And here I thought Proffessional Philosophy was an Oxymoron:-(
I've got a friend with a degree in... you guessed it... Philosophy. They way he explained it to me is "I don't have a job. But I can explain you why at great lenght."
Interesting...my teacher actually told me in person, when I was like 12 years old or so, that he'd be more than happy to look the other way if just for a change I'd do something back...different countries, I suppose, or different circumstances...perhaps the Union for highschool football players has monopolized agressiveness and bullying in the USA, assuming that's where you're from.
Our neck of the USA is called Canada...
And maybe it's changed since your were 12... I've had the same speech you did when I was 12.
For those who are either young enough to still be in school or old enough to have kids in school already...yes, it is ok to hit back, and it's even better to give the other kid taking a beating a hand.
Actually, while this is way-OT, I'm old enough to be the proud genitor of 65lbs of Canuck-hyperactivity (kid). One of the first thing I taught him when he started school was that he was never to start a fight (by words, action, whatnot.) but if one started, he had to do his best to end it. Lo and behold, a couple of months later, he gets picked on by kids older then him, and it ends up with two bloody noses (none his.) Well... Seems that we're breeding a nation of pussies (no offense intended to the other gender.) because according to school regulations, you will be punished for defending yourself.
So what they're basically teaching kids is that it's ok for them to be taxed by bullies, to be physically abused and all, and that your only recourse is to take the beating, and then complain to a schoolyard monitor. Which will incur further beatings and abuses since they are but a barking dog with no teeths.
Goes without saying that I went to school, suffered a half-hour of the principal brainwashing, told my kid not to do it again, got out of there, and headed straight to the ice cream shop to offer my son one hell of a sundae, with a long speech on how he did the right thing and all...
Of course there will be toxic derivatives of some new materials, after all LSD was discovered by people looking for cold medicines and heroin was discovered when Bayer wanted a more potent pain reliever than morphine.
Mark my words: One of the by-product of nanotech will be "switchable" drugs.
Imagine some nanomachines that are able to stimulate the same gland that produce endorphins (natural morphine) or adjust serotonin levels (natural MDMA), or accelerate blood flow to your pecker (natural viagra)... And eventually, they'll be able to fix your system after "abuse" and maybe, just maybe alleviate the downs you'd have after use of those substance.
You could switch'em on and off for the desired effect. Granted, this might put dealers out of business, so some work would need to be done in researching "shorter" lenght power cells on them... Or program them to die after so many activation.
This could lead to safer recreational drug usage. And most likely it could also lead to some very nasty badtrips... But then again. Nothing you can't already get on the market.
Someone should tell these guys [glenwoodapt.com] about it. What they advertise as "ultra high speed internet access" is actually a great 100 Mbit LAN connection...to the other residents of the apartment complex. Connection to the internet? Capped at 64 kbps. Yes, you read that right... 64 kilobits per second. As in, slightly faster than your 56K modem. On a good day.
No need for more... Have your read this thing ? It's for LDS-students... So you don't need more then 64k to pull in a Bible at decent speed.
Moreover, from what I've read, caffeine is outlawed, so no CS program there... (None that would matter.) therefore, no fat ISO downloads. See... it all adds up;-)...
in the month or so that I've been using it, the biggest problem has clearly been people whom have dropped off after downloading the content.
How could one prevent this from happening? I can only see banning by IP as the only way.
One possible solution would be to report an "innacurate" completion percentage perhaps. Since BT actually creates the full sized file on your disk prior to download, it would most likely be trivial to "force" the user to leave the connection open by say "adjusting" the reported download speed and % complete. Even more fun to be had by doing so randomly, so jerks who kill it once they hit 100% are stuck with a useless file. Make a note of connection-killers on the tracker so that they are disallowed from resuming. Anyways. There's always a way to annoy leeches.
I've spent on the order of tens of hours just trying to get PHP, MySQL and Apache to play friendly together with no success. I've decided that when someone creates a PHP, MySQL, Apache integrated distribution, then I'll return to trying it out. Until then, I'll stick to Apache + Perl or Tomcat.... It makes building a KnowledgeBase app much more difficult though!
