A US website will offer Caller ID falsification service...Slated for launch this week, Star38.com would offer subscribers a simple Web interface to a Caller ID spoofing system that lets them appear to be calling from any number they choose.
constitute Wire Fraud? It's impersonating another party to promote something over the phone. It's obviously for fraudulent intent, how could such a service be allowed, aside from having a boiler-room of phones and wanting all calls to appear to be from the same number (which they probably would anyway.)
outsourcing means cheaper IT products, meaning businesses will buy more, meaning more products to make & manage = net gain of IT jobs in the US. Ummm, did you follow that?"
An economist. Lovely. International economist, actually. Have those people *ever* been right about anything?
Election Year.
Another take on this, though, was some fantasy which was handed to me at some point. I think there was a chill down my spine when I heard it and knew it was evil wrapped in a sheepskin:
Approximately it went: If you outsource all the menial little tasks it'll free your experienced staff up for the more mission critical tasks, so it's win-win.
How it actually played out was:
Menial tasks were actually a good chunk of our work.
Less work and no increase in critical tasks means headcount minus half.
The damndest thing is, even what is called 'menial' isn't, it's all critical, and that came out clearly a number of times as soon as some doofus with limited background knowledge screwed up.
MS may lose the the OS market to Linux, but does it matter if they gain control of the interface between data and app?
Indeed, this is the facet not often considered when anyone upgrades -- beyond the announced features, what other things are creeping into my system. "Oh, I've got XML for Office! Neat!" as opposed to "Oh, I'm stuck with their bastardized and copyrighted version of XML! Shit!"
does anyone know where i can BUY linux dvd viewing software? I have only used MPlayer in the past.
It definitely had a damn-by-faint-praise feel to it, regarding needing more intimate knowledge, etc.
When it comes to DVD players, someone still has to buy it for the PC, if yours came with a DVD player package then it was included in the price of the system. It's hardly free and there are dozens of packages out there to buy for Windows -- which would hardly be the case if it were free and bundled.
You hear a tinny voice say, "that's not a feature, that's a bug.
Upgrades have the appearance of better quality and more "on-the-edge."
*bleed* *bleed* *bleed*
Historically, particularly in shops I've worked in, we are vveeeerrrryyyy slow to upgrade, typically only introducing new operating system iterations with new computer purchases, while phasing out the old versions. It usually means supporting a few platforms, but far less harrowing than performing a backup, installing the upgrade and seeing things go PFFT! FRACK! POP! SPROING! GING! and trying to simultaneaously comfort a user who has now lost all confidence in technology and it's minions while sorting out the incompatibilities and damages.
I want to know that too. I'm running Win98SE without any trouble. Why should I upgrade to Longhorn?
Wasn't Win98SE support to be discontinued? Maybe there was a stay of execution -- I seem to recall Microsoft trying to shead the image of a leech requiring blood too often by stating 7 years would be the support period.
By the way, you were supposed to upgrade to Win2K then WinXP. Didn't you get the memo?
If most of the updates will be available for current versions of Windows, what is the incentive to upgrade?"
Silly Chris, It'll introduce more bugs and keep you more tightly bound than ever to Microsoft Update, because you'll have so much time
and energy vested in keeping your system going you'll be terrified of switching -- I think it's something like the Stockholm Syndrome. Maybe
it should have it's own name: Redmond Syndrome.
Further, you'll probably find everything doesn't work as well with your current video card and networking so you'll have to buy *NEW* stuff
from vendors -- stuff endorsed by Microsoft as being up to snuff with their shell-game specifications.
As for Longhorn, you'll still buy it like all the other cattle (Ha! Longhorn! Cattle! Now I see the connection!) when it comes out, by the way,
I expect the successor to Longhorn to be Bighorn (Guess the species!;-)
Now please excuse me while I bash my head against the wall for having made sport of my Sith Master, Bill in a prior post.
Ever wonder what the air temperature is outside your aluminum aircraft at 40,000 feet?
Ever notice all those little cracks in the skin of aircraft? I know it's a pretty good alloy, because the velocity is ~500 kts and vibration and other physical stresses are considerable, but then it's aero dynamic, too, which most houses aren't.
How's Carbon hold up under extreme cold? Got any good references?
Bill: I want his head on a stick.
Steve: We can't do that, it'd be murder.
Bill: Ruin his career then, have him sent to North Korea as a technology correspondent.
Steve: Yes, Master.
There's quite a few geodesic dome houses in my area, with regular roofing materials, which have some desireable properties over foam and poured concrete, etc. A friend is a specialist roofer for these types of structures and I take his word for it that not everyone can do one of these houses.
WebVan burned through their capital faster than they could develop their customer base. There was something called 'The Rich Plan' back in Auburn, Michigan, years back which in some ways was like what they tried -- with delivery vans and such.
Cold isn't just the temperature, but what effect it has on metals under stress. I've found many instances of aluminum becoming more brittle in 10-20 degree F range. Keep in mind any material becomes more brittle at lower temperatures, the question would still remain, is it well enough engineered for extremes?
internet so it can order my groceries for me........
Sorry, but WebVan is history.
