No, National ID cards wouldn't have stopped this if a terrorist attack.
But it points out a few things, however.
One is that not federalizing airport screening personnel is really dumb. As is not paying them decent wages.
Another is that a good terrorist group will always use slightly different attacks, but that perhaps our overreliance on planes is not a good thing. In fact, why are we not asking ourselves how soon instead of if we will be building a nationwide high-speed rail system for passengers and freight.
And yet one more is - why are we not screening all baggage, no matter the source, no matter which country.
There are things we can do. That we know would help. And there are things we aren't doing, for political reasons that have no basis in reality.
For the rest, let's remain calm. It's still safer to fly today than to drive.
Well, while it is possible that it's a large sea bird, it's unlikely to be a Stinger.
Far easier to use a fire and forget anti-tank weapon - the profile of a plane on takeoff would allow for this, and it's fairly easy to buy these in a number of states, especially at gun shows with minimal forged (or legit) documentation and then pop it in a trunk to transport.
We should learn from how they attack us. We must also go through small and mid-size shops and hunt down and eradicate Win2K, and WinNT servers on grounds of cost and support needed. We must help those trying to win the server space, be ready to call for help in fighting the fight, and be willing to slaughter them on our territory.
For it is our territory, and there is only one way to fight the evil ones, and that is the destruction of their evil network.
True, we must not fight their fight. But we must, however, fight.
We are in a war where the obvious battlefield is the server space, where we are stronger and Win is weaker, where we "should" win.
But if we choose not to fight on our own territory, where we have the greatest advantage, we will lose.
The desktop is not the battleplace, although standards are one place that we are attacked from the desktop.
If the enemy chooses to attack where we are numerous and they are not, they do so knowing we will not use our strength against them.
If we treat each attack as a single attack, we will not succeed. If we realize it is a war, with many small battles on ground that is advantageous to us, then we will win if we fight back where we can win, and we must deflect those attacks in areas where we are weak (marketing/sales).
Fighting for the cities and small shops is our terrain, where we can win. Moderates size IT is another area. Big iron is something that IBM should fight for us to cover.
We must not play Microsoft's game, but we must win on growth in the areas that we are truly superior, as well.
"The Immortal is coming to town for a book signing and Captain Liberty has been assigned to escort him around to his appearances. However, she has not been assigned to hop into the sack with him, but she does. And, the Immortal proves to be mortal after all - he drops dead in the middle of their lovemaking. Shocked and not sure what to do, Captain Liberty calls her super hero friends and they try to cover for her. Batmanuel dresses up like the Immortal so that he can complete the book signing while at the same time The Tick and Arthur try to remove the Immortal's body from her loft and take him back to his hotel. "
Have to disagree. Though Captain Liberty added a certain something, especially in regards to her costume and the opportunity to have some characters with obvious inconsistencies.
Thought the Bat Manuel character needed a bit more work, though. The cast was kind of a cool touch, however.
Can we expect some better wording for these two characters in the near future?
Why do you say that? I mean, it's Survivor: Africa, not Survivor: Afghanistan.
I was one of the people who watched Survivor a couple of times, and I'm getting pretty bored by it, even if Khaki Man is from Seattle. It was great fun watching the premiere of the film he directed at the Seattle International Film Fest, and I ended up sitting next to him and Monsieur Beneit (sp?) at the awards.
But let's get real. The Tick is nigh unbeatable in competition with Survivor.
In answer to the question of why MSFT doesn't pay a "g**d damn dividend", it's pretty simple.
Look, MSFT is a shell company, one that permits Bill and Paul and a few other major shareholders to buy other companies. By maximizing the capital growth and having no dividends, they reduce their effective tax rate to 8 to 10 percent. Then they sell off a few shares and pay the 5 year capital gains tax on them, or sell the high purchase shares and keep the low purchase shares, thus getting a capital loss.
That's why there's no dividend.
Until MSFT becomes more like GE, where no single shareholder owns more than 20 percent of the stock, this will never change.
