A lot of people like to blame bad mortgages for the financial meltdown, but that was just the beginning of what makes this recession unlike others. The real damage was that big financial institutions were using mechanisms like this guy's software and David Li's formulas to leverage mortgage and bond funds to insane proportions (like in some instances, 20 to 1). When these supposedly safe financial instruments like collateralized debt obligations and credit swap defaults, which mixed good paper with bad, started to fail they took out hundreds of billions of value that was pretty much made up out of thin air by these speculative instruments. This money was of course propping up these firms so the inevitable result from losing so much value nearly overnight is collapse. Now it's taxpayer money propping up the same financial firms that caused all this, and they're STILL screaming for no new regulation!
Sorry if this is too simplistic but it took a banking executive with an MBA and Masters in statistics two hours to fully explain this to me and she still admitted she doesn't understand it fully. The problem was no one in the industry ever did.
And your dismissal of what is a little bit more than an "internet meme" does not preclude the fact that this is being taken very seriously by the WHO and other health care officials because of the rapid spread and the deaths are following the "W" mortality by age pattern that the 1918 flu did with the young and healthy hit the worst. Seeing statements like yours coupled with some of stories in the media (30,000 die of flu every year! Why is this so bad?) is undermining what should be considered a serious threat. If nothing happens, great! But if this does turn bad, I'd much rather have an early and credible response rather than a "wait and see" attitude.
That being said, I'm on my way to a crowded restaurant on public transport to have drinks with friends. I will take the precautions that I believe are prudent. I'll wash my hands an extra time.
The CEO's response makes mention of "anonymous sources" as being an issue with the article and mentions one interview subject as having posted "fake" reviews. He doesn't mention the other business named in the article that talk about being contacted by Yelp sales and given these terms. There are several mentioned.
This is coming from someone who has submitted a few Yelp reviews in myself. If this is Yelp's response I would have to say I'm still leery.
I read the early plan from the Obama campaign on shifting funding from NASA to social programs. Since then something rather important changed that stance.
He won Florida......with not that big a margin.
And as NASA is one of the biggest.gov programs in FL, I'm sure Obama wants to win the state again in 2012. He will keep up funding for the manned programs, just exactly how is the question. I for one think this is an excellent chance to give a second look at Constellation and consider the alternatives. The promises that Griffin made about keeping the Shuttle infrastructure seem to be slipping more and more (no SSME, 5 segment SRB, redisigned Ares V tankage). Obama needs to pick an administrator who manages to develop and launch a new manned lifter AND keep most of the workforce employed. Constellation as it exists might not be able to do either.
The primary reason I see for the need to upgrade hardware for Vista is to get full Aero functionality. Doesn't that seem a bit frivolous that Vista's hardware demands are mainly for the eye candy?
Actually the USSR has pursued nuclear and nuclear-electricpropulsion. Their limited funding has all but ceased these efforts but a partnership with the EU may accellerate those projects.
Of course the US will not be of any assistance as long as they continue to beat their chests regarding Iran. But as we've seen in recent days, practical matters can overcome congressional paranoia.
Wow. You not only compare copyright infringment to genocide, but then justify that statement by stating that the "Slashbots" are an oppressive group denying struggling songwriters their fair share due to P2P distribution? If there was an award for hyperbole, you'd get 1st prize (The biggest award ever awarded ever in the world!).
The reason any major label performers are struggling is not because of P2P, it is because of the outdated, completely feudal methods of distribution and compensation that exist in the music industry. Many artists are figuring out that they can make good money by allowing their music to be distributed for free! Go look at http://downhillbattle.org/ where there are already artists and activists trying to change the totally obsolete big label distribution system. It seems that most of the anti-P2P FUD I see comes from the **AA's and the industry themselves and not the artists.
Of course I'm sure they'd NEVER stoop to astroturfing a site like Slashdot, now would they?
Its $2000 actually....to the individual congressperson. The limits are $25000 a year to the national party, $10000 a year to the state party and $5000 to a PAC. And it will not just be the RIAA but the MPAA, Sony, Universal/Vivendi, Viacom, AOL/TW, plus the individual executives who go to the $1000 a plate dinners. Soon it adds up to real money.
But our high holy Courts have decided that money equals speech, so don't you dare trample on the rights of massive conglomerates to brib....I mean "contribute" to the politicians of their choice.
With unhinged comments like that he's never going end up anywhere else than in the populist fringe.
