You should also have some process that completely blocks ssh login attempts from a given IP after so many failed login attempts instead of letting the hi-jacker poll your machine for as long as he wishes.
For me, that process is "hmm, from looking at gkrellm, someone is pounding eth0".. tail -f/var/log/auth.log... yep. stop sshd, wait 15 min, restart it.
I'd really like to have something a little more automated... something that would block an IP if they tried to ssh in using an unknown user more than 3 times.
My 2.5 year old daughter plays several educational games, and some just for fun. Reader Rabbit, Cat in the Hat, My Little Pony. She can move the mouse and click on things, and she's getting better. Some weeks she'll want to play every day, some weeks not at all. It's just another "thing" to her. She reads and draws every day, but the video games come and go. Not every game is a FPS, although she did see me playing Unreal and say "what is that? Cool!":)
Wow! That makes you so much better than all the people who do play. Thanks for letting us know, you've really contributed to this discussion.
Hmm, you seem a little defensive. All I said is I have never played it, and it just doesn't appeal to me. I just don't get it. That isn't an insult at all. Why did you take it as such?
Try replacing "play it" with "watch football" or "hack kernel drivers" or "restore old cars." Do you see how little sense your statement makes now?
Ummm, no, that is my point exactly. I don't get anyone who can only talk about one thing, and who don't GET that not everyone shares in your obsession. The exact same thing happens with football, baseball, baseball cards, eBay, dieting, pets, their kids, etc. Of course there are those who do those things and don't annoy others with it - but I've met a LOT who do with WoW. It makes me want to avoid them altogether.
I have never played WoW, never had the desire to - I just don't get the whole concept of RPGs. What I really don't get is the obsession with it... I've talked to people who play it, and as soon as they start going into their OCD-like ramblings, my eyes glaze over and I just wished that they would explode. I've never really talked to those people again, because that is all they obsess about. It's really kind of scary.
I was tempted by DVD recorders many times. The main reasons I never took the plunge are: - Too expensive. I kept waiting for the prices to drop, and they never did. When I stopped caring, they were just under $1,000.
Hmm, maybe then - but I have two of the PYE PY90DG recorders. They were $90 when I bought mine. I initially bought one to replace the dead VCR. I liked it so much I ended up getting another one.
- Low recording capacity. I think the blanks are good for 2 hours. It may vary based upon quality, but quality matters--I'd rather have VHS than low-quality digital.
Mine has several settings, I usually record on 3 hr setting, which is about in the middle. Quality to me isn't that big of a deal, but I haven't been caught up in the "look my TV/penis is bigger than yours" mindset. I don't care about HD or having a 52" TV. Yes, I've seen them - whooptie doo.
- TiVo hacking. Eventually, I got a TiVo, and could extract shows on my own, and burn them to (slightly out-of-spec) DVD.
I was going to go with a TiVo, several of my friends had them and I know you can hack them to get shows off. But for the price (at the time) I got the DVD recorder. I use RW disks, and if there is something I record that I want to keep (rarely) I can rip it and re-encode it as divx. I know that DVRs have all kinds of cool functionality - there just isn't much that I watch that I really really have to see. Everyone I know with a DVR has tons of shows they've been meaning to watch and haven't gotten around to it. I find I don't really miss it all that much if I don't get to see something. And if there is something I really want to see that I miss, I just wait a day or so and fire up Ktorrent.:)
My first was late 70s. It was some kind of console that played more than one pong-like game. If memory serves, it was a big square console with rounded corners that hooked into the TV, and it was orange. I don't think there were controllers, you used small black dials on the console itself to move the long blocks up/down. It was definitely pre-Atari-2600. I think it might have had some kind of counter/slider so you could keep track of the score. Maybe? It was a long time ago. Come on, anyone remember this?
I've learned that trying to convince someone who is happy with their software that they need to switch will be fruitless.
This is generally the approach I take too. You have to also consider, if they aren't happy with their software, do you want to support whatever you recommend? For some software, like Firefox, it's an easy yes. That isn't true for all though. I don't want to support a Linux distro to my family/friends who have never used it.
