long the feared Nazgul have battled unsuccessfully against a small entity without a real case or especially competent representation.
No, when this war enters the hot phase, and I'm convinced that it WILL go hot and sooner rather than later, things are going to get messy, Blackberry or Vonage messy. Injunctions against shipment messy. Win or lose will take years and somebody is going to have to be able to pony up a crapload (metric) of cash to feed lawyers. The only sure winners in fact are going to be the lawyers on both sides.
> Shouldn't his action have been protected under the First Amendment?
Eh? What's that? Sounds like some antiquated 19th Century notion. Now we have Hate Crimes laws, Campaign Finace laws, attempts to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, etc. Congress shall make no law..... just a fairy story, was never really there ya know. Anybody who says otherwise is just a dirty doubleplus ungood traitor.
Seriously, this crap is the end product of political correctness. Once we crossed the threshold into "Crime Think" it was only a matter of time before everybody could point to a situation where their ox was getting gored. Yea you might think it is just grand when you are wielding the sword to shut up somebody YOU don't want to listen to or some obnoxious protester who is really pissing you off, but sooner or later it gets wielded by somebody ya don't like and THEN you get all pissy. Sorry citizen, the time to have fought this war was when it was first getting started. Congress shall make NO law was a defensible line in the sand, Congress shall make no law that I don't like is a fight you will never win.
> On the X300 in my laptop I can't even log into SL
:(
Have you tried the Free Xorg driver? I'm not into SL but I have watched it run on an X700 with the Xorg driver, seemed to work just fine. You get the 3D bling bling desktop also.
Everything up to the X850 is now supported, still marked experimental but it seems pretty stable. Granted it won't perform quite as fast as the closed driver, but would you rather a Free and increasingly stable experience that gets updated cleanly with your distro's normal update methods or futz around with the slightly faster but unstable closed driver?
On my machine at home I still have to use the closed driver though. The free radeon driver and VIA chipsets have hated each other for a decade now.
> There's just too much money involved in politics. That makes the stakes high, which means
> more money gets poured in, and so on.
The money is there because the stakes are high, you can't seperate em and bluntly I wouldn't want to. What I would prefer is attack the root cause of the problem.
Put government back into the limited role the Founding Fathers envisioned for it and it won't be important enough to attract the money it currently does. Because government consumes half of the economy and it is done mostly based on political decisions rewarding political favors everyone, rightly mind you, decides they would be fools to ignore the government. So they buy lobbists and found/fund PACs. Because a whim from an influential Committee Chairman or Dept Secratary can either ruin your whole industry or throw obscene amounts of money at you.
Depending on who wins the PR & lobbying spin war you are either a valuable (and worthy of billions in subsidies) alternative energy producer or an evil (that must prevented from destroying the 'family farmers') agri business conglomerate. But if the Federal government were reigned back into the limits set out in the 9th and 10th Amendments it would have neither the power to decide how big a farming operation 'should' be, nor would they be in the business of deciding to take money from one group of people and subsidize another. So ADM would have little reason to buy lobbyists. And the same logic would work with 90% of the rest of the current pressure groups, not just picking on ADM, they are just playing the game by the current rules.
> However, the telephone company will check that the number you are requesting is actually assigned to you.
Totally depends on a) whether your telco has enough clue for that and b) whether you really NEED such an ability. Sometimes a phone system can get really spread out and and hairy. In the end, the PBX - Telco barrier is pretty close to a Telco - Telco barrier and not enough thought has went into securing those, until fairly recently they were always between big corporate entities and everyone pretty much trusted the other not to do anything overly abuse or stupid.
Plus there is what the phone company SAYS and what they DO. In theory they should be helping shut down rogue telemarketing and junk fax operations. In reality they value those high volume customers and will help them avoid justice.... just as long as their check clears every month.
> On a land line, the caller ID is sent -- from the called party's local telephone exchange -- after
.tiff or .pdf file so you can't waste their ink or toner.
> the line polarity reversal and before the first burst of ringing voltage.
Sigh, people who haven't even seen shinola trying to explain the difference.