Congratulations! Your phrase "populist fringe" has won the Best New Oxymoron award! It will now join the ranks of such timeless classics as "military intelligence", "compassionate conservative" and "Microsoft Works"
You have seen this article which came out last week summarizing a study that found most identity theft is still occuring offline, right? By your assertion no one should feel safe anywhere, as I might get all my credit card numbers stolen by the underpaid cashier at Walmart.
As for an expectation of privacy on the 'Net, the only real privacy you have in anonimity by sheer numbers. Someone has to dig into a log or monitor you specifically to gather any information on you. There has to be at least some effort to monitor someone. For the US government to do that, we have this old, musty dead-tree document called the Constitution that talks about warrants. The EFF should be trying to find out what Law Enforcement is up to, especially with these "warantless searches".
....because any email that asks for any personal info or provides a URL to where you are supposed to fill something are immediately tossed and the site reported to the legitimate site (usually Paypal or Ebay). If I didn't initiate any webform, I don't use it! Is it that difficult for most people?
the recommendation that government sponsored research be under BSD or MIT licenses. If my tax dollars go to fund compsci research, I want it to be available to anyone, commercial or private. The fact that a big corporation can make it proprietary and sell it does not change the fact that the original release is still available. It allows the innovations developed to spread across both commercial and FOSS projects. Windows TCP/IP sucked hard before they took a look at the BSD stack!
The rest of the article was bluster and hyperbole. But I'll let the rest of the Slashdot crowd comment on that part.
just what I needed is another resource-sucking feature added to SQL server so I can give even more money to server vendors!
But seriously, can anyone guess if on-the-fly encryption will seriously impact a MS SQL 2K box? Do people see an impact on their MySQL boxes? I know it's not a very valid comparsion but I'm just trying to get an idea for future server scaling.
How are all the Linux boosters out there going to feel when you wind up trading one dictator for another?
Well, If I think that IBM is getting too big for its britches I can go talk to HP, Dell, or for that matter Red Hat or Suse. To be a dictator you have to have absolute power. With Linux no one can ever have absolute power. I will always have choices, up to and including rolling my own distro if need be. The only way now to give someone like IBM absolute power is to sign your company's life away with a comprehensive support contract, and no one is forcing you to do that.
I will keep wearing t-shirts that are complete nonsense in Japanese until they stop first!
But to keep this somewhat on topic, Appleseed needed a high-budget remake as the first one was so cheezy! The political machinations and the obsessive detailing of technology that Shirow is best at was totally lost on the first Appleseed anime.
Ummm, you did read the articles, right? The part is most likely from the solar panel release mechanism that is only used soon after launch. It may show a design flaw that a now useless part was able to float away, but saying that this somehow means that the Station is "falling apart" is a pretty big stretch.
Now give it 4-5 more years of poor funding and then we'll see what else flies off!
Well I have to agree that its is sad that people are swayed by toy penguins and t-shirts. But tactics like these are not for techies, but for the office paper pushers who will go totally limp the moment you mention all the technical wizardry that makes "Linux Oh So Much Better Than M$" The penguins and cute tshirts are a foot in the door to get these users to have a good first impression of Linux. Talking about stability and security won't do any good to these users. Until they actually use Linux its all just talk. The first time one of their pals using Windows bitches about the Outlook Virus of the Week they will then start to "get it"
Plasma is looking like a transitional tech just like it was in the early days of "portable" PCs. LCDs could not be made big enough economically so the Plasma has wormed its way back. With big LCDs coming soon plasma TVs will probably disappear within a few years.
The article is a good primer on why to use an HTPC. I just finished putting together a Home Theater mainly for watching DVDs. The PC is outputting to a Sanyo Z1 projector which is 960x540 native to a 95" diag screen. With an HTPC I can make sure that the PCs output is EXACTLY the right resolution and refresh rate, completely bypassing any resolution scaling that the Projector will do. With anamorphic DVDs and using Powerstrip, Zoomplayer and FFDShow (under Windows, sorry *nix guys!), I can upsample DVDs to play in 960x540 and tweak the image so that my HTPC outputs a picture that will rival $2000 pro-level DVD players. An HTPC will also allow for outputting true 1080p (mainly through WM9, ugh...). Its not trivial to set up, so a complete newbie may be better served with a nice set top DVD player. But if you want excellent output for cheap, go HTPC!
BTW, I'd love to do this under Linux, but havn't found a player that has the crazed level of customization that Zoomplayer/FFDShow has. Any suggestions?