This is their way of avoiding taxes. People like me buy a mix of stocks - some dividend and some non-dividend - we use the non-dividend stock to go long on capital gains and thus reduce our tax hit (realized income) and use the dividends from the other stock (or bonds, PERQs, SPARQs, money market) to provide enough cash flow for expenses.
Thus we pay less tax than the working poor do. My realized income is very small. And so is Bill's and Paul's.
Unless you change the tax system, we'll keep doing things like that. There is no incentive to realize earned income, under the current system.
Yes, the Q&A was quite revealing. I think the open source question appeared to be basically ignored, politely.
The issue of women execs was also something you could tell they weren't going to address, which is very strange, in that most of Bill Gates foundation work has focussed on educating women and providing contraceptive measures for women in third-world countries.
As to China, this again was something that didn't seem to be that interesting to the execs.
Very disappointing responses, overall. One related news item in the Seattle P-I business section today noted that many MSFT employees have picked up their purchases of stock recently.
Does this mean we're nearing the bottom of the market, or that they know something we don't?
OK, I have to admit, that even though I do download MP3 from sites like MP3.com (and have bought CDs from there as a result), I've never used any of these peer-to-peer open-source alternatives.
Are any of them truly IP anonymous services that encyrpt it in such a way that they can't tell who's hosting it and the network is randomized by region (IP wise) so you can pop up and drop off without major problems?
Obviously, as someone who's sold my writings, software (mostly done as freeware), and who supports musicians promoing their work without the bloodsuckers ripping them off, I'm totally into the concept. But I really don't know the pros and cons of the alternatives now, and now that we've got Super Carnivore out there from the feds, we have to assume RIAA's breathing down people's necks.
Anyone willing to be unbiased and tell me about which is which and if there are any that are upcoming that might meet the standard?
The main thing I hated about Napster was you could tell it was going to turn commercial in a bad way.
Very good point. MP3 and Orb aren't hurting CD sales at all. But RIAA is typical of uncaring music industry groups, ones that feed off the musicians and give them little.
Look, I support musicians. I buy CDs, I go to shows, I buy tix for concerts, I listen to an MP3 and then PAY to have the CD sent to me by mail.
This past weekend even hosted a musician on tour. In fact, kind of ironic, she's in the video for that Michael Jackson top single, name is Roberta Donnay. She's not rolling in money, but the only way you can catch a break is to tour and get some cash and hope to break out of the musician ghetto that 99.9 percent of all performing artists are in due to RIAA.
The system is broken. Clamping down on our rights won't fix it. What will fix it is breaking up the corporate oligopolies that feed off the artists and get some real competition out there. When CDs first came out, LPs would sell for about $7 each, and CDs were $12 "to pay for the new development". The amount artists made back then is pretty much the same now.
The increased prices don't go to the artists. Only a favored few manage to get a slightly better sliver of that pie. But it's still a pitiful sliver.
After all, isn't that the real reason to propose this?
It's not like space travel has ever been profitable, or cost effective. The sunk costs will continue for at least two more decades.
And yet, if we stay on this rock we'll be just another blip in the soundtrack of the universe, a bug squished by a raindrop, the sentience of a WinXP PC until you turn it on.
It represents the midpoint between the pro-MSFT administration and MSFT in terms of the proven violations and egregious behaviour of MSFT.
The state attorney generals should take this as a bargaining stake - treat it as typical politics, where the President proposes something ludicrous, the House passes something more ludicrous, and the Senate passes something reasonable. Then negotiate it to something close to reasonable.
Because it is NOT a final document, merely an offer. It does NOT have to be accepted, and should not be.
I spent three years in the Army and I love my nice indoor programming job. Even if I am having to spend time this week debugging three year old uncommented VBA programs when I don't know VB Script.
Have to agree. I learned Oracle programming and database design in the Canadian Army myself.
And it really gives you perspective when people say "this is a life or death problem" in relation to some project. You know that it isn't - noone's trying to kill you, you're not worried about being blown up, and not dealing with mud and dirt and temperature extremes - puts it all in perspective.