All you need is a PRI circuit to spoof caller id. Because calls often originate at a different location from the terminal ID the call is leaving a pbx on most Bells (US at least) allow a PRI customer to put whatever they want in the fields that make caller id work. (Note that the caller ID info is NOT the same as the billing info, Ma Bell DOES know where that illegal telemarketing or junk fax call really originated but to protect their high volume PRI customer they won't tell you.) Including leaving them blank (unavailable) or stuffing in an 800 number. Most larger fax spammers are going to have enough phone lines banging away to justify a PRI, especially since they can just plug that puppy into an Asterisk box and let it spew faxes down all 23 lines at once. And if that isn't enough they just upgrade to a quad PRI card. Yup, 92 lines humming out faxes with a single PCI slot. Now you understand why their cost is so low they can spew em out blindly. And even IF you manage to get a call back to one of those numbers and if they have Asterisk configured to even receive faxes, all it will do is drop a
> You would have also been laughed off of the local BBS in those days for suggesting something such as an email 'virus'.
Yea, it is a trusim that it took Microsoft to turn a hoax into reality.
But on the other hand, while Microsoft's ignorance, stupidity and arrogance made it a daily event we can't be totally smug either. We (including me, I was so sure back then too) have seen it happen to us as well. PINE, Evolution, Moz, all have had remote exploits in email. Gaim, etc has had remote IM exploits possible against it. And yes we too had the one I would tell people with confidence wasn't possible, a GIF/JPEG that would infect your computer just by looking at it.
Oh yea, I'd tell people the 'truth' about how only an executable could get ya, pure data like a picture was safe; so watch those file extensions carefully over there on DOS and it would be all right. But all that depends on programmers being good at defense, to keep on going and check every bit of data for sanity, every system call for an error return, etc. To not stop and release as soon as it 'seems to work' and move on to a more interesting problem.
Follow the errata stream from a major Linux distro for a few years and it will change your attitude. Thankfully though the trial by fire does help us. Sendmail went through it and emerged. Bind likewise, used to be a problem but fairly rare for a new bug. Now the meat grind seems to be focused more on the graphical apps like Mozilla/Firefox, OpenOffice, Gaim(whatever it is today) Ethereal/Wireshark. PHP, the databases and Squid seems to be the whipping boys in server space now.
> But then shouldn't you be okay with The People democratically deciding to give up guns?
Remember that we are not a Democracy, we have a Constuitional Republic based on the idea that we have inalianable rights. Now with that out of the way we come to the core of your argument. Could We The People, acting through our elected representitves violate the 2nd Amendment? No. That is why we have a Constituition, to prevent us from descending into mob rule. If we were really hell bent on such a wicked and stupid notion though we do have the ability to amend our Constituition to remove the limitation. Doing so has a much higher bar than a simple majority vote, this is an intentional design feature, not a bug.
And I'd fight such a movement to amend any single article of the Bill of Rights tooth and nail. But if it were done through the proper channels it would be fair and I'd have no moral right to shoot politicians in the head over it. However, knowing the axiom that a government that doesn't trust it's people with arms shouldn't I'd realize the hell on earth that was coming and start looking for a new place to call home. Too bad there ain't any good candidates right now but if a few million Americans moved somewhere we might be able to get something going.... we did it once ya know.
> Try to avoid being posted on slashdot, unless you have a profesional grade server capable of handling
> ten thousand something simultaineous hits on your site.
Depends. It appears that it isn't the web server or internet connection that fail in a typical slashdotting, it is the database server. Static content is the best defense against slashdot or any other flash mob event. Either avoid the temptation to go with dynamic content in the first place or have a way to switch into overflow mode when the load gets too heavy for your database server to cope.
I happened to take a full slash assault on my workplace server while I was out of town and never lost the ability to get in remotely, the server stayed available and work continued. The webserver was a lowly dual proc Pentium II fed from a single T1. The key was all of the content was hand generated static html.
Even CNN goes to a static homepage when a major news event happens. If it is big enough they disable everything else. If they can't buy enough iron to serve dynamic content during a surge YOU can't either. To not design around it is illogical.
> The chances of a total gun-ban ever gaining the support of 50% or more of the public seems slim at best.
Only because of the eternal vigilence of the NRA, Gun Owners of America, etc. Personally I resent feeling obligated to pay the NRA $35 per year to have them remind congresscritters that there are consequences for attempting to violate our "SELF EVIDENT, INALIENABLE RIGHTS." In a sane world it would be the least of our problems. But we live in a world where Democratic Socialists are allowed to roam freely, teach our children, vote and even hold elective office. Sooner or later we have to come to the sad realization that allowing people who are philosophically opposed to representitive government to participate in one is suicidal. We have avoided the end product of that mistake that other nations have suffered (one man, one vote, one time) by some miracle, but one must wonder for how much longer our luck can hold.
> It is very difficult to kill someone with a pen. A gun, on the other hand...
