Given the deciding vote, where would you have BillG put his money? Into child vaccinations, or the US Government?
I'm sorry, even though his evil corporate machine might be guilty of a lot of things, I think it's a stretch to believe that money's better off in treas.us.gov.
Besides that, Bill Gates (who is NOT synonymous with MS (a publically traded company)) is the man behind the charity giving. I am sure it helps his tax bill a bit.
Ok, we all understand M$ is pure concentrated evil. Fine, no argument. But if BillG is getting a break from Uncle Sam after dropping a billion dollars on getting kids inoculated against diseases, come on. Is that really such a huge deal? Think before you reply.
Seriously, do the organizers have to allow Microsoft to even be there?
Probably not. But maybe the conversation went like this:
M$: "We'd like a booth, please." LE: "No worries, that will be $10 million US dollars, in diamonds." M$ (hands over briefcase): "No problem. May we have a receipt?"
How is this News For Nerds? Is this even news to anyone capable of intelligent thought?
Jack
Re:Very nice World Cup, but..
on
World Cup Final
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· Score: 1
Most of the players from Senegal played full seasons of club ball in France. Brad Friedel played a full season in the Premiership. The so-called pre-tournament favorites got out-hustled. When whining about exhaustion and officiating come up, the conversation's over.
Time for the traditional football world to wake up and smell the freshly roasted java. No one's scared of Italy or Argentina any more. Everyone has videotape, advanced training and conditioning techniques, and motivation. All the good players compete with their peers in leagues worldwide.
If you live in a country that "got jobbed" by poor officiating, maybe your team didn't put forth the effort you think they did. If you're depending on a 12th man in a black shirt to get your nation through, that's a real bad strategy.
Enjoy the next four years of criticizing your coaches and players. It was great to see Turkey and South Korea in the semis; don't be surprised if it happens again.
Because a lot of nerds/geeks/whatever happened to have been music fans at some point in their lives, and of those fans it isn't unreasonable to think a number of them were Who fans.
And if Douglas Adams, author, rates a mention, why not John Entwhistle, musician?
Doesn't/. post a story on the music industry every other day anyway? ("It's fun to slam the R-I-A-A...")
Or maybe Taco's a Who fan and wanted to show his appreciation with a mention here.
I can live with it.
Jack
Re:Not everything has changed in the last 50 years
on
Minority Report
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· Score: 1
Of course in the reviewer's own estimation, by this time everyone should wear pseudo-future space clothes and all restaurants are Taco Bell.
Go back to your tech team after you've just met with upper management and ask the techies why Feature X isn't in the project. Never mind that Feature X hadn't even been brought up until a few minutes prior, and the techies are looking at you like you just stepped out of a mental hospital.
After all, why should you care? When upper management asked you where Feature X was, you'd never heard of it either. But you weren't about to sacrifice any all-important face in the meeting. You turned on your tech team like the traitor you are and stabbed them in the back. Oh, they'll figure it out when review time comes around, but that's a few months away. And you might have a different job by then, after you've collected your bonus. Just because you're a treacherous little git doesn't mean you don't have some smarts.
There's no freeloader here. You have beer vendors, t-shirt vendors, food vendors, all of whom have carved out a proprietary niche here to sell their wares. The field's freely available, so there's no problem.
Along rumbles our biker gang. Since it's 2002, they're mostly financial analysts and anyone else who dumped stock before the March 2000 meltdown, so they aren't as scary as Altamont-era Hell's Angels. But they're smart enough to understand the concept: here's a free field, set up shop on part of it if you like, just like the other vendors have.
Now they've set up a gate, and posted some nasty lawyers on guard. Sure you can use the biker's part of the field, and enjoy the improvements they've made therein. But there's an admission fee.
"A fee?!" wail the users. Well, yes. The bikers believe they have improved upon their area of the field considerably, with a BillG dunking tank and a massive Beowulf cluster dedicated to some serious gaming. Setting all that up cost money, and the bikers would like to recoup their investment, improve upon it, and profit from those improvements.
It's only the bikers who are charging for their area. The rest of the field is still free. If the bikers are wrong then the people who opened the field without laying down usage guidelines are at fault.
The moral of the story is this: if you want something to work a certain way, you'd better define it in advance and be able to back it up later. People do the unthinkable all the time; you'd better think of it first. Hopeful naivete doesn't last long these days.
