Certainly, Fox is to the right of CNN, NY Times, et al. But they are obviously left of center, so how is that bad? Even if Fox really was biased toward Republicans, is that so bad, since most of the other media is biased toward Democrats?
Fox is left of center? What they aren't radical enough for your local militia?
Hannity & Colmes has a conservative and a liberal host. I find it quite a bit more refreshing than most other news talk programs. Colmes is a blatant liberal, yet he has as much voice as Hannity.
Alan Colmes is there for comic relief and to be Sean Hannity's punching bag, and the show does not even try to allude otherwise. Usually Hannity gets to speak, but every once in awhile, Colmes gets to say a few sentences which Hannity quickly rebuts after shutting him up. It is clear who is in the driver's seat and what they are trying to portray.
Bill O'Reilly tends to be more conservative than not, but he's not exactly a Republican hack either. He calls it like he sees it, and sometimes bashes Republicans.
There I may agree. I am pretty far to the left on many matters, but I would have to say I agree with a lot of what Oreilly says. I don't agree with all of it, and he does fall into the trap of oversimplifying things and making assumptions a lit, and is not too good about checking his facts. I do like the idea of a no-spin zone. I would prefer a true no-spin zone channel to any other kind of news, personally.
They should include fake news shows in that statistic, just to show the real ones how much they truly suck.
Oddly enough, satirical news shows such as "The Daily Show" and "Weekend Update" are not only more entertaining but often more informative than any of the above. They often report news which no one else would bother reporting. Granted, usually it is because the anecdote is more amusing than it is newsworthy, but very often it is something that politicians and such get up to which is so ridiculous that mainstream news programs will not report it, yet it is awfully important that we know what they are doing.
"Anyway what is fox doing sueing one of their best shows?"
What is FOX doing sueing themselves???? We all know that FOX has no clue, and this just proves that further.
What's next? SCO sues UNIX intellectual property holder for copyright violation? Actually that wouldn't suprise me.
Well, they said that the Simpsons was confusing and would be mistaken for a real Fox News broadcast. They also said that the title of Al Franken's book was too subtle for them. In other words, yes, the entire crew, cast, and all the execs and lawyers at Fox News are complete idiots, but at least they are admitting it now.
When Al Franken said "There is no way a person not completely dense would be confused by this cover to think that Fox is accusing Bill O'Reilly of being a liar. There is nothing confusing about this." I would not doubt there was a meekly muttered "insensitive clod" from the Fox table.:)
You have a good point but I don't think were using fax machines when they were invented (patent was granted in 1843). http://inventors.about.com/library/invento rs/blfax.htm
Freaky that it took businesses over 100 years to actually start using it. I suppose that I mean "when fax machines came into wider use" versus "when they were invented" but the Discovery channel made the Nigerian spammers sound like early adopters.
Just out of curosity, what do you call real gas in the USA ?
Liquid ?
Solid ?
The gas that comes out of our stove is called gas. We might even get specific and call it butane or propane (as the case may be). The gas in our cars is really called gasoline, but we call it gas out of sheer laziness:).
To be fair, the gas in your stove is normally under such pressure as to become liquid if I properly understand it, but of course is released and burnt as gas. Gasoline is a liquid, but vapours are burnt in the combustion chamber.
Petrol is probably a similar abbreviation to "gas" standing for Petroleum Products or somesuch, but I don't have a proper english (as opposed to American English) dictionary ready at hand to look up the etymology. Petroleum, of course, is oil, which is refined to make petrol/gasoline.
His argument is an interesting point of view though. It sounds to me like he's saying microsoft doesn't need perfect code because people can just install firewalls. What if the code in the firewalls in turn isn't perfect though? Doesn't that leave us in an insecure position again? What about the e-mail scanning software? What if it misses a virus? Shouldn't you have layers of protection, instead of an outer layer of protection and a soft underbelly?
This in and of itself proves that Mr. Bill does not have a clue, not only about security but about how the recent worms propogated. Firstly, firewalls are not a panacaea. They only protect from extenral threats. They do not protect against internal threats or trojans/viruses/worms which are brought inside. They do not protect you when you have a worm/virus infected computer connecting to your network via VPN remotely or which is brought inside after being infected. They also do not help you if there is a vulnerability in a core world-facing service like, say, IIS.
These things should be intuitively obvious to the meanest of minds, but are beyond Bill Gates' understanding. Further, he has put the lie to his earlier promise of better software. Now that security firms have been paid off not to report Microsoft holes that they do not deign to fix, Microsoft seems to be ditching the whole idea of writing secure code. It's not as though it was anything more than a marketing ploy in the first place, but now he has pretty much told us that Microsoft will write crappy software on purpose because they don't believe that software has anything to do with security.
If you continue to use Microsoft products after this, well, I guess you get what you deserve.
...the install kernel was 2.2. All the cutting edge apt repositories in the world will not help you if you cannot get a working operating system.
Umm, so a Linux box with a 2.2 kernel isn't a working operating system? Besides, I _NEVER_ use a stock kernel. I've been playing with Linux for almost 10 years now and the longest a stock kernel has ever run on one of my boxes (workstation or server) is certainly less than a day. For servers stock kernels are generally bloated, for my workstations, they never seem to have the drivers I need available. Lastly, my dev box is also Debian, currently running a 2.6 kernel. You can allways download the source...
A working operating system has to support the hardware on which it runs. It is particularly bad if it does not have the right drivers to talk to the hard drive. That makes it awfully difficult to install and update the operating system.
To use a non-stock kernel, you have to have a computer which has access to the internet and which can access its drives to store the kernel source. Editors and compilers are a plus. This is all very difficult if the kernel on the install cd cannot even write to 3 year old ide controllers.