I got my parents onto Firefox, and they only use IE when they visit some stupid online game site that only supports IE. (I know, I know). I also have VNC installed on their machine, so I can remote-in when I need to. The other day, they were trying to play a DVD in their computer. They didn't have sound. They have a Dell (of course) and didn't want to call support. After having them try several things, I got their IP and logged in remotely. I downloaded VLC and it worked perfectly. I set it up to be their default player.
On the other hand, several years ago one of my friends switched to Open Office because I was evangelizing. He liked it, and used it for a couple of years, but switched back. He said he gave it a fair shot, but just didn't like it as much as MS Office. Instead of asking him if he kept up with the updates and trying to convince him to go back, I just let it drop. I figured if he tried it for that long and didn't like it, then so be it.
I figure it isn't for everyone - and that's OK. But it's for me, and I am very happy with my software.
If Intel's reaction to this had been "Our salespeople did WHAT? Send us the specifics, we'll deal with this IMMEDIATELY", then you might have a point. But as it is...
Well, as it is, all people are commenting on here is a very vague news report, with quotes from CEOs. We know absolutely nothing about what REALLY happened, and what was said internally. It's a very small press piece. And people are saying "this is why I'll never buy Intel!" which is ridiculous. That is my point. You know only what's been reported on it. It's the classic knee-jerk internet-nerd-rage reaction to a new headline blurb. What, is this digg now?
I like how everyone is railing on Intel, which is a corporation. These were acts by sales people. Have you ever dealt with sales people? While it sounds like these were repeated actions, it doesn't sound out of line for a sales organization. If you have sales people where you work, do they embody the spirit of your company, and truly represent it as a whole? I am guessing.... not. Were these actions ethical/moral/nice? Of course not. Is that Intel's fault as a whole? Probably not, but it is a ding against them, and is getting some press. I am sure they don't like that. But people, please... let's keep it in perspective. Comments like "this is why I'll never buy Intel" are just stupid. If you base decisions on things like this, then you'll never buy anything, because I can guarantee you that there are sales people in every organization that would step on their grandmother's throat to make a sale. Nature of the beast, if you will.
I know there were sales people in a small company that I worked for that sold things to clients that didn't exist outside a prototype, and those weren't even authorized. A signed contract and money can go a long way in making executives say "ok, that was wrong - but let's get past that and work together as a team to make this happen!" Hahah... of course, doesn't hurt that the sales dope was best friends with the president and majority shareholder of the company. But I digress.
And regarding the "noob friendliness", this is always put forward with Windows although I keep seeing Windows users that just can't manage to make head from tails from their system, haven't really figured how to install or remove stuff or how to change basic settings.
EXACTLY. People always comment on how much friendlier Windows is.... I just don't see it. If it was so damn friendly, then why do I still have to keep answering questions about it from my family and friends? And seriously, at what point are we going to be noob-free? Teenagers these days haven't known when computers didn't exist. My 2.5 year old daughter can use the mouse and play her Reader Rabbit games on the PC pretty well, whereas an elderly neighbor had no clue how to use a mouse - she was hovering her hand over it and moving her hand around. Quite a clash of generations. I guess we'll always have noobs in a sense, but they won't be as prevalent.
I've been using Linux on my home machine since RedHat 6.1, and the advances it has made on the desktop are nothing short of amazing. But there are still things I don't know, and things that frustrate the hell out of me with it. But I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm more comfortable with Windows than Mac, those things just do not mesh well with my brain. It will be interesting in 10, 20 years to see how things have progressed. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up.:)
Ahh, let's not forget good ol' Sneakernet. I have about 23k songs on an external hard drive from one of my friends. Need to return that one of these days. Still haven't found much worth listening to on it though.
You can always run your own webmail server, because a webbrowser is much more likely to be available than a ssh client.