AOTC isn't a good movie. Spider-Man is a good movie, formulaic but entertaining. If AOTC didn't have the Star Wars brand, people would be shredding it as this summer's Battlefield Earth.
Just number me among the many who went to see AOTC hoping against hope to really enjoy more than just the pretty fight scenes. But if you caught this quote from Anakin, er, Hayden Christiansen, that should really sum up all you need to know about George Lucas.
Really? Are you sure it isn't the tamer fare found at places like Yahoo Games and MSN? Looks like there's hundreds of thousands of people playing those games on a daily basis. Does EverQuest get that many? (I don't know, does anyone else?)
I felt that Yoda's off screen efforts in delivering the clone army said a lot more about the power of the force in him than his little onscreen skirmish with Dooku.
It also says a lot about Yoda's common sense. "Hrmm, a big battle. Show up with my lightsaber and The Force, or show up with a zillion loyal clone troopers and my lightsaber and The Force...hrmm...difficult the choice is not."
Heh. I can imagine how the payment scene went.
Kadino PM: We've completed the work as agreed. Here's the bill.
Yoda: (to self) Ye flippin' ghost of Qui-Gon, I can't afford this! Hells, the Republic can't even afford it. Hrmm... (to PM while making apropos gestures) A test run I must take them on first, to verify the work.
Kadino PM: (haltingly) You must take the clone army on a test run.
Yoda: Thanks! (Force-speeds his ass out of there before the mind trick wears off)
How would you approach solving it without totally alienating your users?
You're worried about this? You sure you're a sysadmin?:-)
Anyway, start by firewalling the route to the Internet and limit access to only those services reasonably necessary in a K-12 environment (I'm guessing http, ftp, and smtp for starters, your list will vary of course.)
You then follow up with a polite email/memo regarding the dual requirements of security and cost minimization, and that's why access has currently been limited to what you've enabled. Be sure copies get all the way up the food chain; hand-deliver if you must.
I'm assuming you are with a public school district, ie you receive your funding from public tax money. If so, you make sure your memo gets into the minutes of whatever your next public meeting happens to be. Phrase it nicely: "we've done this to minimize financial impact on the district and enhance security for our students."
Here's your dash of evil. By all means invite written requests for additional access. Log those too, and get them into the minutes of the next meeting. Don't forget to get names!
Not many people want to be in the limelight for grabbing pr0n and warez, and especially not if you make it look like they're doing so on the public's dime.
I don't need to mention the profit potential here, do I? A port or two quietly opened up in exchange for a small number of unmarked non-sequential pieces of currency can do wonders for your finances. You do deserve a decent vacation this summer, yes?
Here's a parallel story. Maybe you can see the problems with it:
Yeah, your parallel is in all caps.:-) Here's a question for you: if you get ripped off by a business, do you continue to do business with them?
Ok. You had a bad experience with an independently owned reseller. Don't shop there.
Were there another Apple reseller less than a 90 minute drive away, then I would have done so. There was not. But this stance wasn't the reseller's stance, it was Apple's stance, and one which the reseller did not communicate during the sale. I should have included that in my first post, my apologies. The reseller chose to adopt Apple's hardline as their own, and cost themselves not only that sale but a few thousand dollars in additional sales that were complete save the last signature.
I used to be a Mac lover too. I learned to program on an Apple II. But that all changed the day I tried getting an old Apple printer to work with a then-fairly new Performa. I purchased a power adapter for the printer from the local Apple reseller. I'd purchased the printer from a friend, and the adapter had long since vanished. But the printer wouldn't power on, even with a new adapter. Since it looked like the problem was with the printer, my friend very kindly refunded my money and took the printer back.
I then went to return my new power adapter. I wanted a new keyboard at the time, so I'd hoped to exchange the adapter, give the reseller some more money, and get the keyboard instead.
Well, sales sent me back to service. Service sent me back to sales. Neither would accept the return. The manager was not in; I'll point out I left him repeated messages and visited the store a couple of times, and never got in touch with him. Bottom line, they wouldn't take the adapter back. Did I mention I wanted to give them more money plus the adapter so I could get a better keyboard?