I don't know why debian users always respond to this problem with "well just compile your own kernel, you loser!" As though I have never compiled a kernel. I would like to see them do that without a computer and access to a hard drive, as you seem to suggest. That is a really neat trick, eh? I guess debian is magical for you.
" > These 419 scams (named after the nigerian police code) can be dangerous. There have been reports of where people have actually gone to foreign countries and then been kidnapped forcing the familes to pay a ransom note."
Sounds like natural selection to me. I'm surprised they figured out how to book the plane ticket.
Discovery channel had a special on these, and said they actually predated fax machines. Originally the scams were sent by first class mail (so, no, putting a stamp on spam will not stop it, at least in this case), then by international fax (again expensive) when fax machines were invented, then by email when that became available.
Then they explained that people were actually paying these spammers and going to foreign countries to meet them at the bank, etc. As if that was not bad enough, they interviewed a successful businessman and multimillionaire who gave them every last dime of his cash over a period of years! I guess that proves you don't have to be smart or even hard working to become a rich businessman in the US (though I haven't made it yet, and would not give the Nigerian spammers a dime).:P
In Europe we have 8 mbit DSL connections for U$ 50-65 / month, IPv6, 16x9 television, you name it. I was in the USA a few years ago and there were a lot of people without a cell phone. In Europe, children from the age of 7 and up have cellphones. Using digital (GSM) technology, developed in Europe, by European companies.
And we actually hear about other countries than our own on the news..
We hear about other countries on the news here in the US as our armies "discover" and then "liberate" them. Iraq is a country we hear about a lot. Should we be hearing about yours?:) Ok, just kidding, and to be fair, I actually watch BBC news quite often, and have a cable channel that shows news from various countries, though in their original languages.
As for the DSL and the cell phones with GSM, you pretty much just described the US (though for a long time we used US-based digital tech, and frankly that worked far better and more reliably than GSM has, at least for me). However, your experience is probably not typical. It was probably not fair for me to include the whole of europe (which by the way, would have to include Eastern Europe now that they are no longer de facto Russian territories).
First off, in every country DSL is only available in major metropolitan areas with very few exceptions. And I have heard some prices quoted for European DSL that are much higher than yours (which, incidentally, is a little higher than most US DSL and much higher than some). Then there is the cost of a computer to consider. Last I heard, computers still cost thousands of dollars in Europe and were heavily taxed on top of that. Granted I am only thinking of the Netherlands and the UK, but I would not be surprised if that was the case elsewhere, especially in the aforementioned Eastern Europe since people from third world countries tend to tell me that computers are many times more expensive in their homeland than they are in the US.
In the US, I can buy a brand new computer for $200 that is perfectly usable for most things including some games and all home tasks. I built a very powerful computer recently for less than $500. I could have bought a Dell with free tech support, a kick-ass warranty, and a monitor for about $600. That is one of the things that makes things accessable in the US, the fact that things are wicked cheap here. I was reading about the Cancun conference of the WTO and how it had failed in part because of disputes over US farm subsidies which mean that US food exported is cheaper than food in third world countries. That is awesome! It is part of why people here can afford food and plenty of it. After all we have to fill the back of that SUV and haul the horde to fill that refrigerator!
The other part is the increased opportunity people have in this country compared to others. In the poor countries of the world, without exception they are ruled by oppressive, corrupt regimes and have no opportunity. This is what leads them to such a pass. In the US, everyone can work to at least maintain a standard of living far higher than that of most of the rest of the world. If other countries gave their people such freedom, they could live like we do.
By the way, weren't all the technologies you mentioned except GSM (which is the one that sucked the most) invented in the US? And no I promise you I am not trolling. Venting, maybe, but not trolling.
Agreed with everything until you got to the refrigerator thing.
Europe has the custom of the marketplace, started in the midle ages (if not before) and unlike the US, never lost it. This means that it is common to shop for perishable foods daily, or every other day. Not weekly like the US. this translated into needing much smaller refrigerators.
The AC bit? mostly climate. the ice? don't know, but I imagine there is also a simple reason (possible the infrequentness of heat waves:) )
I used to agree with you to a degree. BUT I thik there are 4-5000 French in the afterlife who are rethinking the whole ac/refrigerator thing. I mean, think about it. I understand if the average person only uses a small refrigerator, but a hospital should have refrigeration! They should be able to have ice, and their internal climate should be controlled. Hospitals are for the care of the sick. Temperature and humidity fluctuations can cause awful complications depending on the condition of patients. Besides, how do you treat burn and heatstroke victims under such conditions?
As for climate, you should notice that I mentioned Alaska. You would not think that in Alaska air conditioning is needed or important, and really it usually isn't. Heating, yes, but not AC (which in the US generally refers to cooling the air, which is inaccurate I know). Most of Alaska stays around 75 Fahrenheit all summer. But every Alaskan store and office building, most homes and most vehicles have full climate control. That includes the cooling bit. This may seem superfluous, but at least if there is a heat wave in Alaska (and yes, they do happen) there will be ac available and of course plenty of ice.
But the real heart of the issue is it does not matter what climate you have. Humans have developed technology which allows the indoor climate to be controlled in terms of temperature, humidity, dust/pollen content, etc. Vast untold sums of money and man hours of wicked smart scientists were spent over many decades to come up with this technology and improve it. Now that we have it, we ave the power to control the temperature so that it is always constant no matter what. This is actually vitally important in heat waves or the depths of winter, but it is actually quite useful otherwise.