Give a try to ApacheToolbox... It's most likely what you've been looking for.
In case you havent noticed, GOVERNMENTS have not been able to hurt Microsoft. Suing Microsoft almost killed Apple, WILL eventually kill Sun Microsystems, and pretty much anyone else who tries. Oracle? Bring it on. That is some nice Bayside property they've got there. Might be nice to see some flying Windows flags north of Mountain View.
You do have a point... But in this case, wouldnt doing nothing be the worst of the options ? That's basically giving Bill a get-out-of-jail free card...
I guess that someone taking on Microsoft _would_ seem like a trip to Utopia, but then again... One can dream cant he ?
I still believe that someone has to take them on... Set precedent... Maybe a foreign government, like Japan, or those in malaysia who happily told MS to shove it up where the sun doesnt shine... Then maybe it can crank-start a movement to sue MS...
What if you get a corp. where all is accounted for ? Where they follow licensing properly. It's not unheard of. Anyways... As I said earlier, not doing a thing sends a message clearly saying that as long as you're the richest, you're above the law, and that every and any contract you sign can be rolled up, tacked to a wall near a toilet...
If you had to deal with half as many security flaws/exploits/holes as Microsoft, you'd be tired too.
Plus, why are people so irksome in not upgrading to ever newer and more expensive operating systems like they're supposed to?
What about vendor lock-in ? Say, I buy this piece of VERY specialized software that will NOT operate on ANYTHING but NT 4, or that has not been ported to 2K or XP, because it simply was not worth it. Say it's an HR system. Say that porting it to 2K, XP, Linux, *BSD, Sun or whatever would cost a bundle ?
The very point here is that MS commited to supporting and fixing the thing until at the very least this summer, and now they're trying to backpedal on their commitments. From these parts, it's called "Breach of Contract" . And I just hope that some other 800lbs gorilla will smack'em left right and center with lawsuits, so they can make a dent in that 40B$ warchest... Say, US Gov, which has surely got legacy systems running NT4. Say IBM, Say Peoplesoft, or Oracle... What about Banks ? They have bulletproof contracts. They have more lawyers then BillG. They're used to kickin' asses whenever wind doesnt blow the way they contracted it for.
This _might_ just be the start of a _very_ bleak summer for Bill...
And a blind person who has their email read out loud will hear what?
00001100000
First thing I note is that you bring another problem without even an attempt at a possible solution. So much for being constructive. I at least proposed a solution to the problem at hand (text only mail readers.).
Second: And make the mistake of sticking a link in there saying something like "For visualy impaired persons, click this link that will call a java script to unmangle the address and allow your email through" and you'll have every single association for the rights of blinds, friends of blinds, relatives of blinds, people who know people who once went to school with a blind person and whatnot on your back for making it harder for them to use your service. Embed an OGG sound-clip in there and you'll make it harder for someone else.
Whatever you do, you're doomed not to cater to someone or some group of persons. You just try to minimize the number of them that are going to be impaired by your product/device.
If you had to churn out universaly usable code only, well... Lets just say that anything over a teletype hooked to a 150bps modem would be overkill.
The other thing is that this is an opt-in service. Nobody's twisting your arm so you use it. There are other ways to deal with spam. I for one know that if I was using this service, and gave my email addy to a blind friend, I'd make sure to whitelist him beforehands.
Wouldnt this be a funny way to slap MS in the face ?
Write a shiny wrapper whose sole purpose in life is to "extract" a linux distro ISO from a "database" and write such distro to a CD, then reboot the computer, forcing a linux install if you're configured to boot off cd.
Make sure your wrapper is working according to the WHQL "standard" and BOOM! Instant Microsoft Certified Linux distro. How's that for market penetration ?
I should get a patent on this. And on breathing...
Further, it says that the 7 digit passwd will be sent in a "digital image"; kind of a hassle for those of us with text-only email. (long live pine)
Not being of the programming type, but to me, it would seem trivial to send an "ascii" graphic depicting a 7 digit passcode. So long as the mail client doesnt mangle it too bad...
I do tech support for many family members. My mom actually started referring her friends to me. One thing I have learned is to not be too nice to the elderly. Unless you piss them off a little they won't remember the instructions.