I ended up having to dispute the ~$50USD charge on my credit card. The reseller never challenged this, so I never paid it. I also never went back. What I did do was call the sales rep at the reseller who wanted to sell my company a couple of Irix boxes and told him to forget it; if I couldn't get satisfaction on a lousy adapter return then I sure wasn't going to go forward with this purchase.
That reseller went out of business less than a year later. The absent manager works at a sign painting firm I think. And I've used M$, Solaris and Linux ever since. As curious as I am about the new OSX, that experience keeps reminding me of why I went away from Apple, and why a new Powerbook isn't in my future, even though it should be.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry, even though his evil corporate machine might be guilty of a lot of things, I think it's a stretch to believe that money's better off in treas.us.gov.
Old reference here, might be of interest to you.
Jack
Darn those Americans, always acting as if they invented the darn Internet...oh wait.
Jack
Ok, we all understand M$ is pure concentrated evil. Fine, no argument. But if BillG is getting a break from Uncle Sam after dropping a billion dollars on getting kids inoculated against diseases, come on. Is that really such a huge deal? Think before you reply.
Jack
Probably not. But maybe the conversation went like this:
M$: "We'd like a booth, please."
LE: "No worries, that will be $10 million US dollars, in diamonds."
M$ (hands over briefcase): "No problem. May we have a receipt?"
Jack
If you're so smart then answer the questions. Media bias and slavish devotion to ratings has been present for a long time. How is this news?
Jack
Time for the traditional football world to wake up and smell the freshly roasted java. No one's scared of Italy or Argentina any more. Everyone has videotape, advanced training and conditioning techniques, and motivation. All the good players compete with their peers in leagues worldwide.
If you live in a country that "got jobbed" by poor officiating, maybe your team didn't put forth the effort you think they did. If you're depending on a 12th man in a black shirt to get your nation through, that's a real bad strategy.
Enjoy the next four years of criticizing your coaches and players. It was great to see Turkey and South Korea in the semis; don't be surprised if it happens again.
Jack
And if Douglas Adams, author, rates a mention, why not John Entwhistle, musician?
Doesn't /. post a story on the music industry every other day anyway? ("It's fun to slam the R-I-A-A...")
Or maybe Taco's a Who fan and wanted to show his appreciation with a mention here.
I can live with it.
Jack
Maybe he reviewed the wrong movie.
Jack
After all, why should you care? When upper management asked you where Feature X was, you'd never heard of it either. But you weren't about to sacrifice any all-important face in the meeting. You turned on your tech team like the traitor you are and stabbed them in the back. Oh, they'll figure it out when review time comes around, but that's a few months away. And you might have a different job by then, after you've collected your bonus. Just because you're a treacherous little git doesn't mean you don't have some smarts.
Don't do these things. Be good.
Jack
Along rumbles our biker gang. Since it's 2002, they're mostly financial analysts and anyone else who dumped stock before the March 2000 meltdown, so they aren't as scary as Altamont-era Hell's Angels. But they're smart enough to understand the concept: here's a free field, set up shop on part of it if you like, just like the other vendors have.
Now they've set up a gate, and posted some nasty lawyers on guard. Sure you can use the biker's part of the field, and enjoy the improvements they've made therein. But there's an admission fee.
"A fee?!" wail the users. Well, yes. The bikers believe they have improved upon their area of the field considerably, with a BillG dunking tank and a massive Beowulf cluster dedicated to some serious gaming. Setting all that up cost money, and the bikers would like to recoup their investment, improve upon it, and profit from those improvements.
It's only the bikers who are charging for their area. The rest of the field is still free. If the bikers are wrong then the people who opened the field without laying down usage guidelines are at fault.
The moral of the story is this: if you want something to work a certain way, you'd better define it in advance and be able to back it up later. People do the unthinkable all the time; you'd better think of it first. Hopeful naivete doesn't last long these days.
Jack
You want to cut your hair with a lawnmower? Ouch!
Jack
Just number me among the many who went to see AOTC hoping against hope to really enjoy more than just the pretty fight scenes. But if you caught this quote from Anakin, er, Hayden Christiansen, that should really sum up all you need to know about George Lucas.
Jack
That's about $13 USD then.
vox src="vader"
Impressive.
/vox
So there's a definite market out there for Microsoft to tap. The argument against them doing so seems to be "they haven't done it yet."
I guess we'll see.
