That should be: Cogito cogitare, ergo cogito esse. You need to use the infinitive (cogitare, esse) in those cases, not the present active indicative.
Centurion: Understand? Now, write it out a hundred times.
Brian: Yes sir. Thank you, sir. Hail Caesar, sir!
Centurion: Hail Caesar! And if it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off.
Oh, I agree, and I believe that all those responsible for this should, at the least, be fired. All I meant in my post was that I've noticed corporate culture swinging more and more towards a "mess up and get fired" policy, and I disagree with that.
An example I can think of from my own experience was someone misreading an instruction and installing software on the wrong server, royally screwing up that server (which, naturally, had some critical apps running on it...). We had our backup up and running within an hour, and the original server working fine by the end of the day, but it was pretty high-profile
The man got fired for it, but I think he should have gotten a written warning and sent back to work. He felt bad enough about it that I seriously doubt he would have ever made the same mistake again.
While I agree that whoever is responsible for this should be fired (and it may not be the person who wrote this, it could be the boss who pushed to have this released before it was ready), I think that people are too quick to fire folks who make mistakes these days.
People learn from their mistakes, and the money spent on damage control and cleanup can be seen as paying for that employee's education, in a way.
I mean, what would you prefer, to fire the person who made a mistake and hire someone with unknown qualifications who may end up making the exact same mistake again later, or keep your already trained employee who was so burned by this mistake that s/he will NEVER make the same mistake again?
The article is a little sparse on advice. This "Dirk" guy just sounds like someone who's going to be an ass no matter what. If your boss won't back you up, and you can't handle working with this guy, quit. It's better than snapping one day and breaking his jaw for him.
It depends on how quickly they snap from green to yellow to red, I think. It's possible to make it happen fast enough that even people who would stop if possible would still end up running lights. This is the Roscoe P Coltrane method of generating revenue through law enforcement, and I wouldn't be surprised to find it happening in some towns.
No, I thought right. Government is supposed to have LIMITED taxation powers, and has to justify what those taxes are being spent on. There is no justification I can think of for an internet sales tax for downloads (other than increasing the tax base). Unlike shipments from, say, Amazon.com that actually use roads, postal service, etc., downloading does not require any real government support. All the costs are already paid.
That said, the government (federal, state, local) can try to tax anything they want. If CA wants to try and tax downloads, let them. They're in for a bigger fight then they'd ever expect. If it comes to my state, I will be as loud and obnoxious as I can be to prevent it.
"The government has no authority to take a cut of anything they wish."
No kidding... I thought the whole point of sales tax was SUPPOSED to be that it supported the infrastructure (roads, etc.) needed to actually sell the product, which is why sales tax makes sense as far as ordering off of, for example, Amazon.com goes (stuff still needs shipping). As far as I am aware, the government doesn't actually have an infrastructure to support regarding just downloads. The entire cost is borne by ISPs and the site you download from (thus, by extension, the consumers themselves).
I see no need for a sales tax on downloads other than padding pockets and paying for totally unrelated projects.
My favorite trick I played on my co-workers was remote into their machines and replace all the default Windows.wav files with something a little more... lively.
Let's see... I had a Wilhelm scream, Daffy Duck going "whoo-hoo!", Elmer Fudd laughing, the Star Trek door-opening noise for when a window opened, etc.
The screenshot of the desktop trick worked well on my boss, too. He rebooted three times trying to fix his "freeze" problem:)
"If I were a Scientologist (I most certainly am not), I would accuse you of deliberately trying to spread false information about their glorious leader. "
You forgot the part about "and threaten to sue you unless you publicly admit that you made a mistake and correct or remove the offending post."
Gosh, I sure am glad that "Fair Game" doesn't really exist anymore, per Scientologists
"A lot of times when you introduce someone to guns the first time they fool around with them before the bullets are in and point them at you. "
Reminds me of when I went to a firing range with an inexperienced friend who likes to talk with his hands, and forgot he had a gun in one of them. That was the first and (so far) last time I've ever had a loaded gun pointed at my head. Not a fun experience.
