While I initially felt this matter should simply work itself out in court, it appears to me that recent announcements by The SCO Group have crossed the line from publicity and/or advocacy to something close to extortion.
The FTC is no doubt familiar with The SCO Group's lawsuit with IBM. Although no claims have been proven, and no evidence offered to back their claims, The SCO Group have sent letters to companies warning them of The SCO Group's intent to push these claims, and of the companies' exposure to liability regarding the use of the Linux operating system.
They have also recently announced that they will offer these companies a SCO license to use Linux, for a price, that will absolve them of any present or past wrongdoing with regards to SCO's alleged Linux intellectual property issues.
So, though they've proven nothing in court and have offered no evidence to the public, SCO is telling companies that if they use Linux they are liable to SCO, and that they can remove that liability by purchasing a SCO license.
I wish we could have a televised debate with McBride and somebody from the open source community. It would have to be somebody familiar with the law (you can bet McBride is) and somebody who will come off as reasonable and mature.
I would think that send the stock plummeting, when McBride is seen talking doublespeak.
He may be talking about the vital product data information you can poll with AIX.
You can do a lot with pci cards from the AIX command line, including things like upgrading the firmware on the card, etc. So while you may not need it if you're running Linux, and can probably work around it for AIX, if you want the same AIX functionality that you get from a P-series box, you WILL need to purchase expensive cards.
Of course, being slashdot, we should just brand him wrong and flame him as much as possible.
The President carries a significant amount of weight with his party in Congress. So while he may not constitutionally be in charge of spending, he definitely influences it. A case in point is the economic policy of his administration. He convinced congress to increase spending and lower taxes.
While you could say that the men and women of congress are adults who are responsible for their own actions, you can't ignore that it was the President who goaded/inspired them to do it.
These changes did accelerate the endgame of the Cold War; but the seeds of the endgame were planted much earlier. After all, the coup attempt on Gorbachev was about Perestroika and its attendant lessening of power for many in the system. Gorbachev's autobiography (though self-serving at times) is a good reference here.
You could, of course, say that the form of the Soviet government was flawed to begin with and could never succeed in the long run. But as far as the problem of spending so much on the military to keep up with the U.S., that began as soon as the Cold War itself. It also spiked after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
A weird sort of irony is that Khruschev put missiles in Cuba thinking they would be an easy way to appease his hard-liners, allowing him to spend more money on domestic issues. After all, the Americans had missiles closer than those to the USSR. Even the U.S. military acknowledged that while they weren't insignificant, the missiles posed less of a threat to the U.S. than did submarines. Beschloss' "The Crisis Years" is a good reference here.
The tough break for Khruschev was that unlike Eisenhower, who carried enough of the people's trust that he didn't need to respond bellicosely every time the Soviets did something, Kennedy did. He even did it proactively, making a statement that the placement of any offensive nuclear weapons in the region would not be allowed. He then was stuck backing it up to keep his own people happy.
After Khruschev backed down, any thoughts of increasing domestic spending went out the door. Khruschev was pushed from power, and the direct seeds of the USSR's dissolution were planted with the increase in military spending that resulted from the "defeat" in Cuba.
You can imagine that Castro was pissed off; but if you want a good scary story, read about relations between the USSR and China at the time.
So it's not the kid's fault? Please. The kid is old enough to know what he's doing. Even if his father is a perfect son of a bitch, the kid knows it's wrong to kill people, and that whatever problems he has don't make killing other people right.
To say that he's young, and doesn't understand the consequences of what he's doing, is to insult the intelligence of others his age.
Blame his father for being a bad parent if you want. I will blame the kid for taking the weapons and threatening others.
Blaming his dad is just another form of the same reasoning that blames the video game.
The only way to make the system unhackable is to never implement it; and the only way to make it impossible for terrorists to use airplanes as weapons is to ground all of the airplanes.
We have to learn how to accept a "level" of security, as opposed to expecting "perfect" security.
Toward thee I scroll, thou unconquering but all-destroying fail; to the last I grapple with thee; from Bill's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake, I spit my espresso at thee.
They do want to be bought out. By saying that they have no intention of selling, they raise the price.
By saying that IBM is desperate, they're posturing for the post-buyout media blitz. "We were right all along. IBM finally realized that they were so guilty that it would be cheaper to buy us than to pay the penalties."