I work for a small company that was exclusively PC/Win2K. I'm an MCSE and have worked mainly with Windows, but have seen the advantages of UNIX-like free OSs (Open and FreeBSD mainly). So when they hired a new web developer who requested a Mac, I leapt at the chance to set one up. I found it quite easy to integrate OSX with the W2K domain with a couple of minor hassles.
SMB support was a pretty painless setup, but I have dealt with SAMBA on BSD. The UNIX-y mounting of network shares does have its problems. When a file server had to be rebooted, the Mac connected to it kept the connection mounted. A umount in the terminal got rid of it, and the connection worked properly when reconnected. Printing was tons of fun, and required some text file editing to get going. At first I could get the printers to connect but not print. Turns out I needed to install GIMP-Print and that solved it.
Now none of the issues were insurmountable but I had 1 thing going for me. I have a UNIX background and do not fear the Terminal. The user I set this up for was totally surprised when I brought up a CLI and started typing away. I mention this because the vast majority of Mac users don't have this background. I found that Mac users look at a terminal window and make the same face that most PC techs make when they have to work on Macs. Until Apple makes a nice GUI for Windows integration this is not a viable solution for the majority of Mac users.
Just make sure to blame all those Indians working in Banaglore meat grinders for a quarter of US wages for your lack of a job. Whatever you do, dont blame American companies for your job loss. That would be unpatriotic!
I was a sysadmin at a very large financial institution and was hired as they were outsourcing programming to India. I had to interface with the programming teams there and found them to have a similar range of skill levels and competence that the American programmers had. The real problem was communication. Not just the language barrier (I've been in IT for a while and got used to the thick accents) but communication of the users needs to the programming teams and making sure that the projects progressed to meet those needs. It was difficult enough to get projects specced when the programmers were down the hall! Email and video conferences don't cut it when you are managing a multi-million line project. What eventually happened was that management found the experiment to be a failure, pulled all their development back to the US, and hired the best of the Indian programmers on H1Bs to continue their work (at big US wages too!). Didn't fire any Americans until they outsourced their whole IT to a big American firm. I was laid off soon after that happened (contractors go first!), but I understand the new management is now outsourcing again. Organizational memory is definitely short term.
Slashdot Mirror
A lot of people like to blame bad mortgages for the financial meltdown, but that was just the beginning of what makes this recession unlike others. The real damage was that big financial institutions were using mechanisms like this guy's software and David Li's formulas to leverage mortgage and bond funds to insane proportions (like in some instances, 20 to 1). When these supposedly safe financial instruments like collateralized debt obligations and credit swap defaults, which mixed good paper with bad, started to fail they took out hundreds of billions of value that was pretty much made up out of thin air by these speculative instruments. This money was of course propping up these firms so the inevitable result from losing so much value nearly overnight is collapse. Now it's taxpayer money propping up the same financial firms that caused all this, and they're STILL screaming for no new regulation!
Sorry if this is too simplistic but it took a banking executive with an MBA and Masters in statistics two hours to fully explain this to me and she still admitted she doesn't understand it fully. The problem was no one in the industry ever did.
And your dismissal of what is a little bit more than an "internet meme" does not preclude the fact that this is being taken very seriously by the WHO and other health care officials because of the rapid spread and the deaths are following the "W" mortality by age pattern that the 1918 flu did with the young and healthy hit the worst. Seeing statements like yours coupled with some of stories in the media (30,000 die of flu every year! Why is this so bad?) is undermining what should be considered a serious threat. If nothing happens, great! But if this does turn bad, I'd much rather have an early and credible response rather than a "wait and see" attitude.
That being said, I'm on my way to a crowded restaurant on public transport to have drinks with friends. I will take the precautions that I believe are prudent. I'll wash my hands an extra time.
The CEO's response makes mention of "anonymous sources" as being an issue with the article and mentions one interview subject as having posted "fake" reviews. He doesn't mention the other business named in the article that talk about being contacted by Yelp sales and given these terms. There are several mentioned.
This is coming from someone who has submitted a few Yelp reviews in myself. If this is Yelp's response I would have to say I'm still leery.
I read the early plan from the Obama campaign on shifting funding from NASA to social programs. Since then something rather important changed that stance.
He won Florida......with not that big a margin.