If you have a web browser, you can get an ssh client, putty, very quickly. And you can't always run your own webmail server, because your ISP may not allow incoming HTTP traffic. Yeah, you could probably run it on a different port, but then you may have issues of firewalls. Most places allow ssh, it is secure, and webmail is still webmail.
7. It's configurable. I use fetchmail to consolidate email from several accounts, and I access them via Pine. Much more convenient than logging into several different webmail accounts.
8. It is remotely accessible (with SSH). I love the ability to check my email remotely very quickly, without having to do webmail (slow) or download my email to a remote machine. SSH into my machine, run pine. Quick and simple. (even if you have to download putty from a remote site)
I can do everything I need to using pine, but when it is more convenient to use another client (e.g. view an email with many images attached) I just fire up Thunderbird. That happens maybe once every couple of weeks. And no, I don't use mutt... I've heard it's better, but just haven't gotten around to trying it.
"I can use my gigs of ram for actual applications"
OK... I just have to ask - which apps do you use this memory for? I have gkrellm up all the time, and the only time I have used more than 60% of my memory was when Firefox flipped out and needed to be restarted. And I have less than 1 gig (768). I can have OpenOffice.org, Firefox with 5+ tabs open, 5+ konsoles, Amarok, Gaim, GIMP, all running on a dual-display system.... and still have plenty of memory left. What do people use to eat their memory? (I did submit as an Ask Slashdot, but it was rejected)
I used to work for McKesson, for about 5 years. When I first read this, I immediately thought "Redhat huh? Knowing them, they are probably planning on using 6.2"
I was a test lead on their materials management software, which integrated with their financial management software (which was 3rd party). I can tell you this: while appearing to have the best intentions, their focus was on money money money. I know, shocking. But allow me some examples...
The edict came down that we were all to be at least CMM Level 2. For those that don't know, you can look it up but it is basically a way of getting your software processes aligned so that things are repeatable. One of the first rules of getting into the CMM is that you have to be committed to doing it, and dedicating resources to it - otherwise it won't work. You have to invest in it, and that has to come from the top. So they said we had to be at least level 2... but when I went to the 3 day training class on process improvement, I found out that it was supposed to be a week long course. The instructor was trying to teach us how not to cut corners with this stuff, and he even mentioned how we had an uphill battle because our management had forced them to give their 5 day course in 3 days. I had the role of SQA, which was to be done 'in my spare time' in addition to my normal job. The CMM guidelines showed that for the size of our organization, we should have 2 to 3 full time SQA resources. OK, enough about that, but I could go on.
The year before I left, we found out there were no raises or bonuses of any kind company-wide. Well, for non-managers. Managers still got their bonuses, and possibly raises. This was all to save money cause it had been a tough year. We were told by our senior management how tough things were, and that the job market was tough, and that we were lucky to have our jobs. The next day I updated my resume and started looking. It was a tough year - the CEO of the company only made 54 million in salary/bonus/stock. Poor guy.
I've been in contact with a few people over the years, and I guess they have greatly cut the development and test staff, and have just started to move the work offshore. Figures, when everyone else is figuring out that just dumping things to offshore resources doesn't work out so well, McKesson is doing it.
I've worked for some very large companies over the years (Motorola, Bank of America), and McKesson is pretty big. But they are the company that seems to be so far behind everyone else. I wouldn't expect them to be cutting-egde like a smaller company, but everything there just seemed so behind-the-times.
Codes is an expression of the programmer's though process. Everyone thinks in a different way. Invariably the last person's code will seem to suck because you have to think differently to understand it.
Let me clarify that for you.... Codes [sic] is an expression of the programmer's though [sic] process at a specific point in time. It needs to be clear that projects change... requirements changes... focus changes... priorities change. It's hard to go back and re-design something you did yesterday with today's knowledge because the project may not allow it. Usually you just adapt to what is going on today, and move on with what you have. If you are a perfectionist, chances are you'd be a terrible developer because things will never be perfect. There are just too many variables in software development, and if you require that things be perfect, you'll never get anything done.