Last year, I converted our home pc to RedHat. I spent about 15 minutes showing my wife how to open Word documents with OpenOffice, and how to browse with Mozilla (which wasn't a big deal, since we'd been using it on Windows previously.)
For a while I got minor questions about things she couldn't sort out on her own; but within a month, she was totally independent. Almost a year later, I'm considering asking her to let me change distros for the hell of it.
She's not a power user by any means. And she's not very tech-saavy (once called me at work to ask how to shut off the fire alarm, which was blaring in the background. I told her "You don't. You call the Fire Department and they hose it down.") So I have a strong feeling that if she can do it anybody can.
The catch is getting past the idea that it has to function exactly the way it does now. The only way to exactly duplicate what you're doing today, is to do exactly what you're doing today.
Obviously, the gas mileage is good. I know some will say that it's possible to get that out of other cars (the VW Golf TDI comes close); but I don't see how that's an argument against the Hybrid. It still gets comparable or better mileage than those cars. So what's the big deal? Cost? I got $2,000 off my taxes this year. That helps mitigate the added cost.
I like the car. I like the way the CVT feels. I like the way the car looks. I like Honda.
I also like the concept; and it will never get better if we don't pursue it and support it with purchases. I don't kid myself that I'm going to make up the price difference in fuel savings. I figure if I have the car 6 or 7 years, I'll just about break even. But the Hybrids that are out then will hopefully be much better than the current ones. The most often cited gas-only comparable care is the Golf TDI. It's available now after 100 years of tweaking and working on gas engines. The Hybrid already beats it slightly in MPG after only a few years. Barring hydrogen, I think this is the way to go.
You can ignore the fact that you're driving a Hybrid if you want, and treat the car like any other. So it's not like I've given up anything to buy this car. It's a Civic, with the normal Civic look, with about the same cost over its life, and so far it runs great.
I bought mine in Atlanta while visiting my brother; and drove it back to the Kansas City area (Topeka). I've since driven back to visit him at about 900 miles each way. It did fine on the highway, passing when I needed it to, getting 50MPG, and generally behaving like every other car I've owned.
In short, why not buy the car? Why is buying it considered so novel?
As Linux developers inside IBM, do you get to see the AIX source code? If you do, are you allowed to "steal" some ideas from AIX and implement them in Linux? If not, why not, and what's the IBM official line?
IBM Kernel Hackers:
First of all, before any of us were allowed to contribute to Linux, we were required to take an "Open Source Developers" class. This class gives us the guidelines we need to participate effectively in the open source community - both IBM guidelines and lessons learned about open source from others in IBM.
We are definitely not allowed to cut and paste proprietary code into any open source projects (or vice versa!). There is an IBM committee who can and do approve the release of IBM proprietary or patented technology, like RCU.
That covers "stealing" code, but what about ideas? We might talk to an AIX programmer and comment we're seeing performance issues in Linux in this area or that area and she tells us they discovered that they really needed to profile the network routines when they saw that. Having solved the problem once, our non-Linux peers can help steer us without spelling it out for us, allowing us to still develop solutions that can then be open sourced.
It's a fine line to walk, especially as an engineer who just wants the answer:)
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker?
on
Ageism in IT?
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
With all due respect to Andy Hertzfeld, he probably didn't have nearly as much to think about when he was younger. By the mid-40's, the average programmer probably has a family (with birthdays, soccer games, tuitions, recitals, etc.), 1 or more mortgages, a stock portfolio of some sort that's only now getting the attention it really deserves, some insights on those political issues that were so unimportant before, some project management and perhaps budgeting, a health condition or two just starting to require some real attention, etc.
What the average 40-something has to make up for all of that is some perspective on what makes the most efficient code and use of his/her time, a deliberate pace of work, 20 years of experience, less emotional drama, maturity, stability, etc.
I'm a flight instructor, and it's easy to see where the illusion that young people learn better/faster comes from. Despite the popular notion of today's youth, they're not as cynical or as questioning/probing of your instruction as adults are. As an example, if I tell a 16 year-old kid that when you bank the airplane to the right, there is an initial yaw to the left because of a phenomenon we call "adverse yaw," he'll probably say "OK" and correct for it on the controls. If I state it so simply to a 40 year-old student, he'll ask why. So who has learned it better? The kid is immediately compensating for its effects, and is flying the airplane properly a bit sooner; but does he know why he's doing so? The adult understands the reasons behind the correction; but has delayed implementing the knowledge because of the time spent questioning.