There are far worse jobs in life. And I actually enjoyed, and was very good at, my military career (made Sargeant in five years).
So, to the original poster - if you've always wanted to do something else - do it. You might want to finish your degree or switch to a hybrid degree (business + CS or something), as that might be useful, but if you don't try things you'll never know what you really do enjoy.
Seriously, the world needs fewer people doing jobs they don't enjoy.
I've been in CS for a long time. Most of the people I've known burn out and never come back.
There's nothing wrong with realizing you want to do something else. I've had jobs that paid well and I hated, and jobs that paid ok and I liked. You should always do the job you like - it is very important.
On the other hand, expecting your job or career to provide the meaning of your life means you need other interests. The whole concept that work = fun is a hanger on from the.com days. Work can be fun, but not necessarily every day.
You might want to consider a hybrid career - maybe something like law and CS or business and CS or something like that. There's a lot of demand out there for such things. Just because you find it's not the most exciting doesn't mean you can't use it.
1. Intel is trying to dominate the market, and now that they have slashed prices to fight AMD, this means they are willing to lose money to beat TMTA. Remind you of anything? Like, say, monopolistic anti-competitive behaviours? There's a reason it's called...
2. If TMTA sticks to its guns and survives in the Pacific and Japanese markets, they have a good chance of survival. If they try to expand to quickly, they will die.
3. The killer app for TMTA is the webpad and laptop. If you get a diskless version that lasts 8-12 hours with a TMTA chip or 4-6 hours for Intel - which one do you think will do well?
Of course, I'm biased, I bought TMTA stock after the market crash, cheap. Only a few hundred bucks and it's worth the risk.
Darn. You could be right. But they definitely did not stress Jar Jar being in the movie. There was more footage of the winged beastie trader/slaver, so maybe Lucas heard some of the criticism and downplayed his role a bit.
Have to agree, saw four trailers with Monsters Inc - one was Harry Potter (must see), one was Send in the Clones (worst trailer I've ever seen, but will still see movie), one was Fellowship of the Ring (must see), and one was the short of For The Birds (hilarious).
Monsters, Inc rocked!
Don't know who did the trailers for Star Wars, but they should be immersed in Wookie entrails and left for dead on ice planet BillG.
Slashdot Mirror
No, National ID cards wouldn't have stopped this if a terrorist attack.
But it points out a few things, however.
One is that not federalizing airport screening personnel is really dumb. As is not paying them decent wages.
Another is that a good terrorist group will always use slightly different attacks, but that perhaps our overreliance on planes is not a good thing. In fact, why are we not asking ourselves how soon instead of if we will be building a nationwide high-speed rail system for passengers and freight.
And yet one more is - why are we not screening all baggage, no matter the source, no matter which country.
There are things we can do. That we know would help. And there are things we aren't doing, for political reasons that have no basis in reality.
For the rest, let's remain calm. It's still safer to fly today than to drive.
-
Well, while it is possible that it's a large sea bird, it's unlikely to be a Stinger.
Far easier to use a fire and forget anti-tank weapon - the profile of a plane on takeoff would allow for this, and it's fairly easy to buy these in a number of states, especially at gun shows with minimal forged (or legit) documentation and then pop it in a trunk to transport.
-
Corrollary to my post:
We should learn from how they attack us. We must also go through small and mid-size shops and hunt down and eradicate Win2K, and WinNT servers on grounds of cost and support needed. We must help those trying to win the server space, be ready to call for help in fighting the fight, and be willing to slaughter them on our territory.
For it is our territory, and there is only one way to fight the evil ones, and that is the destruction of their evil network.
-
True, we must not fight their fight. But we must, however, fight.
We are in a war where the obvious battlefield is the server space, where we are stronger and Win is weaker, where we "should" win.
But if we choose not to fight on our own territory, where we have the greatest advantage, we will lose.
The desktop is not the battleplace, although standards are one place that we are attacked from the desktop.
