Like PacBell/SBC would even consider offering this, like anyone is any competition for them, like my current ISP, XO, just notified me via email last night that, they too, are filing for Chapter 11 while reorganizing and probably don't plan anything really cool to attact new customers like blowing what little cash they have left to upgrade their equipment.
As wonderful as it all sounds, it's kinda like reading in 1960 about how cars by 2000 will be rocket powered (a la Batmobile), we'll be cancer free, and everyone will have a house like FLW's Falling Water. Some day...
It's killing many birds with one stone. Some reasonable, some not necessarily so. 200 to service the needs formerly filled by 2,400 is extreme. Other measures could have been taken, but this seems usually draconian. Rather than address the conditions before the fire, they use it as the club to subdue the people, yet again.
It's easy to jump on the mayor for being a censor tyrant for this action
Actually, it is. Consider that China is presently in the patient process of choosing new leaders and a new "president" (Hu Jintao), if that new leadership would look favorably on the mayor of Beijing for a little rounding up of civil liberties than this makes an effective example of his willingness. The present government has made no secret of encouraging the masses to embrace technology, buy on the government's terms. Very convenient.
Now might be a good time to update an old marxism: The internet is the opiate of the masses.
I was thinking schools were being overtaken by Richard Simmons or something...
<crusty_geezer_voice> Back in my day we played golf, ran around the track, got welts from dodge-ball, and we liked it, none o' this song and dancin' around, by yimminy!</crusty_geezer_voice>
Roll forward 40 years and hear what some of today's kids have to say...
<crusty_geezer_voice>Back in my day, we danced around to a pattern onna computer, by yimminy, none o' this lightsabre fencin', runnin' around in our underwear or gettin' welts from paintball!</crusty_geezer_voice>
KPNQwest's creditors have agreed to pay to keep the place going until the end of June.
Quoting ZDNet:
ust hours before a deadline set by former KPNQwest staff,
liquidators for the bankrupt service provider reached an agreement
that should see the network kept online--albeit only till the
liquidators' own deadline of
31 June.
Either that's a very, very long time -OR- Taco's moonlighting.
Not copy protected? Uh... then this means we have to buy it to support that kind of approach, right? I mean, it's what we complain for and then... what... they actually do it. It's like, the damn ball is now in our court.
Calculations made by Greg Laughlin of the University of California at Santa Cruz show that an Earth-sized planet could survive in a stable orbit between the two gas giants.
Planet only 40 times more massive than earth... orbiting at 1/20th the radius of Earth's orbit...
I imagine lying on my back, getting a brief and fatal sunburn... It's ok, though, because the gravity has already stopped all respiration, etc.
Hmm... How long before we have Graphic Card Worms/Subliminal messages...
Segue to someone playing a video game at a high frame rate...
Gee, the more I play this game, the less bad I feel about buying proprietary technology and the angrier I get at those 9 states for disagreeing with the DoJ Settlement. Oh, and I'd like to buy all of Britney Spears CD's and eat every meal at McD's... I'm sure I didn't feel this way yesterday... What's odd, too is that every so many frames seems to flicker something I can't quite make out...
Screen breifly flickers something else
Hmm... I can't remember what I was just thinking about, but I do have the strangest desire to email all of my personal information and credit card numbers to mlm5767848@hotmail.com...
Before calling someone naïve, consider that some companies actually do take the initiative, although that's usually taken by managers. 5 years ago when I accepted a position in a new company I thought I had signed on for a pretty competitive salary. At the time things were pretty hot and people were coming and going. Once I had proven myself to my supervisor, she put in a 16% increase in pay, just to keep my eyes from wandering to greener pastures. Needless to say, I was somewhat floored. It inspired quite a bit of loyalty there.
Several years before I had made it known I was considering a move, when I was only working part-time at my first programming job. I was called to the director's office a few days later and offered more hours at a 100% pay increase to stay on for 8 months, with the possibility of a full-time position at the end of the period.
I'd advise testing the waters when you have an offer, before revealing that you have one. i.e. drop hints that some other path looks interesting. Use caution, never let the door behind you close until after you're through the next one.
Lastly, never, _never_, __NEVER__ burn bridges. It may feel good at the time to tell someone what you think of them or how you feel about a certain department, but it's a risk, which I've seen blow up on people in the past. Be gracious, or at the very least, polite on your way out. You never know, particularly in some circles, who you may see again some day.
Like, why not just go straight cellular and connect to the internet or your home beowulf cluster?
The downside of being a geek is you don't know whether to lose face admitting your system is down and you can't reach it -or- admit you really didn't do your homework, thus can't download it.
I'll be putting my money where my mouth is and going with Sirius. After reviewing the list of 100 stations on XM I couldn't actually find a compelling reason to subscribe. Sirius, OTOH, has BBC and OLN, which are both near and dear to my heart (Gotta get OLN before the TDF!) I'm pretty much otherwise disappointed with the lack of sports offerings and hope that changes.
Hopefully congress will reconsider the lame-brained legislation in the past which protected local broadcasters.
