I don't really care that much about the argument, I just think it's awesome that you used the word 'bugger' on Slashdot. We need more imaginative cussin' around here.
Are you sure? There's been this myth going around for years that you can accidentally erase your hard drive by putting fridge magnets on the side of your case. It's total bullshit. A buddy of mine tried to replicate this by putting rare-earth magnets right on top of a drive. It didn't do jack. The drive was fine and all the data was intact.
He must have some special copy of Vista or something. I don't think have ever seen Vista boot to a 'usable' desktop faster than XP no matter how much RAM a system has.
It may not have a monetary cost, but it still has value. It's just you don't have to pay to access this value. For example, I don't pay to read/. but I value it very highly. This is what their advertisers count on. These free papers are doing to same thing, only in paper form.
Yeah, it's a bit of a bummer that they go through lots of trees this way, but I don't think the world has got to a place where everyone is cool with the idea of always carrying a laptop or smartphone around. Sometimes it is nice to sit down at a cafe and just read. Ever tried to read a news article on a cellphone? How about doing the crossword or a Sodoku puzzle. It's just not the same.
In my town of roughly 30,000 people there are two newspapers. One of which is the traditional type, owned by some big conglomerate, that carries mostly wire stories and syndicated columns. In addition to being chock full of ads, you have to pay to get the thing.
The other one is published locally, by local folks, and mostly runs stories about local topics and columns from local writers. It too has lots of ads, but is doled out for free every week.
Guess which one of these is in financial trouble?
The problem big, traditional newspapers have is a lot of their content is focused on national level news. This is perhaps because they sell to people in so many communities.
But thanks to the Internet (and to some degree, 24 hour news channels), I can read that news before they print it. I suspect a lot of people are starting to do this. I see little value in buying something I've already read much of the content of.
Isn't there already have a show like this, where the bad guys win, but the human spirit endures, even converting many of the baddies to the ways of goodness near the end.
"Barking nincompoop" is one of the funniest insults I've heard in a while. Made me laugh.
Seriously though, I think what GP was trying to say is that the poor are more affected by taxes, even if they don't pay as much, or even as much by percentage.
If you earn a million bucks a year, who gives a damn if you pay $400,000 in taxes? You may be pissed off that you have to pay it, but you're still living like a king off the remaining $600,000.
But if you only earn $20,000 a year you care a lot about having to pay even $2,000. From your point of view, that's a lot of money, money you could use to improve your condition.
Also ultimately, directly or indirectly, a poor person is very likely working for the people earning that million per year.
A reason to ban guns completely in a society is because it makes it harder to kill a lot of people at once. Ever wondered why you don't hear about a punching spree or a knifing spree?
If I go mad and walk into a crowded place with the desire to kill people and I have a knife I might be able to get one or two victims before the rest all run away, beyond my reach.
But with a gun, my reach is greatly extended. I can shoot them as they run or try to dodge around me. I can shoot them through doors and walls if my weapon is good enough. And I can keep shooting targets until I run out of ammo.
The reason guns are dangerous is because they are an order of magnitude better at hurting people quickly than blades or fists. An armed society is not a polite society. It is a society where people are often shot.
As a security pro, it is your job to protect existing computing assets, but the question of personal happiness is not an unreasonable thing to ask in regards to your overall career.
Computer security seems almost hopeless some days. Viruses, bots, hacks and the like... Helplessly watch as some assholes overseas rally up a monster botnet in less than a month because regular folks are too dumb to not to click on the latest meme? It's like watching lemmings go off a cliff. Security researcher has to be one of the worst jobs in IT. Most people don't even know what they do, let alone why what they do is so important.
I work as a professional desktop technician so I spend a fair bit of time dealing with security problems, viruses, patches, malware, etc... I rely on security pros to do my job. Some days are trying. There are these days, after wiping off the X-badmofo.worm.32.whatever of the week you get to asking yourself, "Why do it? Why go on? It's only one computer. It will be the same next week."
So then you tell yourself that you have to, you _must_ do it, you're the front line, your skillz are great and if you don't do it, who the hell else will? A few belts of whiskey and some video games make the doubts go away in the evening.
But the next day it's still the same. Some jerk is infected with a trojan, someone else has a pop-up storm, "I'm getting so many spams!". OH NOES NOT THE SPAM!!! The deal is the same and it never gets better. You might as well be working in a factory making cars, what for all the repetition.
If that is how your IT job is making you feel, then it is time to get a new job. Not everyone is wired to endure the kind of crap that computer people have to deal with day to day.
There is no shame in wanting to be gardener. At least they don't get spam.
Poster didn't claim to be a "she" either. So I'm thinking sentient computer system from like Japan or something. Finding actual girls on Slashdot... never going to happen, the chances of this are astronomical.