Over the course of learning any complex task, these moments add up to a perception that the adult isn't learning as fast or as well as the younger person. In fact, they are. You simply have to tailor your training and your expectations for the difference in approach.
I'm sure not every airplane is susceptible to interference from every phone; but it's obvious that some airplanes and some components are susceptible. As a pilot, if the compass swings or the autopilot tracks off in some weird direction, it would be difficult with the equipment currently installed on most aircraft, to determine that it was because of the phone call going on in first class.
Cell phones are worse for this sort of thing than say, a Gameboy, because the cell phone is built to be a transmitter. Sure, other devices will emit some rf; but the cell phones are designed to do so.
I remember my first cell phone came with a warning to turn it off when driving by construction sites where blasting was going on. There was some fear that a signal from the phone could cause problems with the equipment they were using to set off dynamite.
I'm not sure I buy the whole thing about cell phones causing fires at gas stations; but I also wouldn't call it impossible.
As for the airplane, it certainly can swing the compass; and its effects on VOR/OBS equipment are demonstrable.
I don't get why it's so hard to believe. Most of these airplanes were designed long before cell phones and laptops were the norm. It wasn't a danger anybody had conceived of. If we want to build the new airplanes to be immune to these effects, that's great (and I suspect we already do so with the new airplanes); but retrofitting the wiring harnesses, etc. on old airplanes is not tenable. All you have to do is take that already obnoxious thing out of your ear for a while. Consider the airplane sanctuary from your phone. You not only have a reason for turning it off, you have a responsibility.
The thing I like about handwritten letters is that the person slowed down and took some time in composing what they were saying. There was an investment that makes it more important to me than the emoticonish e-mails that arrive at the speed of light. Getting an e-mail (especially a reply) or IM these days might mean nothing more than the sender had a moment and thought "why not send Del a message?"
A letter, though... A letter means the person sought out the time to think about me and communicate. He/she invested more in our relationship. Whether the penmanship is good or not, I treasure a handwritten letter.
As a side note, I also think the writing is better when it's written by hand. You tend to think through what you're saying more.
I get so sick of hearing the word "Enron" used to describe every possible business abnormality.
There is nothing "Enronish" about what the SEC is looking at. I understand that Enron has become a brand name for any corporate accounting misdeeds; but is there no standard at all for comparing any accounting issue at any company to Enron deliberately bilking millions from people?
I was going to ignore you; but there's something I think needs to be addressed in your rather antagonistic statement.
I'm not in your face shouting scripture or damning you to hell because you haven't been "saved." Nor am I asking you to "kneel down with me, brother." And the people who do such things are not representative of me, or for that matter, the majority of Christians or even Jews.
I'm quietly practicing my faith. I've no problem with you practicing yours, or with whatever faith/philosophy, etc. in which you believe. I don't even have a problem if you don't believe in anything spiritual.
So don't insult me by comparing my beliefs to the dollar movie as a dismissive summary of the matter.
I don't subscribe to my beliefs because I need an emotional crutch, or because my parents forced me to, or because I'm simple, or any of the other dismissive reasons that get chucked up into the fray.
I haven't attacked you, or insulted you, or made light of you; so show me the same courtesy.
There is almost enought hyperbole in that post to make it a campaign speech.
You and I are the general public. It's easy to dismiss the rest of the population as being ridiculous simpletons (and sure, some will be) because things haven't gone the way you'd like them to. But the reality is that you've just spoken about yourself and about me, my family, neighbors, friends, etc. I don't remember ever being taught that people who look or behave differently than I are to be feared and/or ridiculed. In fact, my whole life has been filled with teachers/parents/clerics/etc. who have said that such behavior is wrong. I've certainly never been taught in school to ridicule other people.
Those things are taught by us to eachother in ways much more subtle. If you, for instance, ridicule me and everyone I know by calling us frightened sheep, don't be surprised by our general disdain for you. It will not simply be a matter of stupid society persecuting you.
You have, ironically, just perpetuated the very thing you decried.
The reason I don't get quite as worked up about the MS Fud regarding Linux is that it's a short-term strategy at best.
Part of that is for the well-worn reason that "Linux is not a company."
Part of it is because today's techies and coders are tomorrow's pointy-haired bosses and project managers. Alienating us now is a strategy that will backfire bigtime down the road.
If you're talking about this law protecting the innocent person who accidentally connects to a different network than they intended, I'd agree.