People who are used to not using air conditioning have no idea how useful it is. But once you get a taste of being able to control the temperature regularly, and no longer have surprises on that score, you'll find your life is actually quite improved. And, again, thousands of French people died because the French did not think refrigeration and ac was important. I guess it was, after all, eh?
All this guy does is make posts saying we should start speaking lojban and use a hexadecimal number system. I've replied to him many times and he remains utterly serious. He also refuses to see why copyright can actually be a good thing.
So, I suspect that the parent was not a joke, and you should quit asuming. You know, ass of you, ha ha. Get a life.
Maybe you should stop replyingto slashdot trolls. Then again, did I just do that as well?:P
I second that statement. Besides, if you want bleeding edge there are plenty of unofficial apt repositories for most anything you could want.
The problem I had in trying debian early on was that the install kernel was 2.2 only and did not support my hardware. I could have built my own install, I suppose, but at the time I had only one computer worthy of such a task and not enough spare hard drives to do it. Even earlier this year when I tried installing debian, again the install kernel was 2.2. All the cutting edge apt repositories in the world will not help you if you cannot get a working operating system.
Another problem with this approach is related in that old versions of software often lack necessary features or just plain won't work under many conditions. In such a case it is actually a better idea to be more up to date. It is also a good plan to be up to date when it comes to plugging security holes in software.
Well you know that if you give Microsoft three-fitty they will just unzip their costume and turn out to be the Loch Ness Monster after all... Oh, wait...
Before anyone starts to believe this nonsense, the first evidence of advanced banking was invented by the babylonians. The invention of Banking and Coinage Origins of Banking
Firstly, others have pointed out that mathematics as practiced by Arab Muslims was far more advanced than that of the Babylonians, who were neither Arab nor Muslim. Secondly, you have completely avoided the point of the problems in Muslim banking.
Islam, Judaism, and (by extension) Christianity all had injunctions against lendng money at interest. In Judaism it became acceptable to lend money at interest to Gentiles and in Christianity to non-Christians, and eventually Christians dropped the whole thing (besides the movement of the West toward a secular society obviating the whole mess). Banking as currently practiced relies on the ability to lend money at interest, among other things. Not being able to do so was a hinderance to any civilization that refused this technology.
The Chinese cannons are an interesting twist; I can say I learned something today. However, it sounds to me like they found some old paintings of cannons and never found any actual cannons. The Chinese certainly did not have cannons to point at the Europeans when they came calling with theirs, and that is really what matters, doesn't it?
I think it is funny how pc apologists try to correct the perception that all the scientific innovation is coming from the West with historical anomalies like zero being invented in several ancient cultures and the wheel being in china 4000 years before it appeared in Europe, etc. But this completely ignores several facts which are painfully obvious.
Firstly, technology in the West is further advanced than elsewhere both in terms of what technology is available and, most importantly, what is available to the individual living in the West. Secondly, it is true that medicine, science, etc were developed to an advanced degree in several ancient cultures and was further advanced than what was available in post-Roman Europe. How long did Europeans go without anasthaesia which was available to pre-Homeric Greece, ancient Egypt and possibly Neanderthal? However, if you travel to these places today you will find their technological and economic state and most importantly quality of life is not only far behind what is available in the West (especially the United States) but is in many cases a shadow of their former state. Compare the economy of ancient Egypt to that of modern Egypt, if you dare. Now do it for India or any country in the Middle East.
Where are the brilliant Middle Eastern mathematicians developing the latest theories that shake the foundations of science? Where is the great new technology that is supposed to be developed in China? Where is the economic powerhouse of Africa? Where is the Indian medicine that puts everything else on earth to shame? It does not exist. The West has all of these things and more, while the rest of the world is either behind or copying madly from our class notes. It is not politically correct. It is also not "failing to acknowledge the past contributions of X." It is understanding the situation in the present day for what it is instead of hiding behind an illusion of an equity that does not exist.
Neither does this mean these parts of the world are doomed to failure. It does mean they need to wake up and realize that they are behind.
I do think the author missed something about Europe though. It is obviously behind the United States in many respects. Most importantly again the availability of technology to the average person and the quality of life. For instance, I knew it was common practice for Europeans to use very small (by US standards) refrigerators whereas most US households could probably freeze a buffalo unassisted. But I was shocked to find that during the heat wave in France there was no ice to be had, not even in the hospitals. They did not have adequate refrigeratio
Luskin is, in my opinion, completely off-base on this one. The fact that he has referred to himself as "stalking" is going to undercut any him when he complains that someone refers to him as a "stalker."
Not just a stalker. In the referenced article he calls himself, with pride, the stalker-in-chief!
This guy didn't exactly do the things you allege he did either - he mentioned where the G5s were unloaded (not housed), that the PrintShop was in the building (common knowledge from signs all over the campus and in publicly-availabls MS maps of the cmapus), and the computer models unloaded. If any of this public information and easily-inferred knowledge (gee, they develop Mac software, ya think they buy Macs at Microsoft?) is to be considered proprietary and serious enough to result in dismissal, then MS is taking the most obtuse interpretation of 'proprietary' possible. It's equivalent to me dismissing someone at my company because they provided instructions on their blog how visitors to the Welcome Centre can get to the public washrooms. Yeah, technically I could consder that 'proprietary' information.
If there really are signs on the campus and the maps are publicly available, that would be a different kettle of fish. None of the many corporate campuses I have been to fit that description, however. Buildings are nondescript or have numbers, and campus maps are clearly marked as internal only proprietary information. Only the employees are supposed to know what the buildings are for and what is going on in there, and with good reason. Even the employees only know that on a "need to know" basis; so, for instance, they might nknow some of what happens in their building because they are a part of it, but unless they interact with other employees in other parts of the building (or other buildings) they don't necessarily know what is happening in there (and won't necessarily be told if they ask). This goes double for contractors, which the picture taker was.