I do tech support for the immediate family (mom, dad, sis.) and it ends there. Refered friends ? 50$ / hour, 1 hours minimum. I fix things. I dont teach. I never aimed to become a Prof. and teaching anything computer related to someone is about as annoying to me as being forced to explain them how to breath.
I once thought that the 50$/hr barrier would lower the amount of calls I get. But no. Some people never learn. And I end up getting paid 50 to fix the same problem over and over again. Oh well... Life's a bitch.
A MSCE is worth MAYBE $35K (on the top end)
A RHCE is worth starting at $45K -- top out at 6 figures.
Now... YOU do the math
I'll bite. And start thinking like a PHB.
If I use Microsoft products (which are surprisingly stable as of late.), I can save myself thousands of dollars in human ressource since an MCSE is cheaper then an RHCE. If the RHCE tops out in the 6-figure realm I can theoretically hire me 3 MCSE to do the job to my servers, which by the way came equipped with the OS, thanks to the MS-TAX.
Now now, I know that linux is way more stable, allows me to do more with less, and that my RHCE will not have half the problems my MCSE have, but still. In PHB-land, the winner would be MS.
Now mod me into oblivion, and I'll go wash my hands after having typed so much pro-ms material.
For companies that have government contracts and clearances, a credit check is done to make sure you are not in financial trouble and willing to sell US secrets to make loot.
Nah... They make sure that people wont sell the secret... That's why they get'em stolen ahead of time, so they wont be sold.;-)
me dons asbestos suit...
Law has nothing to do with it. This is a private employment contract between two entities. The gov't has nothing to do with it, and it's not race, gender, etc. based discrimination. An employer can also say, "You'll get the job if you jump around and squawk like a chicken". It may be a bad idea, but it's nothing that a lawyer has anything to do with.
This is why I mentioned "In your jurisdiction". Up here, there are certain information that a would-be employer is not entitled to. (and I'm pretty sure that a credit record is one of them.) Like those video rental place that ask for your drivers licenses to identify you. The only person that is legally entitled to your license is a police officer, a judge, or an officer of the dmv.
Anyways. Speaking with a legalese fiend is not a bad idea whenever a contract is drawn between two parties.
If they're issuing you a joint credit card, it might have grounds to stand on, but the best piece of advice you can get here will most likely be: Consult a lawyer in your own jurisdiction.
If the excess heat is all from your monitors, then invest in a KVM switch, so you only have one Keyboard, Video (Monitor) and Mouse. While KVM's were once very expensive and seldom seen out side of computer rooms or NOC's, the prices have dropped. Also you can take the money saved on multiple monitors and invest in that nice flat screen you've been drooling over, but could not cost justify! Currently I have one very good 19" monitor, rather then 4 cheaper ones and much more "room" in the room!
When did they start making dual-headed switchers ? If they exist, I'll buy one right now. But they're not taking my dual-head unless they pry it from my cold dead hands.:)
Just a suggestion, maybe add "Montreal" somewhere in your sig? If it's your wesite maybe enlarge the text "Montreal's rave community" on the home page, possibly in both english and french.
Man, I live in the New York City region, but it's like outer Mongolia for rave info.
Really offtopic here, but since you're not listing an email addy, I cant get back to you directly.
We're not aiming to stay local. We're really aiming to have local people help us cover their local rave scene. I'd really like to be partying in montreal, toronto, and NYC, but there's only one of ol'lil'me, and just so many hours in a week. If you want to take up the NYC section of the site, just drop me a line, and we'll make you some room. Even get on a bus and go party with you guys sometime.
My wife used to work for Amazon. She was attacked by a coworker and forced to quit because the management would not do anything about it. She had to visit the doctor for months after the attack that gave her whiplash and nerve damage. In my mind, Amazon is a very bad company and should be punished.
That sounds weird... Isnt the US "Land of the lawsuit" ? I've read about people suing companies for sexual harrassment, and winning. Now you get physical damage, assault and whatnot, and she has to quit ? Wouldnt one of those late-nite 1-800-SUE-ME lawyers take this case ? Seems pretty much open and shut to me.