If you're talking about somebody who is intentionally wardriving looking for networks that he/she can get into and explore for juicy stuff, then I'll disagree.
Certainly, the admins of such networks have acted irresponsibly (assuming it wasn't some incredible new hack that broke into a secured network); but that doesn't mean the wardriver has no culpability in this situation.
This is one of those areas where the law can't cover everything. It's wrong to walk into an open house and take things when you know the owners didn't want you in there. Whether or not the door was open, and whether or not there was a welcome mat on the porch, you damned well know you shouldn't walk into a stranger's house and take their things.
And when you did, it wouldn't be the owner's fault that you're a worthless amoral turd. It would still be yours; whether or not they were stupid.
The so-called "Tech Boom" and bust were really an investment boom and bust.
At about the same time that.com's became so ubiquitous, home investors and online trading also boomed (largely for the same reason: the internet.) For the first time, Joe investor could do extensive research and play complicated strategies all on his own. The problem was that Joe investor didn't have an institutional mind-set. There was no governor on Joe investor's button.
That, combined with the young entrepaneur who thought you just needed to be a good geeks to survive as a tech company breeded the bubble and consequently the bust.
The recession wasn't the fault of tech (entirely) or Greenspan (entirely), etc. It was largely the fault of the unreasonably (and that's a polite term) optimistic investors.
I currently have both (company provided Cox cable for vpn, and DSL for my own access and running servers.)
What I've seen is that while the DSL is slower, it never goes down. In almost a year, I've not had a single time when I couldn't get to the internet. The cable, on the other hand, drops about once or twice a week now; though it's better than the 3 or 4 times a day that it was dropping during the conversion from RoadRunner to Cox.
It may have more to do with who is administrating the particular network segment you're on than the technology itself; but I have found Cox to be horribly unreliable, and their tech support people to be "less than knowledgeable" and difficult to deal with.
Slashdot Mirror
While I initially felt this matter should simply work itself out in court, it appears to me that recent announcements by The SCO Group have crossed the line from publicity and/or advocacy to something close to extortion.
The FTC is no doubt familiar with The SCO Group's lawsuit with IBM. Although no claims have been proven, and no evidence offered to back their claims, The SCO Group have sent letters to companies warning them of The SCO Group's intent to push these claims, and of the companies' exposure to liability regarding the use of the Linux operating system.
They have also recently announced that they will offer these companies a SCO license to use Linux, for a price, that will absolve them of any present or past wrongdoing with regards to SCO's alleged Linux intellectual property issues.
So, though they've proven nothing in court and have offered no evidence to the public, SCO is telling companies that if they use Linux they are liable to SCO, and that they can remove that liability by purchasing a SCO license.
This seems very close to extortion to me.
Thank you for your time and attention.
I wish we could have a televised debate with McBride and somebody from the open source community. It would have to be somebody familiar with the law (you can bet McBride is) and somebody who will come off as reasonable and mature.
I would think that send the stock plummeting, when McBride is seen talking doublespeak.
He may be talking about the vital product data information you can poll with AIX.
You can do a lot with pci cards from the AIX command line, including things like upgrading the firmware on the card, etc. So while you may not need it if you're running Linux, and can probably work around it for AIX, if you want the same AIX functionality that you get from a P-series box, you WILL need to purchase expensive cards.
Of course, being slashdot, we should just brand him wrong and flame him as much as possible.
The President carries a significant amount of weight with his party in Congress. So while he may not constitutionally be in charge of spending, he definitely influences it. A case in point is the economic policy of his administration. He convinced congress to increase spending and lower taxes.
While you could say that the men and women of congress are adults who are responsible for their own actions, you can't ignore that it was the President who goaded/inspired them to do it.
These changes did accelerate the endgame of the Cold War; but the seeds of the endgame were planted much earlier. After all, the coup attempt on Gorbachev was about Perestroika and its attendant lessening of power for many in the system. Gorbachev's autobiography (though self-serving at times) is a good reference here.
You could, of course, say that the form of the Soviet government was flawed to begin with and could never succeed in the long run. But as far as the problem of spending so much on the military to keep up with the U.S., that began as soon as the Cold War itself. It also spiked after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
A weird sort of irony is that Khruschev put missiles in Cuba thinking they would be an easy way to appease his hard-liners, allowing him to spend more money on domestic issues. After all, the Americans had missiles closer than those to the USSR. Even the U.S. military acknowledged that while they weren't insignificant, the missiles posed less of a threat to the U.S. than did submarines. Beschloss' "The Crisis Years" is a good reference here.