And as NASA is one of the biggest .gov programs in FL, I'm sure Obama wants to win the state again in 2012. He will keep up funding for the manned programs, just exactly how is the question. I for one think this is an excellent chance to give a second look at Constellation and consider the alternatives. The promises that Griffin made about keeping the Shuttle infrastructure seem to be slipping more and more (no SSME, 5 segment SRB, redisigned Ares V tankage). Obama needs to pick an administrator who manages to develop and launch a new manned lifter AND keep most of the workforce employed. Constellation as it exists might not be able to do either.
The primary reason I see for the need to upgrade hardware for Vista is to get full Aero functionality. Doesn't that seem a bit frivolous that Vista's hardware demands are mainly for the eye candy?
Actually the USSR has pursued nuclear and nuclear-electricpropulsion. Their limited funding has all but ceased these efforts but a partnership with the EU may accellerate those projects. Of course the US will not be of any assistance as long as they continue to beat their chests regarding Iran. But as we've seen in recent days, practical matters can overcome congressional paranoia.
Wow. You not only compare copyright infringment to genocide, but then justify that statement by stating that the "Slashbots" are an oppressive group denying struggling songwriters their fair share due to P2P distribution? If there was an award for hyperbole, you'd get 1st prize (The biggest award ever awarded ever in the world!).
The reason any major label performers are struggling is not because of P2P, it is because of the outdated, completely feudal methods of distribution and compensation that exist in the music industry. Many artists are figuring out that they can make good money by allowing their music to be distributed for free! Go look at http://downhillbattle.org/ where there are already artists and activists trying to change the totally obsolete big label distribution system. It seems that most of the anti-P2P FUD I see comes from the **AA's and the industry themselves and not the artists.
Of course I'm sure they'd NEVER stoop to astroturfing a site like Slashdot, now would they?
Its $2000 actually....to the individual congressperson. The limits are $25000 a year to the national party, $10000 a year to the state party and $5000 to a PAC. And it will not just be the RIAA but the MPAA, Sony, Universal/Vivendi, Viacom, AOL/TW, plus the individual executives who go to the $1000 a plate dinners. Soon it adds up to real money.
But our high holy Courts have decided that money equals speech, so don't you dare trample on the rights of massive conglomerates to brib....I mean "contribute" to the politicians of their choice.
So where's my Space Elevator?
Congratulations! Your phrase "populist fringe" has won the Best New Oxymoron award! It will now join the ranks of such timeless classics as "military intelligence", "compassionate conservative" and "Microsoft Works"
As for an expectation of privacy on the 'Net, the only real privacy you have in anonimity by sheer numbers. Someone has to dig into a log or monitor you specifically to gather any information on you. There has to be at least some effort to monitor someone. For the US government to do that, we have this old, musty dead-tree document called the Constitution that talks about warrants. The EFF should be trying to find out what Law Enforcement is up to, especially with these "warantless searches".
....because any email that asks for any personal info or provides a URL to where you are supposed to fill something are immediately tossed and the site reported to the legitimate site (usually Paypal or Ebay). If I didn't initiate any webform, I don't use it! Is it that difficult for most people?
the recommendation that government sponsored research be under BSD or MIT licenses. If my tax dollars go to fund compsci research, I want it to be available to anyone, commercial or private. The fact that a big corporation can make it proprietary and sell it does not change the fact that the original release is still available. It allows the innovations developed to spread across both commercial and FOSS projects. Windows TCP/IP sucked hard before they took a look at the BSD stack!
The rest of the article was bluster and hyperbole. But I'll let the rest of the Slashdot crowd comment on that part.
just what I needed is another resource-sucking feature added to SQL server so I can give even more money to server vendors!
But seriously, can anyone guess if on-the-fly encryption will seriously impact a MS SQL 2K box? Do people see an impact on their MySQL boxes? I know it's not a very valid comparsion but I'm just trying to get an idea for future server scaling.
How are all the Linux boosters out there going to feel when you wind up trading one dictator for another?
Well, If I think that IBM is getting too big for its britches I can go talk to HP, Dell, or for that matter Red Hat or Suse. To be a dictator you have to have absolute power. With Linux no one can ever have absolute power. I will always have choices, up to and including rolling my own distro if need be. The only way now to give someone like IBM absolute power is to sign your company's life away with a comprehensive support contract, and no one is forcing you to do that.
I will keep wearing t-shirts that are complete nonsense in Japanese until they stop first!