That was my first time holding a gun too. But I somehow managed to never point the thing at anything that had a heartbeat:)
Really? I stand corrected then, and apologize for passing on bad information. However, I still stand by what I said... since it is "non-lethal", people are more likely to use it when the situation doesn't warrant it. Someone being upset, obnoxious or disruptive does not, in my opinion, warrant the pain and humiliation of a tazering.
The same can be said of pepper spray, rubber bullets, etc., and not just tasers... especially since it's not just trained officers who have access to some of these "non-lethals".
Also, it would probably be more accurate to say that nobody has been killed by a taser "yet". It's just a matter of time before something happens to change that (someone prone to heart attacks or seizures, maybe). However, I agree whole-heartedly that having non-lethal options for officers is better than just guns and night sticks.
"Perhaps I'm cynical, but wasn't the last great advance for police forces the taser?"
Yeah, except the fact that people can still suffer injury or death from tasers, and that the percieved reduced risk with tasers makes police more likely to use them, even in situations that don't really mandate use of force (don't taze me, bro!) and... oh, wait. You were using sarcasm:)
I agree with you on every point, actually. I'd love to see drugs legalized. Not because I want to use them (I don't, and I won't... I don't like them) but simply because I don't see why it's anyone's business what I put in my body in my own home. In public, while driving or whatever is another deal all together. But we already have laws that cover that (DUI), and that is more than sufficient, in my opinion.
Make drugs legal, regulate them and tax them, use the savings from police enforcement to educate people on the negative side-effects of drugs, and use the tax money to pay for treatment for addicts. You'll get an immediate reduction in crime (meaning more prison space for REAL criminals), less power for organized crime, and nice new revenue streams to treat those that need it... but the only money that should go to the addicts is the money from the drug taxes. Not a single penny from those who abstain should go to support those people.
I woulda read the article first, but I was having trouble pulling it up... it turns out it's only 14 pounds... so I guess a busload of kids wouldn't really be in danger, but individuals still would be. Something that big dropping on your head from even a few feet up could easily kill you.
That's one of the things I was concerned about... What if the thing crashes? Sorry, but the worse case scenario that I can think of, this thing crashing into a busload of kids, is not worth a slight bump in police efficiency.
And that's not even considering the privacy concerns. Sure, I know that public is public and cameras are everywhere, but I think having something capable of following you around with a camera is a much bigger deal than static cameras.
Ooh, that brings up a question... how long until the paparazzi start deploying these things to automate their celebrity-stalking?
This is slashdot. It's not like we're not familiar with people posting a link and pretending it goes to something neat/funny/interesting or whatever, and it turns out to be something horrible instead. Only, in this case, the prankster could end up getting people raided by the FBI, instead of staring at some guy's gaping ass.
Oh, I agree. Having strong password requirements is only good if people can remember their password. And, it's not like I've never forgotten passwords of my own:)
However, anyone should know that you don't tape your password to the device that it goes to. That's like locking your front door and leaving the key in the lock so you don't have to bother looking for it when you get home.
We do tell people not to do that, when we set them up with a laptop and encryption. I also tell them to have the password in some way accessible while traveling, without actually being on the laptop or in the case. Keeping a slip of paper in your wallet is better than a post-it on the laptop or in the carrying case. I suggest leaving themselves a voicemail at work as to what the password is. That way, if they forget it while traveling, they can just dial into voicemail and check it.
Still, even with us telling them that, I still see an amazing number of people who just have a note taped to their laptop with their password. It's infuriating, really.
Yeah, we can get them back in. Not while they're traveling, though. They're kinda out of luck until they get back into the office.
People not remembering their encryption password is by far the lesser of two evils, though. I'd rather have the data be totally inaccessible than be accessed by the wrong people.
Where I work, we have a policy to have encryption on every laptop. It has to be minimum of 8 characters and include a mix of capital and lower case, a number and one special character. Compared to every other password requirement we have, that's relatively strong.
The problem comes in when people can't remember the encryption password. Either they lock themselves out of the laptop or they do something brilliant like write the password on a post-it and tape it to the laptop case.
No matter what strategy you have, your own customers will find a way to mess it up.