It absolutely doesn't. "Proprietary information" means information that is owned, and that it is illegal for other people to have without consent, regardless of their employment status. If this guy wasn't a temp (who can be fired at will simply by failing to renew him each day), it wouldn't be so easy to remove him for something like this. The information he reported was plainly visible to any 3rd party deliveryman or even unrelated civilian standing on the sidewalk outside.
No, it wasn't. First off, have you been to this building? How do you know the loading dock is right out front and plainly visible? Most of the places I have worked have the loading dock in the back (hell, even a grocery store has the loading dock in the back) and in a secure area, as in behind a locked fence that only people with badges and the delivery guy can get to. It's kind of hard to prevent the delivery guy knowing what they are delivering (though I have seen that made possible as well).
Secondly, do you think there is a big neon flashing sign on this building that says what departments of Microsoft work there? Is it visible from outside? I would bet not.
Look, at any company information about the internal structure is indeed proprietary information, and they try to protect it. Usually this extends to the purposes of buildings that they use as well because they don't want people to know where to go snooping around if they want to spy on them or steal their employees (and cajole information out of them).
This guy violated a clearly stated policy and I don't think being an internal MS employee would have saved him from this one. And that would go for just about any company you could work for, BTW, so beware.
Business proprietors CANNOT arbitrarily exclude someone from a place of business open to the general public without just cause. For example, if you have previously stolen from them, they have the right to bar you. Remember, "just cause" as opposed to "arbitrary".
What part of "right to refuse service to anyone" do you not understand? Businesses do not have to let you stay on their premises, especially if you are making as much an ass of yourself as you suggest. The only exclusion they are specifically barred from making is refusing service overtly on the basis of minority status, and even there there are loopholes.
Trust me, if you go into a store and start taking pictures of the premises, menu, employees, and a manager notices they will at least tae issue with it. And if they try to get you to stop or leave and you call the police, you will be going to jail, not them. You will be very lucky not to have your camera confiscated, too.
But the original context, remember, was a secure facility. There will be guards with guns wanting your camera at such a place; are you going to try to charge them with assault for taking your camera after you have been caught trespassing and committing corporate espionage? (Or in the case of the aformentioned Raytheon, treason...) I think you would be in far more trouble than you can possibly understand.
Alright, I understand that this is false advertising, because the reviewed product is different from the actual product, but don't both products accurately describe the contrast? Like...the reviewed products are 700 to 1, and the consumer ones are 450 to 1...but aren't they both labelled as that? I think this would fall into one of those "check before you buy" categories...one of those common sense things maybe. As long as both products clearly indicate what their specs are, there is deception, but no actual lies.
Firstly, other posters have pointed out that the model numbers were the same so they were essentially saying that if you buy model x you will get the 700:1 contrast ratio. Secondly, no they were not clearly marked but there was conflicting data on Samsung's website.
Thirdly, what the hell is the consumer supposed to think "700:1 contrast ratio" means? The whole point is that the reviewer, a human, compares several products and condenses their descriptions into human terms, explaining why one is better than another. This is especially important because of point 4 which is "there are lies, damn lies, and tech specs." Google for megapixel sometime if you want to get a gist of what I mean.
Just because some monitor says it has xyz ratio and this implies a better picture than another monitor does not mean it is so. Monitor reviewers routinely find subtle flaws in the monitors that woudl not be apparent if you compared boxes and specs. This is especially important since retail stores do not know how to set up monitors for display so every monitor looks like crap in the store.
I'm not sure what you mean by "there is deception, but not actual lies." It seems like they are telling people things they know are not true. To me that is a lie.
Nope, they don't confiscate stuff at the airport (generally)
The power to confiscate your stuff is much harder to establish than the power to deny you access. At airport security, you have the option of keeping your nailclippers and leaving the TSA line. Usually you'll "voluntarily surrender" your nailclippers instead of missing your flight.
Just after 9/11, a friend of mine left the line and convinced his airline ticket counter to hold onto his knife until he returned home a week later. But he had enough time to do this and go back through the security line.
You are wrong, but it is easy to understand your mistake, given the luck you had in your experience. I have had things confiscated in line before 9/11 and there was not an option of leaving the line or of having the security guard hold the items. They were confiscated and destroyed. I was not even getting on a plane.
Post 9/11, there have been highly publicized literal mountains of confiscated nail clippers, etc, so I am thinking it is a safe guess that yes, they do confiscate things.
I have access to a Top Secret research lab. Just for fun, I could disclose exactly how many Dell workstations they've purchased in the past two months(98, bringing the total to 214). I really wouldn't expect they'd care.
I don't think so, either, but they are the judges of that, ultimately. However, you did not disclose the name and location of the building in which these computers were housed, the department that works in that building, and the exact computers, with pictures. That is what this guy did, and why they fired him. All in all, I would say this counts as proprietary information.
As far as cell phone cameras being a security issue (as other posters have pointed out),. sure they are, but unless you have a clearly posted policy, even attempting to confiscate one is common assault. I'd call the cops so fast... and I'd use the phone to record what was going on as evidence.
As soon as you did that, you would be trespassing and the police would be hauling you away. Besides, I haven't heard of anyplace that did not have a policy against cameras (and yes, clearly stated). Even stores and restaurants (like McDonald's) have policies against cameras being used and at the very least will escort you out if they catch you taking pictures inside.
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Of course he said that. He knows who pays the bills, after all.