In the mean time, you've just lost at least one sale per broken link. Perhaps they don't think that's acceptable?
Amazon seems to be good at recommending items in relation with what you're searching for... Why not just force-feed another one of theses "People who searched for this item also enjoyed these (totally unrelated by the way.) items."
That way you potentially save a sale (dont tell me that every single person who clicks on one of those amazon links actually BUYS the product.) and you manage to annoy the reader with some free ads, and potentially screw the associate out of a sale. Everyone wins. (Ok. except perhaps the associate.)
They might not be a monopoly, but the Canadian Postal Office mail delivery trucks have AMAZON.COM written all over them. Government contracts for cheaper shipping sounds a bit monopolistic to me.
Which in turns means cheaper stamps for us to send mail with. I dont see anything wrong with Canada Post selling otherwise useless space on it's trucks to Amazon.
And the day you start shipping as much as Amazon does, don't worry. Canada Post will cut you a good deal too.
Now the cheapest bidders can be even cheaper, by not having to include liscensing fees in it's quotation.
Of course MS will freak out. This is going directly for their main artery. If I was in business, I'd try to fight it. It might not be "socially" correct, but it makes good business sense to try and counter the competition.
Now, let's just hope that the DoD will not fold to commercial power.
So, your blind friends would be happy paying $1200 for a blind-friendly round-trip ticket vs. $200 from Southwest? I think you have blind people confused with idiots. Blind means you can't see. Idiot means you pay too much for plane tickets.
And yes - those are some prices I got a few weeks ago when searching for a last minute ticket from Oakland to San Diego.
Well. Then, it's a choice you've made. You've traded convenience for money. I barely stated that you can always take your business elsewhere. I never said it would be cheap to do so. But when a large amount of their customers start moving away from them, they will either re-adjust their business plan, or go out of business. And remember.
Blind people have friends, they will tell them about bad service at Southwest, and it will have a snowball effect. Ask any business owner. 1 unsatisfied customer will cost them at the very least 10 potential customers. Change dont happen overnight. It may take time, but the effect will be worst then any lawsuit you could bring on them, and will serve as an example to others.
Also. Last time I checked, any half-decent airline had a very blind-friendly way to purchase tickets. It's called a telephone and a credit card.
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I've got a friend with a degree in ... you guessed it ... Philosophy. They way he explained it to me is "I don't have a job. But I can explain you why at great lenght."
I guess it makes sense...
Our neck of the USA is called Canada...
And maybe it's changed since your were 12... I've had the same speech you did when I was 12.
But now they preach peaceful resistance.
Actually, while this is way-OT, I'm old enough to be the proud genitor of 65lbs of Canuck-hyperactivity (kid).
One of the first thing I taught him when he started school was that he was never to start a fight (by words, action, whatnot.) but if one started, he had to do his best to end it.
Lo and behold, a couple of months later, he gets picked on by kids older then him, and it ends up with two bloody noses (none his.)
Well... Seems that we're breeding a nation of pussies (no offense intended to the other gender.) because according to school regulations, you will be punished for defending yourself.
So what they're basically teaching kids is that it's ok for them to be taxed by bullies, to be physically abused and all, and that your only recourse is to take the beating, and then complain to a schoolyard monitor. Which will incur further beatings and abuses since they are but a barking dog with no teeths.
Goes without saying that I went to school, suffered a half-hour of the principal brainwashing, told my kid not to do it again, got out of there, and headed straight to the ice cream shop to offer my son one hell of a sundae, with a long speech on how he did the right thing and all...
Mark my words: One of the by-product of nanotech will be "switchable" drugs.
Imagine some nanomachines that are able to stimulate the same gland that produce endorphins (natural morphine) or adjust serotonin levels (natural MDMA), or accelerate blood flow to your pecker (natural viagra)... And eventually, they'll be able to fix your system after "abuse" and maybe, just maybe alleviate the downs you'd have after use of those substance.
You could switch'em on and off for the desired effect.
Granted, this might put dealers out of business, so some work would need to be done in researching "shorter" lenght power cells on them... Or program them to die after so many activation.
This could lead to safer recreational drug usage.