My initial use of Amazon was in tracking down used books, and I believe that was their initial cornerstone. They still list used books through affiliates and what's on auctions.
Word of warning on Half.com, though, which is owned by ebay, they appear to do a very poor job policing their partners. If you must buy through them, brace yourself.
Must resist... Can't hold out much longer.. Aagh!
on
Techno Teddy
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Imagine a Bearwulf cluster of these...
Hangs head in shame for moment of weakness...
With the right approach...
on
Techno Teddy
·
· Score: 3, Funny
This could be the next huge Christmas toy. Then we'd have slashdot carrying articles on how you can
Install Linux on it
Program it with AI
Hold LAN parties for insecure programmers
I'm kinda surprised I haven't seen something like this yet, but with all the dumb toys which have been -HOT- it makes sense something which appeals to intelligent people would be a flop. Stands to reason when you look at everything these days. Thanks to those few capitalists who actually do give tech toys a fair shot (and don't sue people when they get inside them)
But once they start putting examples (this is where my dander usually gets up, for the lack of) a little inside humor isn't necessarily a bad thing. Yes, putting cartoons, particularly those in some of the older computer books I've read, fall flat, because the humor is lame or dated, and waste space. But there's nothing wrong with using 'foo' 'bar' or 'fnord' in examples. Unless the reader is so dense they take it literally, then you have to question why they have the book in their hands and rip it out of them before they do something really dangerous.
I had a statistics book in college which was full of puns, some may have encountered the same book, made the class fun.
Randal Schwartz's first O'Reilly Programming in Perl was also fun, for the humor placed in it, which keeps the student amused rather than dry, clinical and boring, which IMHO the 2nd edition was.
Some people view humor as a distraction in documents, perhaps so, if the humor gets in the way of getting the information across. I try to put some humor into sample data and documents, but usually it takes someone with special knowledge to notice (i.e. an address for J. T. Kirk, 1701 Enterprise Place) or silly things to fill in space in an example form, like creating combinations of funny words randomly to fill out the space in a new P.O. form. (BTW, programming in PCL sucks!)
It also seems to make the job of writing documentation a bit easier.
Fair weather friend, you are. You probably thought they were great at first, but after they went to the legal bat for their rights (and yours, indirectly) you can't say a good thing about them.
So it goes with pioneers. Anyone remember Columbia PC and the financially exhausting battle against IBM which paved the way for Dell, Compaq, HP, ad nauseum? Nah, probably not...
Bertelsmann stepped in on May 17 with $8 million to buy Napster's assets. As part of that agreement, Napster was to seek bankruptcy protection and emerge as a wholly-owned unit of Europe's second- largest media group.
Chapter 11 means protection from creditors while reorganizing, which has been the plan. They're not shut down, they've not gone away, they're just shifting debt around and restructuring (i.e. laying off any worker bees left, negotiating terms on debt payment, etc.)
This is hardly a surprise, nor the end of Napster. The only effect against "music piracy" is that Napster, under BMG's thumb, will simply be a store front for their products. In a way, similar to what the Mega-swill Brewers did 10-15 years ago, buying up all those threatening little micro-brews and screwing up their distribution to preserve market for the highly profitable [yecch] that they sell (i.e. you don't become billionaires without putting rice in your mash instead of expensive barley.)
Slashdot Mirror
Disney == Evil
Disney use Linux to control animation == Good, I think...
VA enhances Animation Factory == Hmm... a connection?
Forbes carries Slashdot for that cutting edge, on the pulse of high tech and low fashion of all geeks, nerds and CowboyNeal.
Anyone have much experience positive and/or negative?
As wonderful as it all sounds, it's kinda like reading in 1960 about how cars by 2000 will be rocket powered (a la Batmobile), we'll be cancer free, and everyone will have a house like FLW's Falling Water. Some day...
It's killing many birds with one stone. Some reasonable, some not necessarily so. 200 to service the needs formerly filled by 2,400 is extreme. Other measures could have been taken, but this seems usually draconian. Rather than address the conditions before the fire, they use it as the club to subdue the people, yet again.
Actually, it is. Consider that China is presently in the patient process of choosing new leaders and a new "president" (Hu Jintao), if that new leadership would look favorably on the mayor of Beijing for a little rounding up of civil liberties than this makes an effective example of his willingness. The present government has made no secret of encouraging the masses to embrace technology, buy on the government's terms. Very convenient.
Now might be a good time to update an old marxism: The internet is the opiate of the masses.
Meet other slashdotters
Have a passerby moderate your conversation (What a bunch of geeks!)
Metamoderate them right back (To meet a person of that calibre, one must buy a Krusty Burger!)
Sure, sounds like fun. I did get-togethers with fellow mudders a few years back and those were pretty cool. Geeks can be pretty good company.
We noticed Pensellnek, the science fair winner, was starting to do really well and checked his locker, sure enough half a bottle of MD 20/20.
In other news:
This math test certainly must have been enlightening, vocational training?