That is just the reality as I have seen it. Granted, I am not a programmer, but have been in the software industry since 1993. I've been on a lot of projects. For the most part, you have to accept things the way they are at some point, and move on.
I wonder how many people bought a new PC that has Vista pre-installed, and they hated it so much they downloaded a pirated copy of XP to install over it?
We bought my wife a new laptop last year, and there was no way I was going with Vista. Luckily, you could get one through Dell Small Business with XP on it. I run Kubuntu, and I have an old Win2k machine if I need it. But for my wife, and especially on a laptop, I wanted XP. I've still never seen Vista in person, but I really have no reason to either. I only use Windows when I have to.
Yep, I'm in a cubicle. I hear everything that happens around me, and maybe I'm just not good enough to blank it out. I regularly have to reserve meeting rooms just to have a little peace and quiet to be able to think.
Yeah, I'm mad because my request for noise-isolating headphones was turned down. Does it show?
Where I used to work, they had this brilliant idea to put everyone in cubicles - except for the tech side. We got to sit in "bullpens". Think of 2 cubicles on either side of an aisle, with the aisle-side walls removed. So it was a big box, where 4 people could sit facing the wall of each corner. It was supposed to increase communication and productivity, but everyone hated it. You couldn't concentrate, there was always something distracting. And if someone in your bullpen decided to have an impromptu discussion with 3 other people - tough for you. So instead of changing it (they couldn't admit they were wrong) they got everyone in bullpens noise-cancelling headphones. So if you wanted to concentrate, you had to put on the headphones. They gave me a headache, unless I was listening to music in them... and sometimes I didn't want to listen to music. And everyone else (sales, cust support, etc) were supposed to leave you alone if you had your headphones on, but instead they would come up and bother you anyway. I don't think the urge to kill has ever been so great as when you are trying to concentrate on something and some dufus walks up and taps on your headphones with a pen. So then they instituted "office hours" where those people could come and ask questions, the rest of the time was supposed to allow us to concentrate. Didn't work, nobody observed it.
All they had to do was give people cubicles where they could have some sort of private area to concentrate. We *asked* for cubicles. But some genius manager wanted to be "innovative" and "think outside the box". Here's a tip: listen to those people who have to live it day in and day out. I am all for trying new things, but if it doesn't work, don't force it on people.
When a farmer wants to get rid of the coyotes, he doesn't shoot them all. He shoots one. Just one. And then leaves it there to rot in his field. Coyotes are pretty smart- they see the dead coyote, realize going on his farm isn't a safe thing to do, and he's often good for the rest of the year.
So what do the coyotes do? They go to another farm. What happens to all the other coyotes in the countryside who don't see this dead coyote? Nothing, they just go about their business. There are plenty of farms out there, plenty of chickens, and not that many farmers who can shoot worth a damn.
Slashdot Mirror
For me, that process is "hmm, from looking at gkrellm, someone is pounding eth0".. tail -f
I'd really like to have something a little more automated... something that would block an IP if they tried to ssh in using an unknown user more than 3 times.
My 2.5 year old daughter plays several educational games, and some just for fun. Reader Rabbit, Cat in the Hat, My Little Pony. She can move the mouse and click on things, and she's getting better. Some weeks she'll want to play every day, some weeks not at all. It's just another "thing" to her. She reads and draws every day, but the video games come and go. Not every game is a FPS, although she did see me playing Unreal and say "what is that? Cool!"
Hmm, you seem a little defensive. All I said is I have never played it, and it just doesn't appeal to me. I just don't get it. That isn't an insult at all. Why did you take it as such?
Try replacing "play it" with "watch football" or "hack kernel drivers" or "restore old cars." Do you see how little sense your statement makes now?
Ummm, no, that is my point exactly. I don't get anyone who can only talk about one thing, and who don't GET that not everyone shares in your obsession. The exact same thing happens with football, baseball, baseball cards, eBay, dieting, pets, their kids, etc. Of course there are those who do those things and don't annoy others with it - but I've met a LOT who do with WoW. It makes me want to avoid them altogether.