Jack
Really? Are you sure it isn't the tamer fare found at places like Yahoo Games and MSN? Looks like there's hundreds of thousands of people playing those games on a daily basis. Does EverQuest get that many? (I don't know, does anyone else?)
Jack
It also says a lot about Yoda's common sense. "Hrmm, a big battle. Show up with my lightsaber and The Force, or show up with a zillion loyal clone troopers and my lightsaber and The Force...hrmm...difficult the choice is not."
Heh. I can imagine how the payment scene went.
Kadino PM: We've completed the work as agreed. Here's the bill.
Yoda: (to self) Ye flippin' ghost of Qui-Gon, I can't afford this! Hells, the Republic can't even afford it. Hrmm... (to PM while making apropos gestures) A test run I must take them on first, to verify the work.
Kadino PM: (haltingly) You must take the clone army on a test run.
Yoda: Thanks! (Force-speeds his ass out of there before the mind trick wears off)
Wait, are you saying Coruscant is carried through space by four elephants atop a space turtle? Or did you mean The Fifth Element ?
Jack
Good, I'm not the only one who noticed this. Much as I'd like to speculate, I'll wait until the movie's been out more than a few hours.
Jack
Really true. If you have a PDA then Spider-man probably had a couple of matinee showings there as well. :)
Jack
We want more but we're getting Jack instead.
You haven't investigated all the transportation options for your collection. Wouldn't you rather put all that potential scanning time to better use? :-)
Jack
We want more, but we're getting Jack instead.
You're worried about this? You sure you're a sysadmin? :-)
Anyway, start by firewalling the route to the Internet and limit access to only those services reasonably necessary in a K-12 environment (I'm guessing http, ftp, and smtp for starters, your list will vary of course.)
You then follow up with a polite email/memo regarding the dual requirements of security and cost minimization, and that's why access has currently been limited to what you've enabled. Be sure copies get all the way up the food chain; hand-deliver if you must.
I'm assuming you are with a public school district, ie you receive your funding from public tax money. If so, you make sure your memo gets into the minutes of whatever your next public meeting happens to be. Phrase it nicely: "we've done this to minimize financial impact on the district and enhance security for our students."
Here's your dash of evil. By all means invite written requests for additional access. Log those too, and get them into the minutes of the next meeting. Don't forget to get names!
Not many people want to be in the limelight for grabbing pr0n and warez, and especially not if you make it look like they're doing so on the public's dime.
I don't need to mention the profit potential here, do I? A port or two quietly opened up in exchange for a small number of unmarked non-sequential pieces of currency can do wonders for your finances. You do deserve a decent vacation this summer, yes?
Jack
Yeah, your parallel is in all caps. :-) Here's a question for you: if you get ripped off by a business, do you continue to do business with them?
Ok. You had a bad experience with an independently owned reseller. Don't shop there.
Were there another Apple reseller less than a 90 minute drive away, then I would have done so. There was not. But this stance wasn't the reseller's stance, it was Apple's stance, and one which the reseller did not communicate during the sale. I should have included that in my first post, my apologies. The reseller chose to adopt Apple's hardline as their own, and cost themselves not only that sale but a few thousand dollars in additional sales that were complete save the last signature.
Jack
And here I thought it was the whole "live ammunition" thing instead.
Jack
We want more, but we're getting Jack instead.
I then went to return my new power adapter. I wanted a new keyboard at the time, so I'd hoped to exchange the adapter, give the reseller some more money, and get the keyboard instead.
Well, sales sent me back to service. Service sent me back to sales. Neither would accept the return. The manager was not in; I'll point out I left him repeated messages and visited the store a couple of times, and never got in touch with him. Bottom line, they wouldn't take the adapter back. Did I mention I wanted to give them more money plus the adapter so I could get a better keyboard?
I ended up having to dispute the ~$50USD charge on my credit card. The reseller never challenged this, so I never paid it. I also never went back. What I did do was call the sales rep at the reseller who wanted to sell my company a couple of Irix boxes and told him to forget it; if I couldn't get satisfaction on a lousy adapter return then I sure wasn't going to go forward with this purchase.
That reseller went out of business less than a year later. The absent manager works at a sign painting firm I think. And I've used M$, Solaris and Linux ever since. As curious as I am about the new OSX, that experience keeps reminding me of why I went away from Apple, and why a new Powerbook isn't in my future, even though it should be.
Jack