If the enemy chooses to attack where we are numerous and they are not, they do so knowing we will not use our strength against them.
If we treat each attack as a single attack, we will not succeed. If we realize it is a war, with many small battles on ground that is advantageous to us, then we will win if we fight back where we can win, and we must deflect those attacks in areas where we are weak (marketing/sales).
Fighting for the cities and small shops is our terrain, where we can win. Moderates size IT is another area. Big iron is something that IBM should fight for us to cover.
We must not play Microsoft's game, but we must win on growth in the areas that we are truly superior, as well.
OK, the first thing you said was that it unlocked Transmeta's strengths. This is good - especially since I own some stock, I'm pleased.
But, as you said, you are unable to compile the kernel. So, it's like saying:
Son: "Look, ma, I got the fastest wheels in the world for my car! Now I can gain 100 mph when I speed down the road!"
Ma: "Um, sonny, you still have to get the engine working before you can do that."
So, again, until you can actually compile the kernel, it's a fascinating breakthrough, but one with little utility to the real world.
-
A satire of Friends for one episode would actually be quite funny.
Of course, the Diner is their hangout, as we all know.
My oh my, that's going to be fun ...
"The Immortal is coming to town for a book signing and Captain Liberty has been assigned to escort him around to his appearances. However, she has not been assigned to hop into the sack with him, but she does. And, the Immortal proves to be mortal after all - he drops dead in the middle of their lovemaking. Shocked and not sure what to do, Captain Liberty calls her super hero friends and they try to cover for her. Batmanuel dresses up like the Immortal so that he can complete the book signing while at the same time The Tick and Arthur try to remove the Immortal's body from her loft and take him back to his hotel. "
Have to disagree. Though Captain Liberty added a certain something, especially in regards to her costume and the opportunity to have some characters with obvious inconsistencies.
Thought the Bat Manuel character needed a bit more work, though. The cast was kind of a cool touch, however.
Can we expect some better wording for these two characters in the near future?
-
Really. I mean, they are so cool.
That Java demon line, and a bunch of others just made my day.
Plus, could you create a random Tick quote generator web page?
May the great light of freedom shine softly upon your curly hair!
-
Good point about Bill only owning 12 percent. However, we do have a very small number of people who collectively own more than 50 percent.
And they are the ones who decide about dividends, when you get down to it.
Technically, it's the board that decides, so I'd look at that for the real players and their agents.
Seriously, a cow that eats humans, with flames coming out of her teats.
...
Now if that's not worth watching The Tick for, I don't know what else would be.
We'll miss American Maid, though
-
Why do you say that? I mean, it's Survivor: Africa, not Survivor: Afghanistan.
I was one of the people who watched Survivor a couple of times, and I'm getting pretty bored by it, even if Khaki Man is from Seattle. It was great fun watching the premiere of the film he directed at the Seattle International Film Fest, and I ended up sitting next to him and Monsieur Beneit (sp?) at the awards.
But let's get real. The Tick is nigh unbeatable in competition with Survivor.
And that's the unvarnished truth.
-
OK, but seriously folks, hope everyone watches this, cause only 9 episodes in the can.
Our local Seattle P-I TV columnist was asking people to watch it, and devoted his entire column to it.
And, as an aside, Ben Edlund is a great guy.
-
In answer to the question of why MSFT doesn't pay a "g**d damn dividend", it's pretty simple.
Look, MSFT is a shell company, one that permits Bill and Paul and a few other major shareholders to buy other companies. By maximizing the capital growth and having no dividends, they reduce their effective tax rate to 8 to 10 percent. Then they sell off a few shares and pay the 5 year capital gains tax on them, or sell the high purchase shares and keep the low purchase shares, thus getting a capital loss.
That's why there's no dividend.
Until MSFT becomes more like GE, where no single shareholder owns more than 20 percent of the stock, this will never change.