I have never played WoW, never had the desire to - I just don't get the whole concept of RPGs. What I really don't get is the obsession with it... I've talked to people who play it, and as soon as they start going into their OCD-like ramblings, my eyes glaze over and I just wished that they would explode. I've never really talked to those people again, because that is all they obsess about. It's really kind of scary.
Yeah... I love Open Source Software too.
- Too expensive. I kept waiting for the prices to drop, and they never did. When I stopped caring, they were just under $1,000.
Hmm, maybe then - but I have two of the PYE PY90DG recorders. They were $90 when I bought mine. I initially bought one to replace the dead VCR. I liked it so much I ended up getting another one.
- Low recording capacity. I think the blanks are good for 2 hours. It may vary based upon quality, but quality matters--I'd rather have VHS than low-quality digital.
Mine has several settings, I usually record on 3 hr setting, which is about in the middle. Quality to me isn't that big of a deal, but I haven't been caught up in the "look my TV/penis is bigger than yours" mindset. I don't care about HD or having a 52" TV. Yes, I've seen them - whooptie doo.
- TiVo hacking. Eventually, I got a TiVo, and could extract shows on my own, and burn them to (slightly out-of-spec) DVD.
I was going to go with a TiVo, several of my friends had them and I know you can hack them to get shows off. But for the price (at the time) I got the DVD recorder. I use RW disks, and if there is something I record that I want to keep (rarely) I can rip it and re-encode it as divx. I know that DVRs have all kinds of cool functionality - there just isn't much that I watch that I really really have to see. Everyone I know with a DVR has tons of shows they've been meaning to watch and haven't gotten around to it. I find I don't really miss it all that much if I don't get to see something. And if there is something I really want to see that I miss, I just wait a day or so and fire up Ktorrent.
My first was late 70s. It was some kind of console that played more than one pong-like game. If memory serves, it was a big square console with rounded corners that hooked into the TV, and it was orange. I don't think there were controllers, you used small black dials on the console itself to move the long blocks up/down. It was definitely pre-Atari-2600. I think it might have had some kind of counter/slider so you could keep track of the score. Maybe? It was a long time ago. Come on, anyone remember this?
This is generally the approach I take too. You have to also consider, if they aren't happy with their software, do you want to support whatever you recommend? For some software, like Firefox, it's an easy yes. That isn't true for all though. I don't want to support a Linux distro to my family/friends who have never used it.
I got my parents onto Firefox, and they only use IE when they visit some stupid online game site that only supports IE. (I know, I know). I also have VNC installed on their machine, so I can remote-in when I need to. The other day, they were trying to play a DVD in their computer. They didn't have sound. They have a Dell (of course) and didn't want to call support. After having them try several things, I got their IP and logged in remotely. I downloaded VLC and it worked perfectly. I set it up to be their default player.
On the other hand, several years ago one of my friends switched to Open Office because I was evangelizing. He liked it, and used it for a couple of years, but switched back. He said he gave it a fair shot, but just didn't like it as much as MS Office. Instead of asking him if he kept up with the updates and trying to convince him to go back, I just let it drop. I figured if he tried it for that long and didn't like it, then so be it.
I figure it isn't for everyone - and that's OK. But it's for me, and I am very happy with my software.
Well, as it is, all people are commenting on here is a very vague news report, with quotes from CEOs. We know absolutely nothing about what REALLY happened, and what was said internally. It's a very small press piece. And people are saying "this is why I'll never buy Intel!" which is ridiculous. That is my point. You know only what's been reported on it. It's the classic knee-jerk internet-nerd-rage reaction to a new headline blurb. What, is this digg now?
I like how everyone is railing on Intel, which is a corporation. These were acts by sales people. Have you ever dealt with sales people? While it sounds like these were repeated actions, it doesn't sound out of line for a sales organization. If you have sales people where you work, do they embody the spirit of your company, and truly represent it as a whole? I am guessing.... not. Were these actions ethical/moral/nice? Of course not. Is that Intel's fault as a whole? Probably not, but it is a ding against them, and is getting some press. I am sure they don't like that. But people, please... let's keep it in perspective. Comments like "this is why I'll never buy Intel" are just stupid. If you base decisions on things like this, then you'll never buy anything, because I can guarantee you that there are sales people in every organization that would step on their grandmother's throat to make a sale. Nature of the beast, if you will.