But to keep this somewhat on topic, Appleseed needed a high-budget remake as the first one was so cheezy! The political machinations and the obsessive detailing of technology that Shirow is best at was totally lost on the first Appleseed anime.
Ummm, you did read the articles, right? The part is most likely from the solar panel release mechanism that is only used soon after launch. It may show a design flaw that a now useless part was able to float away, but saying that this somehow means that the Station is "falling apart" is a pretty big stretch.
Now give it 4-5 more years of poor funding and then we'll see what else flies off!
Well I have to agree that its is sad that people are swayed by toy penguins and t-shirts. But tactics like these are not for techies, but for the office paper pushers who will go totally limp the moment you mention all the technical wizardry that makes "Linux Oh So Much Better Than M$" The penguins and cute tshirts are a foot in the door to get these users to have a good first impression of Linux. Talking about stability and security won't do any good to these users. Until they actually use Linux its all just talk. The first time one of their pals using Windows bitches about the Outlook Virus of the Week they will then start to "get it"
and it called MARKETING!!!
Plasma is looking like a transitional tech just like it was in the early days of "portable" PCs. LCDs could not be made big enough economically so the Plasma has wormed its way back. With big LCDs coming soon plasma TVs will probably disappear within a few years.
When the Navy gets a Seawolf attack sub into orbit THEN I'll be impressed!
The article is a good primer on why to use an HTPC. I just finished putting together a Home Theater mainly for watching DVDs. The PC is outputting to a Sanyo Z1 projector which is 960x540 native to a 95" diag screen. With an HTPC I can make sure that the PCs output is EXACTLY the right resolution and refresh rate, completely bypassing any resolution scaling that the Projector will do. With anamorphic DVDs and using Powerstrip, Zoomplayer and FFDShow (under Windows, sorry *nix guys!), I can upsample DVDs to play in 960x540 and tweak the image so that my HTPC outputs a picture that will rival $2000 pro-level DVD players. An HTPC will also allow for outputting true 1080p (mainly through WM9, ugh...). Its not trivial to set up, so a complete newbie may be better served with a nice set top DVD player. But if you want excellent output for cheap, go HTPC!
BTW, I'd love to do this under Linux, but havn't found a player that has the crazed level of customization that Zoomplayer/FFDShow has. Any suggestions?
I work for a small company that was exclusively PC/Win2K. I'm an MCSE and have worked mainly with Windows, but have seen the advantages of UNIX-like free OSs (Open and FreeBSD mainly). So when they hired a new web developer who requested a Mac, I leapt at the chance to set one up. I found it quite easy to integrate OSX with the W2K domain with a couple of minor hassles.
SMB support was a pretty painless setup, but I have dealt with SAMBA on BSD. The UNIX-y mounting of network shares does have its problems. When a file server had to be rebooted, the Mac connected to it kept the connection mounted. A umount in the terminal got rid of it, and the connection worked properly when reconnected. Printing was tons of fun, and required some text file editing to get going. At first I could get the printers to connect but not print. Turns out I needed to install GIMP-Print and that solved it.
Now none of the issues were insurmountable but I had 1 thing going for me. I have a UNIX background and do not fear the Terminal. The user I set this up for was totally surprised when I brought up a CLI and started typing away. I mention this because the vast majority of Mac users don't have this background. I found that Mac users look at a terminal window and make the same face that most PC techs make when they have to work on Macs. Until Apple makes a nice GUI for Windows integration this is not a viable solution for the majority of Mac users.
Just make sure to blame all those Indians working in Banaglore meat grinders for a quarter of US wages for your lack of a job. Whatever you do, dont blame American companies for your job loss. That would be unpatriotic!
I was a sysadmin at a very large financial institution and was hired as they were outsourcing programming to India. I had to interface with the programming teams there and found them to have a similar range of skill levels and competence that the American programmers had. The real problem was communication. Not just the language barrier (I've been in IT for a while and got used to the thick accents) but communication of the users needs to the programming teams and making sure that the projects progressed to meet those needs. It was difficult enough to get projects specced when the programmers were down the hall! Email and video conferences don't cut it when you are managing a multi-million line project. What eventually happened was that management found the experiment to be a failure, pulled all their development back to the US, and hired the best of the Indian programmers on H1Bs to continue their work (at big US wages too!). Didn't fire any Americans until they outsourced their whole IT to a big American firm. I was laid off soon after that happened (contractors go first!), but I understand the new management is now outsourcing again. Organizational memory is definitely short term.