Earthquakes, sure...
on
Space-Age Houses
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
will be used to make a self-supporting lightweight shell-like structure able to withstand severe earthquakes.
How about typhoons and hurricanes?
There's some housing in the Florida keys built on concrete pilars which look a bit like this, except they're square, built to withstand trailer shreading winds and stay above the water.
I wonder how durable in extreme cold this stuff would be, particularly in cold climates, as much aluminum developes stress fractures. More surface area on the outside means more area to insulate, too.
BTW, if you've ever considered living in a geodesic home, consider that the roofing costs about 3x what a regular house does. I wonder what mantenance would be like on these in the long term.
3a. Eliminate last of R&D, replace with finite number of monkeys with keyboards (infinite might accidently get it right.)
3b. Eliminate last of Q&A
3c. Increase lobbying budget
3d. Increase Marketing budget
Oh, Mola Ram and your heart-removing antics, little did you know the profound impact you would have.
Hmm. Considering all the [Insert favorite analog here] around these days, you'd think this would be mandatory viewing for [Insert favorite socio/economic/ethnic/political group here]
Better Watch Out
on
Odds-on Science
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Duke Nukem Forever -- 25,000:1
I've been a student of statistics long enough to realize that anything, now matter how unlikely, which can happen, eventually will.
The odds of winning a lottery are remote, yet people do. The odds of three people sitting at a table, with a half dozen raffle tickets cleaning up while everyone else gets zilch nada are pretty remote, but it happened on Tuesday (fortunately they were kind and had enough schwag so I got to walk home with 5 Fullers ESB pint glasses and a nifty bar towel, which I won on my only winning ticket.)
Careful what odds you give people, especially if you're planning to take bets.
You know, the internet has been around for awhile now and it's only in the last four to six years that people have become increasingly stupid and juvenile.
Did it ever occur to you that the internet, anonymity of postings, etc. brings out peoples truer nature? I wish I could point to one of the studies on this, but conclusions are that people communicate much more than they used to (notice all the people jawing on cellphones while they drive, which they couldn't do a couple decades ago without a fat wad of cash, IIRC cell phones were invented in 1948, but few could afford this luxury) the more they communicate the more deeper they dig into their thoughts, reveal more of their character. Typing is more congnitive process than speech, as you can backspace over and otherwise edit your thoughts to make a point more clearly. Beyond the words there's the behaviour, how often do you communicate, to what do you respond, how do you respond, etc.
In short, people aren't more stupid, they're simply revealing the stupidity that's always been there.
Is it geeks getting out their pent-up aggression from being picked on all the time in the real world?
This reminds me of my early mudding days, you eventually learned there was safety in numbers and banded with other players. I was pkilled and a friend was also harrassed by the same player, but because I told him about the meanie, he was prepared.
My nephew, years later, who was a blue belt in Tae Kwon Do and a reasonably bright lad, met with similar disappointments in Ultima Online. Nothing kills player enthusiasm for a game like pkillers who prey on newbies.
Slashdot Mirror
An economist. Lovely. International economist, actually. Have those people *ever* been right about anything?
Election Year.
Another take on this, though, was some fantasy which was handed to me at some point. I think there was a chill down my spine when I heard it and knew it was evil wrapped in a sheepskin:
How it actually played out was:
Menial tasks were actually a good chunk of our work.
Less work and no increase in critical tasks means headcount minus half.
The damndest thing is, even what is called 'menial' isn't, it's all critical, and that came out clearly a number of times as soon as some doofus with limited background knowledge screwed up.
Not my problem anymore. I left.
Indeed, this is the facet not often considered when anyone upgrades -- beyond the announced features, what other things are creeping into my system. "Oh, I've got XML for Office! Neat!" as opposed to "Oh, I'm stuck with their bastardized and copyrighted version of XML! Shit!"
It definitely had a damn-by-faint-praise feel to it, regarding needing more intimate knowledge, etc.
When it comes to DVD players, someone still has to buy it for the PC, if yours came with a DVD player package then it was included in the price of the system. It's hardly free and there are dozens of packages out there to buy for Windows -- which would hardly be the case if it were free and bundled.
You hear a tinny voice say, "that's not a feature, that's a bug.
Upgrades have the appearance of better quality and more "on-the-edge."
*bleed* *bleed* *bleed*
Historically, particularly in shops I've worked in, we are vveeeerrrryyyy slow to upgrade, typically only introducing new operating system iterations with new computer purchases, while phasing out the old versions. It usually means supporting a few platforms, but far less harrowing than performing a backup, installing the upgrade and seeing things go PFFT! FRACK! POP! SPROING! GING! and trying to simultaneaously comfort a user who has now lost all confidence in technology and it's minions while sorting out the incompatibilities and damages.
Wasn't Win98SE support to be discontinued? Maybe there was a stay of execution -- I seem to recall Microsoft trying to shead the image of a leech requiring blood too often by stating 7 years would be the support period.
By the way, you were supposed to upgrade to Win2K then WinXP. Didn't you get the memo?