This number of lost laptops in airports is pretty hard to believe. Worldwide laptop production is like what, 60 million units? This article seems to be telling us that one percent of all the laptops made every year in the whole entire world are lost in U.S. airports.
It's a pretty big number given all the other ways a laptop can meet its end. Where are they all going? Is there some kind of giant warehouse somewhere?
No wonder mobile sector of the computer industry is booming.
Such laws do make you scratch your head. At the rate things are going, it will be illegal to do or say anything in the U.S. Makes you wonder just how much of the future Orwell had actually seen.
Keytronic even sells them in black! Paint over the keys with nailpolish or something.
As near as I can tell the Das Keyboard is a 3600 series Keytronic keyboard. Just without any printing. Even their diagrams for the "Individually Weighted Keyswitches" look similar:
A lot of employers don't care if you do work on the side.
In most cases, if your boss can tell his boss that you get the work done everyone is happy. In a big, rich market like advertising, telling someone they could get into trouble for moonlighting is hyperbole at best. Having your boss find out you deliberately broke some corporate website, even though it was because of their poor judgement, is probably more damaging.
No one said this was some kind of amazing opportunity. All I said was that there could have been one. Unlike some of the posters above I don't feel it is bad to look for opportunity in curious places. If you are able to render a service that someone wants to pay for, in my mind, that's good honest trade. Not all trade is bad.
And it might have been a good opportunity for all we know, you would be surprised what corporate types will pay money for. If nothing else, it could have generated some positive professional exposure, not like any of this wreck.
According to his weblog, he got the apology I think he wanted. So now he'll never know and we'll never know.
But I must say, none of this forgives his bad taste. Accuse me of being old-fashioned, but to react in such a way is offensive and counter-productive. Why be that way? Why try to be vindictive or offensive? Surely the world has enough of that shit already. There were any number of ways to deal with a problem such as this and I feel that sockin' it to The Man was best one.
Slashdot Mirror
No, the epic fail here is at least one person's inability to grasp satire.
Well it said "more magic" and after you cut the tape you'll try anything. Hey, I figured that more was better. How the hell was I supposed to know!
My bad. I never should have cut that tape.
We look and feel like Americans.
Some of us are programmed to think we are Americans.
There are many copies.
And we have a plan.
I don't really care that much about the argument, I just think it's awesome that you used the word 'bugger' on Slashdot. We need more imaginative cussin' around here.
Are you sure? There's been this myth going around for years that you can accidentally erase your hard drive by putting fridge magnets on the side of your case. It's total bullshit. A buddy of mine tried to replicate this by putting rare-earth magnets right on top of a drive. It didn't do jack. The drive was fine and all the data was intact.
He must have some special copy of Vista or something. I don't think have ever seen Vista boot to a 'usable' desktop faster than XP no matter how much RAM a system has.
It may not have a monetary cost, but it still has value. It's just you don't have to pay to access this value. For example, I don't pay to read /. but I value it very highly. This is what their advertisers count on. These free papers are doing to same thing, only in paper form.
Yeah, it's a bit of a bummer that they go through lots of trees this way, but I don't think the world has got to a place where everyone is cool with the idea of always carrying a laptop or smartphone around. Sometimes it is nice to sit down at a cafe and just read. Ever tried to read a news article on a cellphone? How about doing the crossword or a Sodoku puzzle. It's just not the same.
In my town of roughly 30,000 people there are two newspapers. One of which is the traditional type, owned by some big conglomerate, that carries mostly wire stories and syndicated columns. In addition to being chock full of ads, you have to pay to get the thing.
The other one is published locally, by local folks, and mostly runs stories about local topics and columns from local writers. It too has lots of ads, but is doled out for free every week.
Guess which one of these is in financial trouble?
The problem big, traditional newspapers have is a lot of their content is focused on national level news. This is perhaps because they sell to people in so many communities.
But thanks to the Internet (and to some degree, 24 hour news channels), I can read that news before they print it. I suspect a lot of people are starting to do this. I see little value in buying something I've already read much of the content of.
gosh my engrish sucks
Isn't there already have a show like this, where the bad guys win, but the human spirit endures, even converting many of the baddies to the ways of goodness near the end.
What do they call it, now... oh yeah!
Battlestar Galactica.
"Barking nincompoop" is one of the funniest insults I've heard in a while. Made me laugh.
Seriously though, I think what GP was trying to say is that the poor are more affected by taxes, even if they don't pay as much, or even as much by percentage.
If you earn a million bucks a year, who gives a damn if you pay $400,000 in taxes? You may be pissed off that you have to pay it, but you're still living like a king off the remaining $600,000.
But if you only earn $20,000 a year you care a lot about having to pay even $2,000. From your point of view, that's a lot of money, money you could use to improve your condition.
Also ultimately, directly or indirectly, a poor person is very likely working for the people earning that million per year.