The tough break for Khruschev was that unlike Eisenhower, who carried enough of the people's trust that he didn't need to respond bellicosely every time the Soviets did something, Kennedy did. He even did it proactively, making a statement that the placement of any offensive nuclear weapons in the region would not be allowed. He then was stuck backing it up to keep his own people happy.
After Khruschev backed down, any thoughts of increasing domestic spending went out the door. Khruschev was pushed from power, and the direct seeds of the USSR's dissolution were planted with the increase in military spending that resulted from the "defeat" in Cuba.
You can imagine that Castro was pissed off; but if you want a good scary story, read about relations between the USSR and China at the time.
This apparently was a real tech support call.
When they finally sent somebody out to investigate, it turned out that it was a rural farmhouse to which water was supplied from a well.
When they flushed the toilet, the well pump started, which drew enough current on that segment to reboot the pc.
So it's not the kid's fault? Please. The kid is old enough to know what he's doing. Even if his father is a perfect son of a bitch, the kid knows it's wrong to kill people, and that whatever problems he has don't make killing other people right.
To say that he's young, and doesn't understand the consequences of what he's doing, is to insult the intelligence of others his age.
Blame his father for being a bad parent if you want. I will blame the kid for taking the weapons and threatening others.
Blaming his dad is just another form of the same reasoning that blames the video game.
Both of those are impossible to achieve.
The only way to make the system unhackable is to never implement it; and the only way to make it impossible for terrorists to use airplanes as weapons is to ground all of the airplanes.
We have to learn how to accept a "level" of security, as opposed to expecting "perfect" security.
So...
Does anybody know the address and phone number of this Beverlander character?
I was thinking the same thing:
Next Up: Ali Baba and His 40 Thieves!
Toward thee I scroll, thou unconquering but all-destroying fail; to the last I grapple with thee; from Bill's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake, I spit my espresso at thee.
They do want to be bought out. By saying that they have no intention of selling, they raise the price.
By saying that IBM is desperate, they're posturing for the post-buyout media blitz. "We were right all along. IBM finally realized that they were so guilty that it would be cheaper to buy us than to pay the penalties."
I agree.
Last year, I converted our home pc to RedHat. I spent about 15 minutes showing my wife how to open Word documents with OpenOffice, and how to browse with Mozilla (which wasn't a big deal, since we'd been using it on Windows previously.)
For a while I got minor questions about things she couldn't sort out on her own; but within a month, she was totally independent. Almost a year later, I'm considering asking her to let me change distros for the hell of it.
She's not a power user by any means. And she's not very tech-saavy (once called me at work to ask how to shut off the fire alarm, which was blaring in the background. I told her "You don't. You call the Fire Department and they hose it down.") So I have a strong feeling that if she can do it anybody can.
The catch is getting past the idea that it has to function exactly the way it does now. The only way to exactly duplicate what you're doing today, is to do exactly what you're doing today.
I bought it for a few reasons:
Obviously, the gas mileage is good. I know some will say that it's possible to get that out of other cars (the VW Golf TDI comes close); but I don't see how that's an argument against the Hybrid. It still gets comparable or better mileage than those cars. So what's the big deal? Cost? I got $2,000 off my taxes this year. That helps mitigate the added cost.
I like the car. I like the way the CVT feels. I like the way the car looks. I like Honda.
I also like the concept; and it will never get better if we don't pursue it and support it with purchases. I don't kid myself that I'm going to make up the price difference in fuel savings. I figure if I have the car 6 or 7 years, I'll just about break even. But the Hybrids that are out then will hopefully be much better than the current ones. The most often cited gas-only comparable care is the Golf TDI. It's available now after 100 years of tweaking and working on gas engines. The Hybrid already beats it slightly in MPG after only a few years. Barring hydrogen, I think this is the way to go.
You can ignore the fact that you're driving a Hybrid if you want, and treat the car like any other. So it's not like I've given up anything to buy this car. It's a Civic, with the normal Civic look, with about the same cost over its life, and so far it runs great.
I bought mine in Atlanta while visiting my brother; and drove it back to the Kansas City area (Topeka). I've since driven back to visit him at about 900 miles each way. It did fine on the highway, passing when I needed it to, getting 50MPG, and generally behaving like every other car I've owned.