Silly Chris, It'll introduce more bugs and keep you more tightly bound than ever to Microsoft Update, because you'll have so much time and energy vested in keeping your system going you'll be terrified of switching -- I think it's something like the Stockholm Syndrome. Maybe it should have it's own name: Redmond Syndrome.
Further, you'll probably find everything doesn't work as well with your current video card and networking so you'll have to buy *NEW* stuff from vendors -- stuff endorsed by Microsoft as being up to snuff with their shell-game specifications.
As for Longhorn, you'll still buy it like all the other cattle (Ha! Longhorn! Cattle! Now I see the connection!) when it comes out, by the way, I expect the successor to Longhorn to be Bighorn (Guess the species! ;-)
Now please excuse me while I bash my head against the wall for having made sport of my Sith Master, Bill in a prior post.
Ever notice all those little cracks in the skin of aircraft? I know it's a pretty good alloy, because the velocity is ~500 kts and vibration and other physical stresses are considerable, but then it's aero dynamic, too, which most houses aren't.
How's Carbon hold up under extreme cold? Got any good references?
Cold, yes. Windy, no.
Steve: We can't do that, it'd be murder.
Bill: Ruin his career then, have him sent to North Korea as a technology correspondent.
Steve: Yes, Master.
There's quite a few geodesic dome houses in my area, with regular roofing materials, which have some desireable properties over foam and poured concrete, etc. A friend is a specialist roofer for these types of structures and I take his word for it that not everyone can do one of these houses.
WebVan burned through their capital faster than they could develop their customer base. There was something called 'The Rich Plan' back in Auburn, Michigan, years back which in some ways was like what they tried -- with delivery vans and such.
FYI
Charley was a Cat 4 (145 mph)
Cold isn't just the temperature, but what effect it has on metals under stress. I've found many instances of aluminum becoming more brittle in 10-20 degree F range. Keep in mind any material becomes more brittle at lower temperatures, the question would still remain, is it well enough engineered for extremes?
Sorry, but WebVan is history.
How about typhoons and hurricanes?
There's some housing in the Florida keys built on concrete pilars which look a bit like this, except they're square, built to withstand trailer shreading winds and stay above the water.
I wonder how durable in extreme cold this stuff would be, particularly in cold climates, as much aluminum developes stress fractures. More surface area on the outside means more area to insulate, too.
BTW, if you've ever considered living in a geodesic home, consider that the roofing costs about 3x what a regular house does. I wonder what mantenance would be like on these in the long term.
3a. Eliminate last of R&D, replace with finite number of monkeys with keyboards (infinite might accidently get it right.)
3b. Eliminate last of Q&A
3c. Increase lobbying budget
3d. Increase Marketing budget
Makes you wonder how they can bear the MPAA
Hmm. Considering all the [Insert favorite analog here] around these days, you'd think this would be mandatory viewing for [Insert favorite socio/economic/ethnic/political group here]
I've been a student of statistics long enough to realize that anything, now matter how unlikely, which can happen, eventually will.
The odds of winning a lottery are remote, yet people do. The odds of three people sitting at a table, with a half dozen raffle tickets cleaning up while everyone else gets zilch nada are pretty remote, but it happened on Tuesday (fortunately they were kind and had enough schwag so I got to walk home with 5 Fullers ESB pint glasses and a nifty bar towel, which I won on my only winning ticket.)
Careful what odds you give people, especially if you're planning to take bets.
To be smooth, baby, shouldn't you change 'kill' to 'chill', too?
Bullwinkle used to say, "If it's in the newspapers, it must be true!"
Other Classic Exaggerations:
Swine Flu Scare (1976) IIRC in the USA more people died from the shots than the disease.
Earthquake Predictions (various)
WMD ('nuff said)
What goes around, comes around.
Also, see.
People are NOT getting stupider!
You know, the internet has been around for awhile now and it's only in the last four to six years that people have become increasingly stupid and juvenile.
Did it ever occur to you that the internet, anonymity of postings, etc. brings out peoples truer nature? I wish I could point to one of the studies on this, but conclusions are that people communicate much more than they used to (notice all the people jawing on cellphones while they drive, which they couldn't do a couple decades ago without a fat wad of cash, IIRC cell phones were invented in 1948, but few could afford this luxury) the more they communicate the more deeper they dig into their thoughts, reveal more of their character. Typing is more congnitive process than speech, as you can backspace over and otherwise edit your thoughts to make a point more clearly. Beyond the words there's the behaviour, how often do you communicate, to what do you respond, how do you respond, etc.
In short, people aren't more stupid, they're simply revealing the stupidity that's always been there.
Playing OnLine RPGs spreads satanism and playing FPS games encourages violence.
also according to experts too much slashdotting causes nose hemorroids, terminal baldness cooties in lab rats
This reminds me of my early mudding days, you eventually learned there was safety in numbers and banded with other players. I was pkilled and a friend was also harrassed by the same player, but because I told him about the meanie, he was prepared.
My nephew, years later, who was a blue belt in Tae Kwon Do and a reasonably bright lad, met with similar disappointments in Ultima Online. Nothing kills player enthusiasm for a game like pkillers who prey on newbies.