Certainly, Fox is to the right of CNN, NY Times, et al. But they are obviously left of center, so how is that bad? Even if Fox really was biased toward Republicans, is that so bad, since most of the other media is biased toward Democrats?
Fox is left of center? What they aren't radical enough for your local militia?
Hannity & Colmes has a conservative and a liberal host. I find it quite a bit more refreshing than most other news talk programs. Colmes is a blatant liberal, yet he has as much voice as Hannity.
Alan Colmes is there for comic relief and to be Sean Hannity's punching bag, and the show does not even try to allude otherwise. Usually Hannity gets to speak, but every once in awhile, Colmes gets to say a few sentences which Hannity quickly rebuts after shutting him up. It is clear who is in the driver's seat and what they are trying to portray.
Bill O'Reilly tends to be more conservative than not, but he's not exactly a Republican hack either. He calls it like he sees it, and sometimes bashes Republicans.
There I may agree. I am pretty far to the left on many matters, but I would have to say I agree with a lot of what Oreilly says. I don't agree with all of it, and he does fall into the trap of oversimplifying things and making assumptions a lit, and is not too good about checking his facts. I do like the idea of a no-spin zone. I would prefer a true no-spin zone channel to any other kind of news, personally.
They should include fake news shows in that statistic, just to show the real ones how much they truly suck.
Oddly enough, satirical news shows such as "The Daily Show" and "Weekend Update" are not only more entertaining but often more informative than any of the above. They often report news which no one else would bother reporting. Granted, usually it is because the anecdote is more amusing than it is newsworthy, but very often it is something that politicians and such get up to which is so ridiculous that mainstream news programs will not report it, yet it is awfully important that we know what they are doing.
"Anyway what is fox doing sueing one of their best shows?"
What is FOX doing sueing themselves???? We all know that FOX has no clue, and this just proves that further.
What's next? SCO sues UNIX intellectual property holder for copyright violation? Actually that wouldn't suprise me.
Well, they said that the Simpsons was confusing and would be mistaken for a real Fox News broadcast. They also said that the title of Al Franken's book was too subtle for them. In other words, yes, the entire crew, cast, and all the execs and lawyers at Fox News are complete idiots, but at least they are admitting it now.
When Al Franken said "There is no way a person not completely dense would be confused by this cover to think that Fox is accusing Bill O'Reilly of being a liar. There is nothing confusing about this." I would not doubt there was a meekly muttered "insensitive clod" from the Fox table. :)
You have a good point but I don't think were using fax machines when they were invented (patent was granted in 1843).o rs/blfax .htm
http://inventors.about.com/library/invent
Freaky that it took businesses over 100 years to actually start using it. I suppose that I mean "when fax machines came into wider use" versus "when they were invented" but the Discovery channel made the Nigerian spammers sound like early adopters.
Gas ? Nah Mate, our cars run on petrol.
Just out of curosity, what do you call real gas in the USA ?
Liquid ?
Solid ?
The gas that comes out of our stove is called gas. We might even get specific and call it butane or propane (as the case may be). The gas in our cars is really called gasoline, but we call it gas out of sheer laziness :).
To be fair, the gas in your stove is normally under such pressure as to become liquid if I properly understand it, but of course is released and burnt as gas. Gasoline is a liquid, but vapours are burnt in the combustion chamber.
Petrol is probably a similar abbreviation to "gas" standing for Petroleum Products or somesuch, but I don't have a proper english (as opposed to American English) dictionary ready at hand to look up the etymology. Petroleum, of course, is oil, which is refined to make petrol/gasoline.
His argument is an interesting point of view though. It sounds to me
like he's saying microsoft doesn't need perfect code because people
can just install firewalls. What if the code in the firewalls in turn
isn't perfect though? Doesn't that leave us in an insecure position
again? What about the e-mail scanning software? What if it misses a
virus? Shouldn't you have layers of protection, instead of an outer
layer of protection and a soft underbelly?
This in and of itself proves that Mr. Bill does not have a clue, not only about security but about how the recent worms propogated. Firstly, firewalls are not a panacaea. They only protect from extenral threats. They do not protect against internal threats or trojans/viruses/worms which are brought inside. They do not protect you when you have a worm/virus infected computer connecting to your network via VPN remotely or which is brought inside after being infected. They also do not help you if there is a vulnerability in a core world-facing service like, say, IIS.
These things should be intuitively obvious to the meanest of minds, but are beyond Bill Gates' understanding. Further, he has put the lie to his earlier promise of better software. Now that security firms have been paid off not to report Microsoft holes that they do not deign to fix, Microsoft seems to be ditching the whole idea of writing secure code. It's not as though it was anything more than a marketing ploy in the first place, but now he has pretty much told us that Microsoft will write crappy software on purpose because they don't believe that software has anything to do with security.
If you continue to use Microsoft products after this, well, I guess you get what you deserve.
Umm, so a Linux box with a 2.2 kernel isn't a working operating system? Besides, I _NEVER_ use a stock kernel. I've been playing with Linux for almost 10 years now and the longest a stock kernel has ever run on one of my boxes (workstation or server) is certainly less than a day. For servers stock kernels are generally bloated, for my workstations, they never seem to have the drivers I need available. Lastly, my dev box is also Debian, currently running a 2.6 kernel. You can allways download the source...
A working operating system has to support the hardware on which it runs. It is particularly bad if it does not have the right drivers to talk to the hard drive. That makes it awfully difficult to install and update the operating system.
To use a non-stock kernel, you have to have a computer which has access to the internet and which can access its drives to store the kernel source. Editors and compilers are a plus. This is all very difficult if the kernel on the install cd cannot even write to 3 year old ide controllers.