I know there were sales people in a small company that I worked for that sold things to clients that didn't exist outside a prototype, and those weren't even authorized. A signed contract and money can go a long way in making executives say "ok, that was wrong - but let's get past that and work together as a team to make this happen!" Hahah... of course, doesn't hurt that the sales dope was best friends with the president and majority shareholder of the company. But I digress.
EXACTLY. People always comment on how much friendlier Windows is.... I just don't see it. If it was so damn friendly, then why do I still have to keep answering questions about it from my family and friends? And seriously, at what point are we going to be noob-free? Teenagers these days haven't known when computers didn't exist. My 2.5 year old daughter can use the mouse and play her Reader Rabbit games on the PC pretty well, whereas an elderly neighbor had no clue how to use a mouse - she was hovering her hand over it and moving her hand around. Quite a clash of generations. I guess we'll always have noobs in a sense, but they won't be as prevalent.
I've been using Linux on my home machine since RedHat 6.1, and the advances it has made on the desktop are nothing short of amazing. But there are still things I don't know, and things that frustrate the hell out of me with it. But I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm more comfortable with Windows than Mac, those things just do not mesh well with my brain. It will be interesting in 10, 20 years to see how things have progressed. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up.
Ahh, let's not forget good ol' Sneakernet. I have about 23k songs on an external hard drive from one of my friends. Need to return that one of these days. Still haven't found much worth listening to on it though.
If you have a web browser, you can get an ssh client, putty, very quickly. And you can't always run your own webmail server, because your ISP may not allow incoming HTTP traffic. Yeah, you could probably run it on a different port, but then you may have issues of firewalls. Most places allow ssh, it is secure, and webmail is still webmail.
And Bill Gates may be running out of money.
7. It's configurable. I use fetchmail to consolidate email from several accounts, and I access them via Pine. Much more convenient than logging into several different webmail accounts.
8. It is remotely accessible (with SSH). I love the ability to check my email remotely very quickly, without having to do webmail (slow) or download my email to a remote machine. SSH into my machine, run pine. Quick and simple. (even if you have to download putty from a remote site)
I can do everything I need to using pine, but when it is more convenient to use another client (e.g. view an email with many images attached) I just fire up Thunderbird. That happens maybe once every couple of weeks. And no, I don't use mutt... I've heard it's better, but just haven't gotten around to trying it.
Nor you.. no need to be hostile about it.
OK... I just have to ask - which apps do you use this memory for? I have gkrellm up all the time, and the only time I have used more than 60% of my memory was when Firefox flipped out and needed to be restarted. And I have less than 1 gig (768). I can have OpenOffice.org, Firefox with 5+ tabs open, 5+ konsoles, Amarok, Gaim, GIMP, all running on a dual-display system.... and still have plenty of memory left. What do people use to eat their memory? (I did submit as an Ask Slashdot, but it was rejected)
I was a test lead on their materials management software, which integrated with their financial management software (which was 3rd party). I can tell you this: while appearing to have the best intentions, their focus was on money money money. I know, shocking. But allow me some examples...
The edict came down that we were all to be at least CMM Level 2. For those that don't know, you can look it up but it is basically a way of getting your software processes aligned so that things are repeatable. One of the first rules of getting into the CMM is that you have to be committed to doing it, and dedicating resources to it - otherwise it won't work. You have to invest in it, and that has to come from the top. So they said we had to be at least level 2... but when I went to the 3 day training class on process improvement, I found out that it was supposed to be a week long course. The instructor was trying to teach us how not to cut corners with this stuff, and he even mentioned how we had an uphill battle because our management had forced them to give their 5 day course in 3 days. I had the role of SQA, which was to be done 'in my spare time' in addition to my normal job. The CMM guidelines showed that for the size of our organization, we should have 2 to 3 full time SQA resources. OK, enough about that, but I could go on.