<crusty_geezer_voice> Back in my day we played golf, ran around the track, got welts from dodge-ball, and we liked it, none o' this song and dancin' around, by yimminy!</crusty_geezer_voice>
Roll forward 40 years and hear what some of today's kids have to say...
<crusty_geezer_voice>Back in my day, we danced around to a pattern onna computer, by yimminy, none o' this lightsabre fencin', runnin' around in our underwear or gettin' welts from paintball!</crusty_geezer_voice>
You'll know when Gym classes have really gone too far when they have Tai-bo (ewww.)
Quoting ZDNet:
Either that's a very, very long time -OR- Taco's moonlighting.
Sneaky... very sneaky...
Here apparently.
Space is big
Space is dark
It's hard to find
A place to park
Burma Shave
-- From Amiga Workbench Lander
Planet only 40 times more massive than earth... orbiting at 1/20th the radius of Earth's orbit... I imagine lying on my back, getting a brief and fatal sunburn... It's ok, though, because the gravity has already stopped all respiration, etc.
Segue to someone playing a video game at a high frame rate...
Gee, the more I play this game, the less bad I feel about buying proprietary technology and the angrier I get at those 9 states for disagreeing with the DoJ Settlement. Oh, and I'd like to buy all of Britney Spears CD's and eat every meal at McD's... I'm sure I didn't feel this way yesterday... What's odd, too is that every so many frames seems to flicker something I can't quite make out...
Screen breifly flickers something else
Hmm... I can't remember what I was just thinking about, but I do have the strangest desire to email all of my personal information and credit card numbers to mlm5767848@hotmail.com...
Several years before I had made it known I was considering a move, when I was only working part-time at my first programming job. I was called to the director's office a few days later and offered more hours at a 100% pay increase to stay on for 8 months, with the possibility of a full-time position at the end of the period.
I'd advise testing the waters when you have an offer, before revealing that you have one. i.e. drop hints that some other path looks interesting. Use caution, never let the door behind you close until after you're through the next one.
Lastly, never, _never_, __NEVER__ burn bridges. It may feel good at the time to tell someone what you think of them or how you feel about a certain department, but it's a risk, which I've seen blow up on people in the past. Be gracious, or at the very least, polite on your way out. You never know, particularly in some circles, who you may see again some day.
The downside of being a geek is you don't know whether to lose face admitting your system is down and you can't reach it -or- admit you really didn't do your homework, thus can't download it.
Hopefully congress will reconsider the lame-brained legislation in the past which protected local broadcasters.
Word of warning on Half.com, though, which is owned by ebay, they appear to do a very poor job policing their partners. If you must buy through them, brace yourself.
Hangs head in shame for moment of weakness...
Install Linux on it
Program it with AI
Hold LAN parties for insecure programmers
I'm kinda surprised I haven't seen something like this yet, but with all the dumb toys which have been -HOT- it makes sense something which appeals to intelligent people would be a flop. Stands to reason when you look at everything these days. Thanks to those few capitalists who actually do give tech toys a fair shot (and don't sue people when they get inside them)
And me still fooling around with 56k, of course XO looks comparatively healthy...
But once they start putting examples (this is where my dander usually gets up, for the lack of) a little inside humor isn't necessarily a bad thing. Yes, putting cartoons, particularly those in some of the older computer books I've read, fall flat, because the humor is lame or dated, and waste space. But there's nothing wrong with using 'foo' 'bar' or 'fnord' in examples. Unless the reader is so dense they take it literally, then you have to question why they have the book in their hands and rip it out of them before they do something really dangerous.
Randal Schwartz's first O'Reilly Programming in Perl was also fun, for the humor placed in it, which keeps the student amused rather than dry, clinical and boring, which IMHO the 2nd edition was.
Some people view humor as a distraction in documents, perhaps so, if the humor gets in the way of getting the information across. I try to put some humor into sample data and documents, but usually it takes someone with special knowledge to notice (i.e. an address for J. T. Kirk, 1701 Enterprise Place) or silly things to fill in space in an example form, like creating combinations of funny words randomly to fill out the space in a new P.O. form. (BTW, programming in PCL sucks!)
It also seems to make the job of writing documentation a bit easier.
So it goes with pioneers. Anyone remember Columbia PC and the financially exhausting battle against IBM which paved the way for Dell, Compaq, HP, ad nauseum? Nah, probably not...
Chapter 11 means protection from creditors while reorganizing, which has been the plan. They're not shut down, they've not gone away, they're just shifting debt around and restructuring (i.e. laying off any worker bees left, negotiating terms on debt payment, etc.)
This is hardly a surprise, nor the end of Napster. The only effect against "music piracy" is that Napster, under BMG's thumb, will simply be a store front for their products. In a way, similar to what the Mega-swill Brewers did 10-15 years ago, buying up all those threatening little micro-brews and screwing up their distribution to preserve market for the highly profitable [yecch] that they sell (i.e. you don't become billionaires without putting rice in your mash instead of expensive barley.)