I don't know why debian users always respond to this problem with "well just compile your own kernel, you loser!" As though I have never compiled a kernel. I would like to see them do that without a computer and access to a hard drive, as you seem to suggest. That is a really neat trick, eh? I guess debian is magical for you.
" > These 419 scams (named after the nigerian police code) can be dangerous. There have been reports of where people have actually gone to foreign countries and then been kidnapped forcing the familes to pay a ransom note."
Sounds like natural selection to me. I'm surprised they figured out how to book the plane ticket.
Discovery channel had a special on these, and said they actually predated fax machines. Originally the scams were sent by first class mail (so, no, putting a stamp on spam will not stop it, at least in this case), then by international fax (again expensive) when fax machines were invented, then by email when that became available.
Then they explained that people were actually paying these spammers and going to foreign countries to meet them at the bank, etc. As if that was not bad enough, they interviewed a successful businessman and multimillionaire who gave them every last dime of his cash over a period of years! I guess that proves you don't have to be smart or even hard working to become a rich businessman in the US (though I haven't made it yet, and would not give the Nigerian spammers a dime). :P
But Henry Silva told us that Nessie was really Jack the Ripper. Or was that bullshit?
And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling kids!
In Europe we have 8 mbit DSL connections for U$ 50-65 / month, IPv6, 16x9 television, you name it. I was in the USA a few years ago and there were a lot of people without a cell phone. In Europe, children from the age of 7 and up have cellphones. Using digital (GSM) technology, developed in Europe, by European companies.
And we actually hear about other countries than our own on the news ..
We hear about other countries on the news here in the US as our armies "discover" and then "liberate" them. Iraq is a country we hear about a lot. Should we be hearing about yours? :) Ok, just kidding, and to be fair, I actually watch BBC news quite often, and have a cable channel that shows news from various countries, though in their original languages.
As for the DSL and the cell phones with GSM, you pretty much just described the US (though for a long time we used US-based digital tech, and frankly that worked far better and more reliably than GSM has, at least for me). However, your experience is probably not typical. It was probably not fair for me to include the whole of europe (which by the way, would have to include Eastern Europe now that they are no longer de facto Russian territories).
First off, in every country DSL is only available in major metropolitan areas with very few exceptions. And I have heard some prices quoted for European DSL that are much higher than yours (which, incidentally, is a little higher than most US DSL and much higher than some). Then there is the cost of a computer to consider. Last I heard, computers still cost thousands of dollars in Europe and were heavily taxed on top of that. Granted I am only thinking of the Netherlands and the UK, but I would not be surprised if that was the case elsewhere, especially in the aforementioned Eastern Europe since people from third world countries tend to tell me that computers are many times more expensive in their homeland than they are in the US.
In the US, I can buy a brand new computer for $200 that is perfectly usable for most things including some games and all home tasks. I built a very powerful computer recently for less than $500. I could have bought a Dell with free tech support, a kick-ass warranty, and a monitor for about $600. That is one of the things that makes things accessable in the US, the fact that things are wicked cheap here. I was reading about the Cancun conference of the WTO and how it had failed in part because of disputes over US farm subsidies which mean that US food exported is cheaper than food in third world countries. That is awesome! It is part of why people here can afford food and plenty of it. After all we have to fill the back of that SUV and haul the horde to fill that refrigerator!
The other part is the increased opportunity people have in this country compared to others. In the poor countries of the world, without exception they are ruled by oppressive, corrupt regimes and have no opportunity. This is what leads them to such a pass. In the US, everyone can work to at least maintain a standard of living far higher than that of most of the rest of the world. If other countries gave their people such freedom, they could live like we do.
By the way, weren't all the technologies you mentioned except GSM (which is the one that sucked the most) invented in the US? And no I promise you I am not trolling. Venting, maybe, but not trolling.
Agreed with everything until you got to the refrigerator thing.
Europe has the custom of the marketplace, started in the midle ages (if not before) and unlike the US, never lost it. This means that it is common to shop for perishable foods daily, or every other day. Not weekly like the US. this translated into needing much smaller refrigerators.
The AC bit? mostly climate. the ice? don't know, but I imagine there is also a simple reason (possible the infrequentness of heat waves :) )
I used to agree with you to a degree. BUT I thik there are 4-5000 French in the afterlife who are rethinking the whole ac/refrigerator thing. I mean, think about it. I understand if the average person only uses a small refrigerator, but a hospital should have refrigeration! They should be able to have ice, and their internal climate should be controlled. Hospitals are for the care of the sick. Temperature and humidity fluctuations can cause awful complications depending on the condition of patients. Besides, how do you treat burn and heatstroke victims under such conditions?
As for climate, you should notice that I mentioned Alaska. You would not think that in Alaska air conditioning is needed or important, and really it usually isn't. Heating, yes, but not AC (which in the US generally refers to cooling the air, which is inaccurate I know). Most of Alaska stays around 75 Fahrenheit all summer. But every Alaskan store and office building, most homes and most vehicles have full climate control. That includes the cooling bit. This may seem superfluous, but at least if there is a heat wave in Alaska (and yes, they do happen) there will be ac available and of course plenty of ice.
But the real heart of the issue is it does not matter what climate you have. Humans have developed technology which allows the indoor climate to be controlled in terms of temperature, humidity, dust/pollen content, etc. Vast untold sums of money and man hours of wicked smart scientists were spent over many decades to come up with this technology and improve it. Now that we have it, we ave the power to control the temperature so that it is always constant no matter what. This is actually vitally important in heat waves or the depths of winter, but it is actually quite useful otherwise.