In short, why not buy the car? Why is buying it considered so novel?
2) OS Blending
:)
by 2names
As Linux developers inside IBM, do you get to see the AIX source code? If you do, are you allowed to "steal" some ideas from AIX and implement them in Linux? If not, why not, and what's the IBM official line?
IBM Kernel Hackers:
First of all, before any of us were allowed to contribute to Linux, we were required to take an "Open Source Developers" class. This class gives us the guidelines we need to participate effectively in the open source community - both IBM guidelines and lessons learned about open source from others in IBM.
We are definitely not allowed to cut and paste proprietary code into any open source projects (or vice versa!). There is an IBM committee who can and do approve the release of IBM proprietary or patented technology, like RCU.
That covers "stealing" code, but what about ideas? We might talk to an AIX programmer and comment we're seeing performance issues in Linux in this area or that area and she tells us they discovered that they really needed to profile the network routines when they saw that. Having solved the problem once, our non-Linux peers can help steer us without spelling it out for us, allowing us to still develop solutions that can then be open sourced.
It's a fine line to walk, especially as an engineer who just wants the answer
Interview
With all due respect to Andy Hertzfeld, he probably didn't have nearly as much to think about when he was younger. By the mid-40's, the average programmer probably has a family (with birthdays, soccer games, tuitions, recitals, etc.), 1 or more mortgages, a stock portfolio of some sort that's only now getting the attention it really deserves, some insights on those political issues that were so unimportant before, some project management and perhaps budgeting, a health condition or two just starting to require some real attention, etc.
What the average 40-something has to make up for all of that is some perspective on what makes the most efficient code and use of his/her time, a deliberate pace of work, 20 years of experience, less emotional drama, maturity, stability, etc.
I'm a flight instructor, and it's easy to see where the illusion that young people learn better/faster comes from. Despite the popular notion of today's youth, they're not as cynical or as questioning/probing of your instruction as adults are. As an example, if I tell a 16 year-old kid that when you bank the airplane to the right, there is an initial yaw to the left because of a phenomenon we call "adverse yaw," he'll probably say "OK" and correct for it on the controls. If I state it so simply to a 40 year-old student, he'll ask why. So who has learned it better? The kid is immediately compensating for its effects, and is flying the airplane properly a bit sooner; but does he know why he's doing so? The adult understands the reasons behind the correction; but has delayed implementing the knowledge because of the time spent questioning.
Over the course of learning any complex task, these moments add up to a perception that the adult isn't learning as fast or as well as the younger person. In fact, they are. You simply have to tailor your training and your expectations for the difference in approach.
I'm sure not every airplane is susceptible to interference from every phone; but it's obvious that some airplanes and some components are susceptible. As a pilot, if the compass swings or the autopilot tracks off in some weird direction, it would be difficult with the equipment currently installed on most aircraft, to determine that it was because of the phone call going on in first class.
Cell phones are worse for this sort of thing than say, a Gameboy, because the cell phone is built to be a transmitter. Sure, other devices will emit some rf; but the cell phones are designed to do so.
I remember my first cell phone came with a warning to turn it off when driving by construction sites where blasting was going on. There was some fear that a signal from the phone could cause problems with the equipment they were using to set off dynamite.
I'm not sure I buy the whole thing about cell phones causing fires at gas stations; but I also wouldn't call it impossible.
As for the airplane, it certainly can swing the compass; and its effects on VOR/OBS equipment are demonstrable.
I don't get why it's so hard to believe. Most of these airplanes were designed long before cell phones and laptops were the norm. It wasn't a danger anybody had conceived of. If we want to build the new airplanes to be immune to these effects, that's great (and I suspect we already do so with the new airplanes); but retrofitting the wiring harnesses, etc. on old airplanes is not tenable. All you have to do is take that already obnoxious thing out of your ear for a while. Consider the airplane sanctuary from your phone. You not only have a reason for turning it off, you have a responsibility.
The thing I like about handwritten letters is that the person slowed down and took some time in composing what they were saying. There was an investment that makes it more important to me than the emoticonish e-mails that arrive at the speed of light. Getting an e-mail (especially a reply) or IM these days might mean nothing more than the sender had a moment and thought "why not send Del a message?"
A letter, though... A letter means the person sought out the time to think about me and communicate. He/she invested more in our relationship. Whether the penmanship is good or not, I treasure a handwritten letter.