There are a few hundred million people in shallow graves around the world who's ghosts would like to shout at you and call you unprintable names... but they are dead so I'll just call you a fool. A gun is only a tool, it is the hand that holds it that is important and that hand is moved by a mind. Who controls that mind controls the gun, and it is words that control (hearts and) minds.
> Do you really want mentally-ill violent ex-cons able to buy guns legally?
No. But since I don't want mentally ill violent criminals on the streets in general I could care less whether they can buy guns. If they are in mental hospitals or prisons the point is moot, and if they are on the street whether they kill me with a blunt instrument, a legal pistol or one bought from their drug dealer is of minor importance since the common thread there is I'm dead.
On the other hand, once an ex-con has completed his probation/parole/etc they SHOULD be restored to full citizenship, including the right to bear arms and vote. If the idea isn't that they have repaid their debt and are a ready to be a member of society again we should be keeping em in prison.
> If not, then those who aren't mentally-ill or ex-cons will have to agree to submit to certain checks to
> ascertain which group they belong to.
Ok, how about a compromise. Showing a voter registration card should be sufficient proof of fitness to buy a weapon since a ballot is more dangerous. After all the insane/etc aren't supposed to be voting either. So instead of building two parallel systems why not just the one? Oh, I forgot, violent felons and illegal aliens need to be able to vote because they tend to vote for Democrats.
> The odd congressman saying something along those lines is a huge step away from any sort of conspiracy.
Oh I don't know, a conspiracy to violate/repeal/ignore the 2nd Amendment publicly supported by the senior Senator from California, the senior Senator from New York, the Mayors of two of our largest cities; New York and Chicago, most of the major news outlets in the nation, etc. isn't what I'd dismiss as "the odd minor nut." Then add in Mayor Nagin's totally over the top illegal confiscation still burning in recent memory and conspiracy isn't really that harsh a term.
But as I state in another post nearby, it isn't a dark conspiracy that drives this wickedness, it is a dark vision of what America is and should be that drives them. They don't have to gather in covens and conspire at a Starbucks somewhere, they all share the same disturbed vision.
> Why is it that a certain segment of the gun-owning populace immediately jumps to the conclusion that there's some grand-scale
> movement to try to completely ban guns every time limitations on gun ownership are brought up?
Oh I dunno, perhaps because there IS such a grand scale movement? There were only two things certain when the VT shooting story broke, that Sarah Brady was racing to the closest sat uplink and that it would be a mad scramble to see who would get to interview her first. Sen Schumer was even honest enough to admit he still wants more gun control but that since the Democrats have figured out they lose seats every time they try it that he wasn't going to start a new push and hose the chance to take the White House. So yes, they still want our guns; they just want the White House more.
> I think the great majority of the country (even the blue states) is okay with gun-ownership in the hands of responsible adults, but
> there should be certain barriers before being allowed to purchase a gun. Psychological evaluations....
Oh that makes me feel so much better. No I don't have the inalienable Right to Keep and Bear, but if I'll submit to hours of abuse at the hands of some government hack, pay out the ass, and generally jump through as many hoops as it takes for the last pantiwaist to feel 'comfortable' I'll be granted a License to buy a weapon... after I agree to keep it unloaded and locked away in a vault.
Listen up cornholio, that sort of unreason just doesn't fly. The 2nd is either just as much part of the social contract or the 1st won't hold either. Hell, look how much abuse #1 has been taking lately at the hands of the same preening pansy elitists. No, ordinary people aren't safe to be entrusted with Free Speech, only the government can decide who can speak near elections.
Or how about we just recast your silly statement:
I think the great majority of the country (even the blue states) is okay with media licenses in the hands of responsible adults, but there should be certain barriers before being allowed to purchase a purchase a newspaper or TV station. Psychological evaluations (especially for a license to blog or post anonymous), a background check, and a mandatory waiting period without any Internet loopholes seem perfectly reasonable to me. It's not something I feel particularly strong about, but I also don't see any reason media licenses should be 100% easy to obtain.
After all, the pen IS mightier than the sword... or the gun. Dan Rather with a gun might could cap one or two people before he was gunned down by the police as the mad dog he is. But with a irresponsible lying Pen he damned near got to pick the leader of the Free World. Tell me guns should be licensed while irresponsible journalists are free to operate without the slightest safeguards against the danger they can present to society.
But in the end it comes down to two competing visions of what society should be. In mine government derives it's just powers from the People. The People are generally sane, trustworthy people who are capable of self government. I trust my neighbor with a ballot so I have no problem with trusting him with a gun cabinet. And then there is the vision of the gun control gang.