People who are used to not using air conditioning have no idea how useful it is. But once you get a taste of being able to control the temperature regularly, and no longer have surprises on that score, you'll find your life is actually quite improved. And, again, thousands of French people died because the French did not think refrigeration and ac was important. I guess it was, after all, eh?
All this guy does is make posts saying we should start speaking lojban and use a hexadecimal number system. I've replied to him many times and he remains utterly serious. He also refuses to see why copyright can actually be a good thing.
So, I suspect that the parent was not a joke, and you should quit asuming. You know, ass of you, ha ha. Get a life.
Maybe you should stop replyingto slashdot trolls. Then again, did I just do that as well? :P
I second that statement. Besides, if you want bleeding edge there are plenty of unofficial apt repositories for most anything you could want.
The problem I had in trying debian early on was that the install kernel was 2.2 only and did not support my hardware. I could have built my own install, I suppose, but at the time I had only one computer worthy of such a task and not enough spare hard drives to do it. Even earlier this year when I tried installing debian, again the install kernel was 2.2. All the cutting edge apt repositories in the world will not help you if you cannot get a working operating system.
Another problem with this approach is related in that old versions of software often lack necessary features or just plain won't work under many conditions. In such a case it is actually a better idea to be more up to date. It is also a good plan to be up to date when it comes to plugging security holes in software.
I'm not giving $350 to Microsoft for *anything*
Well you know that if you give Microsoft three-fitty they will just unzip their costume and turn out to be the Loch Ness Monster after all... Oh, wait...
Before anyone starts to believe this nonsense, the first evidence of advanced banking was invented by the babylonians.
The invention of Banking and Coinage
Origins of Banking
Firstly, others have pointed out that mathematics as practiced by Arab Muslims was far more advanced than that of the Babylonians, who were neither Arab nor Muslim. Secondly, you have completely avoided the point of the problems in Muslim banking.
Islam, Judaism, and (by extension) Christianity all had injunctions against lendng money at interest. In Judaism it became acceptable to lend money at interest to Gentiles and in Christianity to non-Christians, and eventually Christians dropped the whole thing (besides the movement of the West toward a secular society obviating the whole mess). Banking as currently practiced relies on the ability to lend money at interest, among other things. Not being able to do so was a hinderance to any civilization that refused this technology.
The Chinese cannons are an interesting twist; I can say I learned something today. However, it sounds to me like they found some old paintings of cannons and never found any actual cannons. The Chinese certainly did not have cannons to point at the Europeans when they came calling with theirs, and that is really what matters, doesn't it?
I think it is funny how pc apologists try to correct the perception that all the scientific innovation is coming from the West with historical anomalies like zero being invented in several ancient cultures and the wheel being in china 4000 years before it appeared in Europe, etc. But this completely ignores several facts which are painfully obvious.
Firstly, technology in the West is further advanced than elsewhere both in terms of what technology is available and, most importantly, what is available to the individual living in the West. Secondly, it is true that medicine, science, etc were developed to an advanced degree in several ancient cultures and was further advanced than what was available in post-Roman Europe. How long did Europeans go without anasthaesia which was available to pre-Homeric Greece, ancient Egypt and possibly Neanderthal? However, if you travel to these places today you will find their technological and economic state and most importantly quality of life is not only far behind what is available in the West (especially the United States) but is in many cases a shadow of their former state. Compare the economy of ancient Egypt to that of modern Egypt, if you dare. Now do it for India or any country in the Middle East.
Where are the brilliant Middle Eastern mathematicians developing the latest theories that shake the foundations of science? Where is the great new technology that is supposed to be developed in China? Where is the economic powerhouse of Africa? Where is the Indian medicine that puts everything else on earth to shame? It does not exist. The West has all of these things and more, while the rest of the world is either behind or copying madly from our class notes. It is not politically correct. It is also not "failing to acknowledge the past contributions of X." It is understanding the situation in the present day for what it is instead of hiding behind an illusion of an equity that does not exist.
Neither does this mean these parts of the world are doomed to failure. It does mean they need to wake up and realize that they are behind.
I do think the author missed something about Europe though. It is obviously behind the United States in many respects. Most importantly again the availability of technology to the average person and the quality of life. For instance, I knew it was common practice for Europeans to use very small (by US standards) refrigerators whereas most US households could probably freeze a buffalo unassisted. But I was shocked to find that during the heat wave in France there was no ice to be had, not even in the hospitals. They did not have adequate refrigeratio
Luskin is, in my opinion, completely off-base on this one. The fact that he has referred to himself as "stalking" is going to undercut any him when he complains that someone refers to him as a "stalker."
Not just a stalker. In the referenced article he calls himself, with pride, the stalker-in-chief!
Create their own software using GPLed source and not provide the source of their changes.
As long as it is internal only software, that is a-ok with the GPL.
This guy didn't exactly do the things you allege he did either - he mentioned where the G5s were unloaded (not housed), that the PrintShop was in the building (common knowledge from signs all over the campus and in publicly-availabls MS maps of the cmapus), and the computer models unloaded. If any of this public information and easily-inferred knowledge (gee, they develop Mac software, ya think they buy Macs at Microsoft?) is to be considered proprietary and serious enough to result in dismissal, then MS is taking the most obtuse interpretation of 'proprietary' possible. It's equivalent to me dismissing someone at my company because they provided instructions on their blog how visitors to the Welcome Centre can get to the public washrooms. Yeah, technically I could consder that 'proprietary' information.
If there really are signs on the campus and the maps are publicly available, that would be a different kettle of fish. None of the many corporate campuses I have been to fit that description, however. Buildings are nondescript or have numbers, and campus maps are clearly marked as internal only proprietary information. Only the employees are supposed to know what the buildings are for and what is going on in there, and with good reason. Even the employees only know that on a "need to know" basis; so, for instance, they might nknow some of what happens in their building because they are a part of it, but unless they interact with other employees in other parts of the building (or other buildings) they don't necessarily know what is happening in there (and won't necessarily be told if they ask). This goes double for contractors, which the picture taker was.