As a side note, I also think the writing is better when it's written by hand. You tend to think through what you're saying more.
I get so sick of hearing the word "Enron" used to describe every possible business abnormality.
There is nothing "Enronish" about what the SEC is looking at. I understand that Enron has become a brand name for any corporate accounting misdeeds; but is there no standard at all for comparing any accounting issue at any company to Enron deliberately bilking millions from people?
I was going to ignore you; but there's something I think needs to be addressed in your rather antagonistic statement.
I'm not in your face shouting scripture or damning you to hell because you haven't been "saved." Nor am I asking you to "kneel down with me, brother." And the people who do such things are not representative of me, or for that matter, the majority of Christians or even Jews.
I'm quietly practicing my faith. I've no problem with you practicing yours, or with whatever faith/philosophy, etc. in which you believe. I don't even have a problem if you don't believe in anything spiritual.
So don't insult me by comparing my beliefs to the dollar movie as a dismissive summary of the matter.
I don't subscribe to my beliefs because I need an emotional crutch, or because my parents forced me to, or because I'm simple, or any of the other dismissive reasons that get chucked up into the fray.
I haven't attacked you, or insulted you, or made light of you; so show me the same courtesy.
So once we reverse engineer this, will we "scp to the iloo my darling?"
Thanks. Thanks. I'm here all week.
There is almost enought hyperbole in that post to make it a campaign speech.
You and I are the general public. It's easy to dismiss the rest of the population as being ridiculous simpletons (and sure, some will be) because things haven't gone the way you'd like them to. But the reality is that you've just spoken about yourself and about me, my family, neighbors, friends, etc. I don't remember ever being taught that people who look or behave differently than I are to be feared and/or ridiculed. In fact, my whole life has been filled with teachers/parents/clerics/etc. who have said that such behavior is wrong. I've certainly never been taught in school to ridicule other people.
Those things are taught by us to eachother in ways much more subtle. If you, for instance, ridicule me and everyone I know by calling us frightened sheep, don't be surprised by our general disdain for you. It will not simply be a matter of stupid society persecuting you.
You have, ironically, just perpetuated the very thing you decried.
The reason I don't get quite as worked up about the MS Fud regarding Linux is that it's a short-term strategy at best.
Part of that is for the well-worn reason that "Linux is not a company."
Part of it is because today's techies and coders are tomorrow's pointy-haired bosses and project managers. Alienating us now is a strategy that will backfire bigtime down the road.
Okay, I'll bite.
If you're talking about this law protecting the innocent person who accidentally connects to a different network than they intended, I'd agree.
If you're talking about somebody who is intentionally wardriving looking for networks that he/she can get into and explore for juicy stuff, then I'll disagree.
Certainly, the admins of such networks have acted irresponsibly (assuming it wasn't some incredible new hack that broke into a secured network); but that doesn't mean the wardriver has no culpability in this situation.
This is one of those areas where the law can't cover everything. It's wrong to walk into an open house and take things when you know the owners didn't want you in there. Whether or not the door was open, and whether or not there was a welcome mat on the porch, you damned well know you shouldn't walk into a stranger's house and take their things.
And when you did, it wouldn't be the owner's fault that you're a worthless amoral turd. It would still be yours; whether or not they were stupid.
Agreed.
.com's became so ubiquitous, home investors and online trading also boomed (largely for the same reason: the internet.) For the first time, Joe investor could do extensive research and play complicated strategies all on his own. The problem was that Joe investor didn't have an institutional mind-set. There was no governor on Joe investor's button.
The so-called "Tech Boom" and bust were really an investment boom and bust.
At about the same time that
That, combined with the young entrepaneur who thought you just needed to be a good geeks to survive as a tech company breeded the bubble and consequently the bust.
The recession wasn't the fault of tech (entirely) or Greenspan (entirely), etc. It was largely the fault of the unreasonably (and that's a polite term) optimistic investors.
I currently have both (company provided Cox cable for vpn, and DSL for my own access and running servers.)
What I've seen is that while the DSL is slower, it never goes down. In almost a year, I've not had a single time when I couldn't get to the internet. The cable, on the other hand, drops about once or twice a week now; though it's better than the 3 or 4 times a day that it was dropping during the conversion from RoadRunner to Cox.
It may have more to do with who is administrating the particular network segment you're on than the technology itself; but I have found Cox to be horribly unreliable, and their tech support people to be "less than knowledgeable" and difficult to deal with.