The ignorance of the writer does track with the general ignorance of the subject by those hellbent on banning guns. Generally a gun banner is someone who doesn't know anything about firearms, doesn't WANT to know and most especially wants to wallow in the fear their ignorance produces. They are also highly likely to be unstable people projecting their own instability onto the public at large.
This is a stupid thread inspired by a stupid press article on a stupid subject. eBay is not in any way responsible for facilitating lawful commerce in lawful products. Cho bears sole responsibility for his insane rampage, nobody has to share the guilt with the possible exception of whoever made the decision to keep his court judgement of mental unfitness out of the instant check system. But even there it is doubtful he could have been prevented from going on a killing spree, there is always homemade explosives, poison gas, car bombs, black marget weapons, etc.
> I conclude anonymity should take a backseat when someone registers a domain - this from a privacy freak and eternal AC.
.ru site elsewhere, eventually being exanded to just blackholing whole ISPs who didn' t get the hint and continued to host unlisted sites.
Yup. The whole point of whois was to have a contact person of record for a domain. i.e. somebody to go to if that domain is causing problems for other sites. The whole idea behind the Internet, of a network of peers interconnecting for mutual benefit, breaks down if you can't contact the other systems.
Personally I think the solution is to disconnect/firewall off any system without a contact person. If ICANN can't stand up and do the right thing we could come up with a distributed list of the IP blocks of the rogue systems and simply black hole them. And yes if Russia insists on withholding their Whois records that would mean blackholing the entire IP allocation for Russia and IP hosting a
> Given the subsidies solar research has had since the 70s, I can't figure out why progress has been so slow for the past 30 years.
There are several limits on cheap solar. Start with an absolute upper limit on efficiency. 100% is not likely in our lifetime, I'd doubt exceeding 50% is likely in the next hundred years. There are already panels in the marketplace in the 15-20% range and we are always reading about better stuff in the labs. So there probably isn't even another whole doubling of output power to research. It isn't like semiconductor transistor counts and operating speeds that apparently can keep on increasing for another couple of decades according to Moore's Law.
So that leaves existing power/area systems becoming more affordable sweetened with a little more efficiency now and then. But any panel based photovoltaic system can't escape needing a lot of surface area of fairly hi tech material along with the basic expenses involved in manufacturing, transporting and installing large bulky things. Heck, basic roofing material ain't exactly cheap when you have to buy enough to cover your roof and pay people to go up there and install it. It also implies a pretty hard limit to the maximum power load a home can have and still be a candidate for solar. Environmental control is the big drain now and can be greatly reduced with better home design. But other power drains are growing and if they exceed what can be collected that will scuttle the notion of independence from the grid.
And last there is the final part of a solar system, the control and storage system. Hi current electronics built and installed to code isn't cheap and isn't likely to experience more than a halving in price anytime soon. Storage for now means batteries and we all know they are THE limit on so much modern tech. So until somebody cracks that nut alternative power is going to be held back along with electric cars and portable electronics.
> I'm curious as to how the US Army plans to stifle the free speech of a civilian family member.
/. about 'censorship.'
/. pissed about this article... that last line. How dare they imply you idiots 'are in this war' or that you are Americans!
Perhaps by the simple expedient of educating them that breaking OPSEC can kill. Which is the whole point of the exercise, despite the deranged ravings already showing up on
Plus if the carrot doesn't work there IS the stick which an AC has already posted about in another reply to your post.
BUt really, just what is the big freaking deal here people? What is NEW? The military has ALWAYS been paranoid about secrecy during wartime, or has everyone forgotten all those over the top posters from WWII? But I think I know what really has most of
Ok, that was flamebait but dammit some of you loons make it all too easy.
> If they've owned your BIOS, reinstalling won't help.
Something I'm suprised doesn't actually happen more often.
But even if it ever does, I'm as ready as I can be for it. I write protect the BIOS whereever possible and it is usually possible.
I really like the Gigabyte DualBios feature as well, for a belt & suspenders approach. You can't write the BIOS without keyboard intervention during POST and even IF you screw up or opt to enable writes (I guess the Windoze folk prefer the GUI update util) you can still reboot, hit a hotkey and with a few keystrokes get back to a known good BIOS.
A lot of other reputable hardware makers at least give you a BIOS rescue mode of some sort. Just enough smarts in in a protected space for Hold a key / move a jumper and it blindly flashes from a floppy. Prefer those vendors, for sooner or later somebody IS going to make a serious run at BIOS. Of course we tend to ignore the OTHER flashable parts, most optical drives and even some HD drives. Yet to see a drive with a flash write protect jumper.