The year before I left, we found out there were no raises or bonuses of any kind company-wide. Well, for non-managers. Managers still got their bonuses, and possibly raises. This was all to save money cause it had been a tough year. We were told by our senior management how tough things were, and that the job market was tough, and that we were lucky to have our jobs. The next day I updated my resume and started looking. It was a tough year - the CEO of the company only made 54 million in salary/bonus/stock. Poor guy.
I've been in contact with a few people over the years, and I guess they have greatly cut the development and test staff, and have just started to move the work offshore. Figures, when everyone else is figuring out that just dumping things to offshore resources doesn't work out so well, McKesson is doing it.
I've worked for some very large companies over the years (Motorola, Bank of America), and McKesson is pretty big. But they are the company that seems to be so far behind everyone else. I wouldn't expect them to be cutting-egde like a smaller company, but everything there just seemed so behind-the-times.
As a long time KDE user, I sincerely hope not.
Kubuntu
Let me clarify that for you.... Codes [sic] is an expression of the programmer's though [sic] process at a specific point in time. It needs to be clear that projects change... requirements changes... focus changes... priorities change. It's hard to go back and re-design something you did yesterday with today's knowledge because the project may not allow it. Usually you just adapt to what is going on today, and move on with what you have. If you are a perfectionist, chances are you'd be a terrible developer because things will never be perfect. There are just too many variables in software development, and if you require that things be perfect, you'll never get anything done.
That is just the reality as I have seen it. Granted, I am not a programmer, but have been in the software industry since 1993. I've been on a lot of projects. For the most part, you have to accept things the way they are at some point, and move on.
I wonder how many people bought a new PC that has Vista pre-installed, and they hated it so much they downloaded a pirated copy of XP to install over it?
We bought my wife a new laptop last year, and there was no way I was going with Vista. Luckily, you could get one through Dell Small Business with XP on it. I run Kubuntu, and I have an old Win2k machine if I need it. But for my wife, and especially on a laptop, I wanted XP. I've still never seen Vista in person, but I really have no reason to either. I only use Windows when I have to.
Yeah, I'm mad because my request for noise-isolating headphones was turned down. Does it show?
Where I used to work, they had this brilliant idea to put everyone in cubicles - except for the tech side. We got to sit in "bullpens". Think of 2 cubicles on either side of an aisle, with the aisle-side walls removed. So it was a big box, where 4 people could sit facing the wall of each corner. It was supposed to increase communication and productivity, but everyone hated it. You couldn't concentrate, there was always something distracting. And if someone in your bullpen decided to have an impromptu discussion with 3 other people - tough for you. So instead of changing it (they couldn't admit they were wrong) they got everyone in bullpens noise-cancelling headphones. So if you wanted to concentrate, you had to put on the headphones. They gave me a headache, unless I was listening to music in them... and sometimes I didn't want to listen to music. And everyone else (sales, cust support, etc) were supposed to leave you alone if you had your headphones on, but instead they would come up and bother you anyway. I don't think the urge to kill has ever been so great as when you are trying to concentrate on something and some dufus walks up and taps on your headphones with a pen. So then they instituted "office hours" where those people could come and ask questions, the rest of the time was supposed to allow us to concentrate. Didn't work, nobody observed it.
All they had to do was give people cubicles where they could have some sort of private area to concentrate. We *asked* for cubicles. But some genius manager wanted to be "innovative" and "think outside the box". Here's a tip: listen to those people who have to live it day in and day out. I am all for trying new things, but if it doesn't work, don't force it on people.
So what do the coyotes do? They go to another farm. What happens to all the other coyotes in the countryside who don't see this dead coyote? Nothing, they just go about their business. There are plenty of farms out there, plenty of chickens, and not that many farmers who can shoot worth a damn.
Hey, don't forget about us "armchair grammar police". It's "they're" as in "they are".