I used to work HR Tech support back in the day. We had access to all kinds of extrememly sensitive information, including what everyone got paid. The best advice I got on how to deal with that was: "Before you do anything, think of what you'll say if someone asks why you were doing it". I never did look up my co-worker's data, tempting though it was to see where I fit in the pay scale.
We had an in-house developed application for HR folks to be able to look up sensitive information. Thing is, we had to rely on non-HR tech people in other parts of the country to help support it. We had to explain to them that they were not, under any circumstanses, to attempt to look at any of the data. Many of them tried once, got warned about it, and gave up. A few people actually kept trying after a warning (we logged any attempt to access data) and ended up getting fired. It kinda drove the point home for me.
The same for me. When I heard he was writing the last Wheel of Time book, I ran out and got not only the two Mistborn books, but also Elantris. Elantris is interesting, though a little rough (it's an earlier work) but the two Mistborn books are actually really good. I'm interested to see how he does on a Memory of Light.
Slashdot Mirror
I read, and enjoyed, Harry Potter. Not my favorite series by a long shot, but still a fun way to spend a couple hours.
Centurion: Understand? Now, write it out a hundred times.
Brian: Yes sir. Thank you, sir. Hail Caesar, sir!
Centurion: Hail Caesar! And if it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off.
holy crap, Chow Yun-Fat as Roshi? Man, I'd see it just for that. The production pics make it look pretty horrific, though.
An example I can think of from my own experience was someone misreading an instruction and installing software on the wrong server, royally screwing up that server (which, naturally, had some critical apps running on it...). We had our backup up and running within an hour, and the original server working fine by the end of the day, but it was pretty high-profile
The man got fired for it, but I think he should have gotten a written warning and sent back to work. He felt bad enough about it that I seriously doubt he would have ever made the same mistake again.
People learn from their mistakes, and the money spent on damage control and cleanup can be seen as paying for that employee's education, in a way.
I mean, what would you prefer, to fire the person who made a mistake and hire someone with unknown qualifications who may end up making the exact same mistake again later, or keep your already trained employee who was so burned by this mistake that s/he will NEVER make the same mistake again?
The article is a little sparse on advice. This "Dirk" guy just sounds like someone who's going to be an ass no matter what. If your boss won't back you up, and you can't handle working with this guy, quit. It's better than snapping one day and breaking his jaw for him.
It depends on how quickly they snap from green to yellow to red, I think. It's possible to make it happen fast enough that even people who would stop if possible would still end up running lights. This is the Roscoe P Coltrane method of generating revenue through law enforcement, and I wouldn't be surprised to find it happening in some towns.
That said, the government (federal, state, local) can try to tax anything they want. If CA wants to try and tax downloads, let them. They're in for a bigger fight then they'd ever expect. If it comes to my state, I will be as loud and obnoxious as I can be to prevent it.
Not to mention, everyone who draws power pays the utility companies. So, that's paid for already.
No kidding... I thought the whole point of sales tax was SUPPOSED to be that it supported the infrastructure (roads, etc.) needed to actually sell the product, which is why sales tax makes sense as far as ordering off of, for example, Amazon.com goes (stuff still needs shipping). As far as I am aware, the government doesn't actually have an infrastructure to support regarding just downloads. The entire cost is borne by ISPs and the site you download from (thus, by extension, the consumers themselves).
I see no need for a sales tax on downloads other than padding pockets and paying for totally unrelated projects.
And won't someone please think of all the B-movie actors who would be out of a job?
Let's see... I had a Wilhelm scream, Daffy Duck going "whoo-hoo!", Elmer Fudd laughing, the Star Trek door-opening noise for when a window opened, etc.
The screenshot of the desktop trick worked well on my boss, too. He rebooted three times trying to fix his "freeze" problem :)
You forgot the part about "and threaten to sue you unless you publicly admit that you made a mistake and correct or remove the offending post."
Gosh, I sure am glad that "Fair Game" doesn't really exist anymore, per Scientologists
Reminds me of when I went to a firing range with an inexperienced friend who likes to talk with his hands, and forgot he had a gun in one of them. That was the first and (so far) last time I've ever had a loaded gun pointed at my head. Not a fun experience.