If you are a gamer, XP is an upgrade from Vista. Helped one build a new system recently. Of course they they bought a copy of (32bit OEM) Vista. 3D performace (with a 512MB NVidia card running current drivers) was pitiful and the machine only saw 2GB of the 4GB installed. They are in an area with no broadband so PeoplePC being unable to get them connected via dialup was the final insult.
So they bought a copy of XP and reinstalled. 3D looked like what a top of the line card should be able to do and dialup worked. Performance in general was vastly improved. Still had the 2GB memory limit though, probably not much to there except go to a 64bit system and suffer the issues involved with that... not worth it.
Yes most of their problem was probably driver related. Doesn't matter, Vista is now facing the same problem we Linux users deal with every day. Users don't want to hear excuses, if the OS doesn't work with their hardware NOW they don't want to hear "maybe it will work someday". Especially since right now it doesn't appear a Vista user has any good options. NVidia doesn't perform well, ATI doesn't even have a DX10 hard out and Intel only has low end onboard stuff.
Three years late and they still couldn't manage to bully the key hardware players to have proper support available for launch. Doesn't sound like an 800lb gorilla to me. This fiacso is going to be long remembered.
> Look, you're hired to do a job. If you can't or won't do it, find a different job...
;)
Exactly. Even Zonk got this one right when he picked the Dept for this article. This IS the Free Market in action. Women are putting different priorities on the work/family problem and coming up with different choices. I thought that was what we all wanted, freedom to choose our own course through life. Women are DIFFERENT, guess some people are just noticing that isn't just a case of some people having boobies and some not. I say whatever works for them, regardless if HR people have nightmares because it is messing with their quotas. (That they don't have of course.)
The suggested 'solution', grossly inflating the compensation packages and reducing the job description for a position based on gender, should be seen as a condescending insult. But of course it won't. In fact it is exactly what will be done because it is ALL about the numbers.
Just another anchor large operations get to carry around in the global marketplace to satisfy PC stupidity. In a way it is their own fault because large corporations love to use the power of the State to keep competitors small, problem is a government big enough for that is also big enough to be used for PC silliness by OTHER special interests. Won't matter though, small nimble upstarts continually chew up and recycle old stale corps.... and become new megacorps who beat down thier competition with similar tactics, become old and lumbering, repeat.
[yes, if I don't get modded troll for what follows I'll be disappointed]
Of course what is really throwing the sand in the vaginas of the feminists is how this represents yet another sign of the total failure of their philosophy. They had a dream. Men and women were interchangable units, not just equal but identical in ability, ambition and goals... if only they could deprogram women from their incorrect notions.. and convince them that their only unique role in propagating the species was childbirth.
And for a generation it almost worked. Women bought the pitch and entered the workforce and the professions with a will, many forgoing children entirely and the rest tossing their kids into daycare (or buying a nanny for the upperclass feminist leaders) as soon as they recovered from delivery enough to work again. And it was working! The glass ceiling was only a speed bump, another generation and total victory was in sight.
Then something unexpected happened. Those abandoned kids grew up. Disfunctional in ways never seen, but apparently not willing to repeat the mistakes of their parents. Looking at THEIR offspring it is apparent that most haven't a clue HOW to parent, but they are trying. In a world gone stark raving mad, still bent on destroying the notions that make a traditional family impossible by law, policy, custom and culture more and more of em seem determined to try. Guess it is now the counter culture thing to do? Being 'normal' is now an act of rebellion?
> After all, at first I imagine many companies failed to see the relevance of a corporate website.
> They may never have imagined hiring someone specifically for managing it: let alone an entire staff for some.
Huh? A simple minded idiot could see the potential for webpages the first time they saw one. For corporations, governments, individuals, anybody. Instant communication with a mass audience for close to no incremental cost. As soon as a critical mass of web users existed the one time cost to covert materials was a no brainer, witness the WWW of today.
At the time the web was invented companies were already spending good money maintaining complicated faxback services to distribute documents, millions and millions on telephone support operations, public relations departments, etc. To the extent any/all of those operations could be replaced or supplemented by web service the cost savings and efficiences over existing practices were clearly obvious. And many of the totally new ways of interracting with customers, potential customers, stockholders, analysts, the press, etc. we now take for granted were immediatly obvious.