It absolutely doesn't. "Proprietary information" means information that is owned, and that it is illegal for other people to have without consent, regardless of their employment status. If this guy wasn't a temp (who can be fired at will simply by failing to renew him each day), it wouldn't be so easy to remove him for something like this. The information he reported was plainly visible to any 3rd party deliveryman or even unrelated civilian standing on the sidewalk outside.
No, it wasn't. First off, have you been to this building? How do you know the loading dock is right out front and plainly visible? Most of the places I have worked have the loading dock in the back (hell, even a grocery store has the loading dock in the back) and in a secure area, as in behind a locked fence that only people with badges and the delivery guy can get to. It's kind of hard to prevent the delivery guy knowing what they are delivering (though I have seen that made possible as well).
Secondly, do you think there is a big neon flashing sign on this building that says what departments of Microsoft work there? Is it visible from outside? I would bet not.
Look, at any company information about the internal structure is indeed proprietary information, and they try to protect it. Usually this extends to the purposes of buildings that they use as well because they don't want people to know where to go snooping around if they want to spy on them or steal their employees (and cajole information out of them).
This guy violated a clearly stated policy and I don't think being an internal MS employee would have saved him from this one. And that would go for just about any company you could work for, BTW, so beware.
Business proprietors CANNOT arbitrarily exclude someone from a place of business open to the general public without just cause. For example, if you have previously stolen from them, they have the right to bar you. Remember, "just cause" as opposed to "arbitrary".
What part of "right to refuse service to anyone" do you not understand? Businesses do not have to let you stay on their premises, especially if you are making as much an ass of yourself as you suggest. The only exclusion they are specifically barred from making is refusing service overtly on the basis of minority status, and even there there are loopholes.
Trust me, if you go into a store and start taking pictures of the premises, menu, employees, and a manager notices they will at least tae issue with it. And if they try to get you to stop or leave and you call the police, you will be going to jail, not them. You will be very lucky not to have your camera confiscated, too.
But the original context, remember, was a secure facility. There will be guards with guns wanting your camera at such a place; are you going to try to charge them with assault for taking your camera after you have been caught trespassing and committing corporate espionage? (Or in the case of the aformentioned Raytheon, treason...) I think you would be in far more trouble than you can possibly understand.
Alright, I understand that this is false advertising, because the reviewed product is different from the actual product, but don't both products accurately describe the contrast? Like...the reviewed products are 700 to 1, and the consumer ones are 450 to 1...but aren't they both labelled as that? I think this would fall into one of those "check before you buy" categories...one of those common sense things maybe. As long as both products clearly indicate what their specs are, there is deception, but no actual lies.
Firstly, other posters have pointed out that the model numbers were the same so they were essentially saying that if you buy model x you will get the 700:1 contrast ratio. Secondly, no they were not clearly marked but there was conflicting data on Samsung's website.
Thirdly, what the hell is the consumer supposed to think "700:1 contrast ratio" means? The whole point is that the reviewer, a human, compares several products and condenses their descriptions into human terms, explaining why one is better than another. This is especially important because of point 4 which is "there are lies, damn lies, and tech specs." Google for megapixel sometime if you want to get a gist of what I mean.
Just because some monitor says it has xyz ratio and this implies a better picture than another monitor does not mean it is so. Monitor reviewers routinely find subtle flaws in the monitors that woudl not be apparent if you compared boxes and specs. This is especially important since retail stores do not know how to set up monitors for display so every monitor looks like crap in the store.
I'm not sure what you mean by "there is deception, but not actual lies." It seems like they are telling people things they know are not true. To me that is a lie.
Nope, they don't confiscate stuff at the airport (generally)
The power to confiscate your stuff is much harder to establish than the power to deny you access. At airport security, you have the option of keeping your nailclippers and leaving the TSA line. Usually you'll "voluntarily surrender" your nailclippers instead of missing your flight.
Just after 9/11, a friend of mine left the line and convinced his airline ticket counter to hold onto his knife until he returned home a week later. But he had enough time to do this and go back through the security line.
You are wrong, but it is easy to understand your mistake, given the luck you had in your experience. I have had things confiscated in line before 9/11 and there was not an option of leaving the line or of having the security guard hold the items. They were confiscated and destroyed. I was not even getting on a plane.
Post 9/11, there have been highly publicized literal mountains of confiscated nail clippers, etc, so I am thinking it is a safe guess that yes, they do confiscate things.
I have access to a Top Secret research lab. Just for fun, I could disclose exactly how many Dell workstations they've purchased in the past two months(98, bringing the total to 214). I really wouldn't expect they'd care.
I don't think so, either, but they are the judges of that, ultimately. However, you did not disclose the name and location of the building in which these computers were housed, the department that works in that building, and the exact computers, with pictures. That is what this guy did, and why they fired him. All in all, I would say this counts as proprietary information.
As far as cell phone cameras being a security issue (as other posters have pointed out),. sure they are, but unless you have a clearly posted policy, even attempting to confiscate one is common assault. I'd call the cops so fast ... and I'd use the phone to record what was going on as evidence.
As soon as you did that, you would be trespassing and the police would be hauling you away. Besides, I haven't heard of anyplace that did not have a policy against cameras (and yes, clearly stated). Even stores and restaurants (like McDonald's) have policies against cameras being used and at the very least will escort you out if they catch you taking pictures inside.