That was my first time holding a gun too. But I somehow managed to never point the thing at anything that had a heartbeat :)
Really? I stand corrected then, and apologize for passing on bad information. However, I still stand by what I said... since it is "non-lethal", people are more likely to use it when the situation doesn't warrant it. Someone being upset, obnoxious or disruptive does not, in my opinion, warrant the pain and humiliation of a tazering.
The same can be said of pepper spray, rubber bullets, etc., and not just tasers... especially since it's not just trained officers who have access to some of these "non-lethals".
Also, it would probably be more accurate to say that nobody has been killed by a taser "yet". It's just a matter of time before something happens to change that (someone prone to heart attacks or seizures, maybe). However, I agree whole-heartedly that having non-lethal options for officers is better than just guns and night sticks.
Yeah, except the fact that people can still suffer injury or death from tasers, and that the percieved reduced risk with tasers makes police more likely to use them, even in situations that don't really mandate use of force (don't taze me, bro!) and... oh, wait. You were using sarcasm :)
I agree with you on every point, actually. I'd love to see drugs legalized. Not because I want to use them (I don't, and I won't... I don't like them) but simply because I don't see why it's anyone's business what I put in my body in my own home. In public, while driving or whatever is another deal all together. But we already have laws that cover that (DUI), and that is more than sufficient, in my opinion.
Make drugs legal, regulate them and tax them, use the savings from police enforcement to educate people on the negative side-effects of drugs, and use the tax money to pay for treatment for addicts. You'll get an immediate reduction in crime (meaning more prison space for REAL criminals), less power for organized crime, and nice new revenue streams to treat those that need it... but the only money that should go to the addicts is the money from the drug taxes. Not a single penny from those who abstain should go to support those people.
I woulda read the article first, but I was having trouble pulling it up... it turns out it's only 14 pounds... so I guess a busload of kids wouldn't really be in danger, but individuals still would be. Something that big dropping on your head from even a few feet up could easily kill you.
And that's not even considering the privacy concerns. Sure, I know that public is public and cameras are everywhere, but I think having something capable of following you around with a camera is a much bigger deal than static cameras.
Ooh, that brings up a question... how long until the paparazzi start deploying these things to automate their celebrity-stalking?
This is slashdot. It's not like we're not familiar with people posting a link and pretending it goes to something neat/funny/interesting or whatever, and it turns out to be something horrible instead. Only, in this case, the prankster could end up getting people raided by the FBI, instead of staring at some guy's gaping ass.
They should put a little protection in there for those that want to teach the Flat Earth concept, too.
However, anyone should know that you don't tape your password to the device that it goes to. That's like locking your front door and leaving the key in the lock so you don't have to bother looking for it when you get home.
We do tell people not to do that, when we set them up with a laptop and encryption. I also tell them to have the password in some way accessible while traveling, without actually being on the laptop or in the case. Keeping a slip of paper in your wallet is better than a post-it on the laptop or in the carrying case. I suggest leaving themselves a voicemail at work as to what the password is. That way, if they forget it while traveling, they can just dial into voicemail and check it.
Still, even with us telling them that, I still see an amazing number of people who just have a note taped to their laptop with their password. It's infuriating, really.
People not remembering their encryption password is by far the lesser of two evils, though. I'd rather have the data be totally inaccessible than be accessed by the wrong people.
The problem comes in when people can't remember the encryption password. Either they lock themselves out of the laptop or they do something brilliant like write the password on a post-it and tape it to the laptop case.
No matter what strategy you have, your own customers will find a way to mess it up.
We had an in-house developed application for HR folks to be able to look up sensitive information. Thing is, we had to rely on non-HR tech people in other parts of the country to help support it. We had to explain to them that they were not, under any circumstanses, to attempt to look at any of the data. Many of them tried once, got warned about it, and gave up. A few people actually kept trying after a warning (we logged any attempt to access data) and ended up getting fired. It kinda drove the point home for me.
The same for me. When I heard he was writing the last Wheel of Time book, I ran out and got not only the two Mistborn books, but also Elantris. Elantris is interesting, though a little rough (it's an earlier work) but the two Mistborn books are actually really good. I'm interested to see how he does on a Memory of Light.