And most likely it could also lead to some very nasty badtrips... But then again. Nothing you can't already get on the market.
That's not BYU there is it ?
No need for more... Have your read this thing ? It's for LDS-students... So you don't need more then 64k to pull in a Bible at decent speed.
Moreover, from what I've read, caffeine is outlawed, so no CS program there... (None that would matter.) therefore, no fat ISO downloads. See... it all adds up
One possible solution would be to report an "innacurate" completion percentage perhaps. Since BT actually creates the full sized file on your disk prior to download, it would most likely be trivial to "force" the user to leave the connection open by say "adjusting" the reported download speed and % complete. Even more fun to be had by doing so randomly, so jerks who kill it once they hit 100% are stuck with a useless file. Make a note of connection-killers on the tracker so that they are disallowed from resuming. Anyways. There's always a way to annoy leeches.
Give a try to ApacheToolbox
You do have a point... But in this case, wouldnt doing nothing be the worst of the options ? That's basically giving Bill a get-out-of-jail free card...
I guess that someone taking on Microsoft _would_ seem like a trip to Utopia, but then again... One can dream cant he ?
I still believe that someone has to take them on... Set precedent... Maybe a foreign government, like Japan, or those in malaysia who happily told MS to shove it up where the sun doesnt shine... Then maybe it can crank-start a movement to sue MS...
What if you get a corp. where all is accounted for ? Where they follow licensing properly. It's not unheard of. Anyways... As I said earlier, not doing a thing sends a message clearly saying that as long as you're the richest, you're above the law, and that every and any contract you sign can be rolled up, tacked to a wall near a toilet...
What about vendor lock-in ? Say, I buy this piece of VERY specialized software that will NOT operate on ANYTHING but NT 4, or that has not been ported to 2K or XP, because it simply was not worth it. Say it's an HR system. Say that porting it to 2K, XP, Linux, *BSD, Sun or whatever would cost a bundle ?
The very point here is that MS commited to supporting and fixing the thing until at the very least this summer, and now they're trying to backpedal on their commitments. From these parts, it's called "Breach of Contract" . And I just hope that some other 800lbs gorilla will smack'em left right and center with lawsuits, so they can make a dent in that 40B$ warchest... Say, US Gov, which has surely got legacy systems running NT4. Say IBM, Say Peoplesoft, or Oracle... What about Banks ? They have bulletproof contracts. They have more lawyers then BillG. They're used to kickin' asses whenever wind doesnt blow the way they contracted it for.
This _might_ just be the start of a _very_ bleak summer for Bill...
First thing I note is that you bring another problem without even an attempt at a possible solution. So much for being constructive. I at least proposed a solution to the problem at hand (text only mail readers.).
Second: And make the mistake of sticking a link in there saying something like "For visualy impaired persons, click this link that will call a java script to unmangle the address and allow your email through" and you'll have every single association for the rights of blinds, friends of blinds, relatives of blinds, people who know people who once went to school with a blind person and whatnot on your back for making it harder for them to use your service. Embed an OGG sound-clip in there and you'll make it harder for someone else.
Whatever you do, you're doomed not to cater to someone or some group of persons. You just try to minimize the number of them that are going to be impaired by your product/device.
If you had to churn out universaly usable code only, well... Lets just say that anything over a teletype hooked to a 150bps modem would be overkill.
The other thing is that this is an opt-in service. Nobody's twisting your arm so you use it. There are other ways to deal with spam. I for one know that if I was using this service, and gave my email addy to a blind friend, I'd make sure to whitelist him beforehands.
Wouldnt this be a funny way to slap MS in the face ?
Write a shiny wrapper whose sole purpose in life is to "extract" a linux distro ISO from a "database" and write such distro to a CD, then reboot the computer, forcing a linux install if you're configured to boot off cd.
Make sure your wrapper is working according to the WHQL "standard" and BOOM! Instant Microsoft Certified Linux distro. How's that for market penetration ?
I should get a patent on this. And on breathing...
Not being of the programming type, but to me, it would seem trivial to send an "ascii" graphic depicting a 7 digit passcode. So long as the mail client doesnt mangle it too bad...