A reason to ban guns completely in a society is because it makes it harder to kill a lot of people at once. Ever wondered why you don't hear about a punching spree or a knifing spree?
If I go mad and walk into a crowded place with the desire to kill people and I have a knife I might be able to get one or two victims before the rest all run away, beyond my reach.
But with a gun, my reach is greatly extended. I can shoot them as they run or try to dodge around me. I can shoot them through doors and walls if my weapon is good enough. And I can keep shooting targets until I run out of ammo.
The reason guns are dangerous is because they are an order of magnitude better at hurting people quickly than blades or fists. An armed society is not a polite society. It is a society where people are often shot.
On the plus side, the price of iceberg vodka should go go down.
As a security pro, it is your job to protect existing computing assets, but the question of personal happiness is not an unreasonable thing to ask in regards to your overall career.
Computer security seems almost hopeless some days. Viruses, bots, hacks and the like... Helplessly watch as some assholes overseas rally up a monster botnet in less than a month because regular folks are too dumb to not to click on the latest meme? It's like watching lemmings go off a cliff. Security researcher has to be one of the worst jobs in IT. Most people don't even know what they do, let alone why what they do is so important.
I work as a professional desktop technician so I spend a fair bit of time dealing with security problems, viruses, patches, malware, etc... I rely on security pros to do my job. Some days are trying. There are these days, after wiping off the X-badmofo.worm.32.whatever of the week you get to asking yourself, "Why do it? Why go on? It's only one computer. It will be the same next week."
So then you tell yourself that you have to, you _must_ do it, you're the front line, your skillz are great and if you don't do it, who the hell else will? A few belts of whiskey and some video games make the doubts go away in the evening.
But the next day it's still the same. Some jerk is infected with a trojan, someone else has a pop-up storm, "I'm getting so many spams!". OH NOES NOT THE SPAM!!! The deal is the same and it never gets better. You might as well be working in a factory making cars, what for all the repetition.
If that is how your IT job is making you feel, then it is time to get a new job. Not everyone is wired to endure the kind of crap that computer people have to deal with day to day.
There is no shame in wanting to be gardener. At least they don't get spam.
Poster didn't claim to be a "she" either. So I'm thinking sentient computer system from like Japan or something. Finding actual girls on Slashdot... never going to happen, the chances of this are astronomical.
This number of lost laptops in airports is pretty hard to believe. Worldwide laptop production is like what, 60 million units? This article seems to be telling us that one percent of all the laptops made every year in the whole entire world are lost in U.S. airports.
It's a pretty big number given all the other ways a laptop can meet its end. Where are they all going? Is there some kind of giant warehouse somewhere?
No wonder mobile sector of the computer industry is booming.
She is attractive indeed! And she can hack, too. Smart hacker chix give me goosebumps...
This kind of stupidity is exactly why my OS of choice is now Linux. No WGA. No product activation. No problems.
You need to go for flowers and birds and cute little animals with great, big, dark, soulful eyes. And ponies.
Or go the route of Fedora Core 5. Very bubbly and cute! I was just waiting for the ponies while it installed.
Such laws do make you scratch your head. At the rate things are going, it will be illegal to do or say anything in the U.S. Makes you wonder just how much of the future Orwell had actually seen.
These mini hotel rooms remind me a lot of the cabins on a cruise ship. They pack a lot of stuff into those.
Shame they didn't use a better movie. I really feel for all of those engineers being forced to watch that dreck.
Keytronic even sells them in black! Paint over the keys with nailpolish or something.
As near as I can tell the Das Keyboard is a 3600 series Keytronic keyboard. Just without any printing. Even their diagrams for the "Individually Weighted Keyswitches" look similar:
Das Keyboard
Keytronic
A lot of employers don't care if you do work on the side.
In most cases, if your boss can tell his boss that you get the work done everyone is happy. In a big, rich market like advertising, telling someone they could get into trouble for moonlighting is hyperbole at best. Having your boss find out you deliberately broke some corporate website, even though it was because of their poor judgement, is probably more damaging.
No one said this was some kind of amazing opportunity. All I said was that there could have been one. Unlike some of the posters above I don't feel it is bad to look for opportunity in curious places. If you are able to render a service that someone wants to pay for, in my mind, that's good honest trade. Not all trade is bad.
And it might have been a good opportunity for all we know, you would be surprised what corporate types will pay money for. If nothing else, it could have generated some positive professional exposure, not like any of this wreck.
According to his weblog, he got the apology I think he wanted. So now he'll never know and we'll never know.
But I must say, none of this forgives his bad taste. Accuse me of being old-fashioned, but to react in such a way is offensive and counter-productive. Why be that way? Why try to be vindictive or offensive? Surely the world has enough of that shit already. There were any number of ways to deal with a problem such as this and I feel that sockin' it to The Man was best one.