Now compare and contrast to Second Life. Fancy virtual 'press conferences?' Not seeing too many advantages of tech support via SL. Explain what SL brings to the table other than media buzz for being a 'hip' company setting up a SL presence?
> It's a story like the one about Asbestos and DDT.
Exactly. Fear over reason. Asbestos isn't nearly so dangerous, if handled correctly, as to outweigh the benefits it provides. Yes when it was used carelessly (even if from ignorance at the time) and people were working daily in a cloud of the stuff without even a filter mask, it caused some nasty side effects. But on the other hand it could have been tamed with a bit of effort and kept on saving lives. Had the World Trade Center buildings been finished with asbestos many experts believe they would have survived.
Same with DDT. Sprayed indiscriminately with no though there were enough bad side effects it was a net harm. But since the scare and ban a few million people have died from malaria who could have been saved with a more sensible use of the stuff. But they are poor brown and black people so screw em if the spotted owls are OK, right? After all we still need to lose a couple of billion people if we are going to stop global warming.
Same here. We will overly worry over a few people who MIGHT be spared from cancer or some other horrible disease and carefully ignore how many WILL die or be horribly maimed because we eliminated yet another fire retardant material.
Manufacturers should stop bending over and taking this. Give em exactly what they asked for! Make special products for WA without the material but with a big label marked thus:
"This product was made especially for Washington State. It does not contain PBDEs in accordance with local law. Because of this it IS LESS SAFE and DOES NOT qualify for a UL listing because it does not meet the requirements for being flame retardant. Purchase and use of this unlisted product may void your homeowners insurance policy. At point of sale the attached contract must be completed and signed stating that buyer understands the risks and assumes all liability for any damages due to fire.
It also carries a $20 surcharge to cover our expenses in stocking a special version of this product.
See our website at [url of manufacturer] for more information and to obtain a list of the mental defectives who passed the law responsible for this state of affairs."
> De-emphasizing it amounts to lowering the bar, and that isn't acceptable in any field.
More importantly, since EVERY school isn't likely to redefince what CS is you will end up with with a two tiered system of degrees, "Real CS" and "Women's Studies CS" and employers will weight them accordingly while swearing as loudly as they can they aren't. Which one do YOU want to spend a crapload of cash aquiring? If your CS Dept is becoming feminized, transfer NOW lest you get stuck with a worthless piece of paper.
And since there won't be detailed records, even those who graduate under a real CS program will see their degree devalued if their Alma Mater switches so recent Alumni have cause to howl. Stand up and fight this now and it can be beat back. Either women ARE roughly equal[1] to men and can suck it up and succeed by the same rules as men or they AREN'T and have no place in a man's world. Ladies, you can't have it both ways or even worse pick and choose as the whim hits. And if women, for whatever reason, don't tend to like CS I fail to see the crisis, so long as those few who DO have the hankering are allowed in and aren't persecuted for their choice. The world would suck if everyone had exactly the same interests.
[1] All men/women are NOT created equal, that is socialist twaddle. Both genders and all races ARE equal enough that the spread overlaps enough to ignore it and just leave the differences to individual variations.
> If the students were armed, as provided for by the 2nd amendment, someone could have dropped
> that guy early on and saved 30 or more people.
Normally I'd agree with that, I'm a paid up NRA member and all that. Not sure how much it would have helped in this incident though because this guy was good. Most shooters only bag a handful because they are losers, its WHY they end up as nutjobs running around with a gun shooting random people. One good guy with a concealed weapon could probably deal with a random idiot. Still wouldn't mind a law striking gun free zones out of any/all government controlled/funded places. All they do is paint big targets on the innocent.
But we are now about ten hours in and haven't heard a peep about the perp except one comment on fox news that he was 'Asian.' Now look at how effective this guy was compared to the usual. Starting to smell like a Religion of Peace job by someone with some jihad training instead of Sudden Jihad Syndrome or a random nutter stressing about finals or a failed relationship.
Other signs it isn't a random nut:
We aren't getting the profile of the perp wall to wall. No experts discussing why he went off.
Ms. Brady hasn't been given wall to wall coverage to spout her usual attempts to turn tragedy into political hay.
> ...but they can't enforce upgrades. I for one simply won't be installing this on my computer.
Well then you just won't be allowed to view the 'protected content.' And this pretty much kills off both free flash projects with one stroke. Sure they will struggle on a bit outside the US but no distribution will touch em now. Best case scenario is after the DRMis cracked and included in the free players they will be available post install to those who know how to add in the unfree/non-us repos.