I do tech support for the immediate family (mom, dad, sis.) and it ends there. Refered friends ? 50$ / hour, 1 hours minimum.
I fix things. I dont teach. I never aimed to become a Prof. and teaching anything computer related to someone is about as annoying to me as being forced to explain them how to breath.
I once thought that the 50$/hr barrier would lower the amount of calls I get. But no. Some people never learn. And I end up getting paid 50 to fix the same problem over and over again. Oh well... Life's a bitch.
I'll bite. And start thinking like a PHB.
If I use Microsoft products (which are surprisingly stable as of late.), I can save myself thousands of dollars in human ressource since an MCSE is cheaper then an RHCE. If the RHCE tops out in the 6-figure realm I can theoretically hire me 3 MCSE to do the job to my servers, which by the way came equipped with the OS, thanks to the MS-TAX.
Now now, I know that linux is way more stable, allows me to do more with less, and that my RHCE will not have half the problems my MCSE have, but still. In PHB-land, the winner would be MS.
Now mod me into oblivion, and I'll go wash my hands after having typed so much pro-ms material.
Nah... They make sure that people wont sell the secret... That's why they get'em stolen ahead of time, so they wont be sold.
This is why I mentioned "In your jurisdiction". Up here, there are certain information that a would-be employer is not entitled to. (and I'm pretty sure that a credit record is one of them.) Like those video rental place that ask for your drivers licenses to identify you. The only person that is legally entitled to your license is a police officer, a judge, or an officer of the dmv.
Anyways. Speaking with a legalese fiend is not a bad idea whenever a contract is drawn between two parties.
'nuff said.
What next ? DNA tests ?
If they're issuing you a joint credit card, it might have grounds to stand on, but the best piece of advice you can get here will most likely be: Consult a lawyer in your own jurisdiction.
When did they start making dual-headed switchers ? If they exist, I'll buy one right now. But they're not taking my dual-head unless they pry it from my cold dead hands. :)
We're not aiming to stay local. We're really aiming to have local people help us cover their local rave scene. I'd really like to be partying in montreal, toronto, and NYC, but there's only one of ol'lil'me, and just so many hours in a week. If you want to take up the NYC section of the site, just drop me a line, and we'll make you some room. Even get on a bus and go party with you guys sometime.
That sounds weird... Isnt the US "Land of the lawsuit" ? I've read about people suing companies for sexual harrassment, and winning. Now you get physical damage, assault and whatnot, and she has to quit ? Wouldnt one of those late-nite 1-800-SUE-ME lawyers take this case ? Seems pretty much open and shut to me.
Amazon seems to be good at recommending items in relation with what you're searching for... Why not just force-feed another one of theses "People who searched for this item also enjoyed these (totally unrelated by the way.) items."
That way you potentially save a sale (dont tell me that every single person who clicks on one of those amazon links actually BUYS the product.) and you manage to annoy the reader with some free ads, and potentially screw the associate out of a sale. Everyone wins. (Ok. except perhaps the associate.)
Which in turns means cheaper stamps for us to send mail with. I dont see anything wrong with Canada Post selling otherwise useless space on it's trucks to Amazon. And the day you start shipping as much as Amazon does, don't worry. Canada Post will cut you a good deal too.
Now the cheapest bidders can be even cheaper, by not having to include liscensing fees in it's quotation.
Of course MS will freak out. This is going directly for their main artery. If I was in business, I'd try to fight it. It might not be "socially" correct, but it makes good business sense to try and counter the competition.
Now, let's just hope that the DoD will not fold to commercial power.Well. Then, it's a choice you've made. You've traded convenience for money. I barely stated that you can always take your business elsewhere. I never said it would be cheap to do so. But when a large amount of their customers start moving away from them, they will either re-adjust their business plan, or go out of business. And remember.
Blind people have friends, they will tell them about bad service at Southwest, and it will have a snowball effect. Ask any business owner. 1 unsatisfied customer will cost them at the very least 10 potential customers. Change dont happen overnight. It may take time, but the effect will be worst then any lawsuit you could bring on them, and will serve as an example to others.
Also. Last time I checked, any half-decent airline had a very blind-friendly way to purchase tickets. It's called a telephone and a credit card.