This is their way of avoiding taxes. People like me buy a mix of stocks - some dividend and some non-dividend - we use the non-dividend stock to go long on capital gains and thus reduce our tax hit (realized income) and use the dividends from the other stock (or bonds, PERQs, SPARQs, money market) to provide enough cash flow for expenses.
Thus we pay less tax than the working poor do. My realized income is very small. And so is Bill's and Paul's.
Unless you change the tax system, we'll keep doing things like that. There is no incentive to realize earned income, under the current system.
-
Yes, the Q&A was quite revealing. I think the open source question appeared to be basically ignored, politely.
The issue of women execs was also something you could tell they weren't going to address, which is very strange, in that most of Bill Gates foundation work has focussed on educating women and providing contraceptive measures for women in third-world countries.
As to China, this again was something that didn't seem to be that interesting to the execs.
Very disappointing responses, overall. One related news item in the Seattle P-I business section today noted that many MSFT employees have picked up their purchases of stock recently.
Does this mean we're nearing the bottom of the market, or that they know something we don't?
-
OK, I have to admit, that even though I do download MP3 from sites like MP3.com (and have bought CDs from there as a result), I've never used any of these peer-to-peer open-source alternatives.
Are any of them truly IP anonymous services that encyrpt it in such a way that they can't tell who's hosting it and the network is randomized by region (IP wise) so you can pop up and drop off without major problems?
Obviously, as someone who's sold my writings, software (mostly done as freeware), and who supports musicians promoing their work without the bloodsuckers ripping them off, I'm totally into the concept. But I really don't know the pros and cons of the alternatives now, and now that we've got Super Carnivore out there from the feds, we have to assume RIAA's breathing down people's necks.
Anyone willing to be unbiased and tell me about which is which and if there are any that are upcoming that might meet the standard?
The main thing I hated about Napster was you could tell it was going to turn commercial in a bad way.
-
Very good point. MP3 and Orb aren't hurting CD sales at all. But RIAA is typical of uncaring music industry groups, ones that feed off the musicians and give them little.
Look, I support musicians. I buy CDs, I go to shows, I buy tix for concerts, I listen to an MP3 and then PAY to have the CD sent to me by mail.
This past weekend even hosted a musician on tour. In fact, kind of ironic, she's in the video for that Michael Jackson top single, name is Roberta Donnay. She's not rolling in money, but the only way you can catch a break is to tour and get some cash and hope to break out of the musician ghetto that 99.9 percent of all performing artists are in due to RIAA.
The system is broken. Clamping down on our rights won't fix it. What will fix it is breaking up the corporate oligopolies that feed off the artists and get some real competition out there. When CDs first came out, LPs would sell for about $7 each, and CDs were $12 "to pay for the new development". The amount artists made back then is pretty much the same now.
The increased prices don't go to the artists. Only a favored few manage to get a slightly better sliver of that pie. But it's still a pitiful sliver.
I plan to roll out 500 Linux servers and workstations tomorrow.
...
Worth: priceless.
Cost: $2.
Do the same with WinXP. First, I have to buy 500 new boxes. Then negotiate the license.
Worth: minimal
Cost: $5 million.
Now compare. Hmm, MSFT Wins!
Yeah, right
we can kill the space program.
After all, isn't that the real reason to propose this?
It's not like space travel has ever been profitable, or cost effective. The sunk costs will continue for at least two more decades.
And yet, if we stay on this rock we'll be just another blip in the soundtrack of the universe, a bug squished by a raindrop, the sentience of a WinXP PC until you turn it on.
It represents the midpoint between the pro-MSFT administration and MSFT in terms of the proven violations and egregious behaviour of MSFT.
The state attorney generals should take this as a bargaining stake - treat it as typical politics, where the President proposes something ludicrous, the House passes something more ludicrous, and the Senate passes something reasonable. Then negotiate it to something close to reasonable.
Because it is NOT a final document, merely an offer. It does NOT have to be accepted, and should not be.
I spent three years in the Army and I love my nice indoor programming job. Even if I am having to spend time this week debugging three year old uncommented VBA programs when I don't know VB Script.
Have to agree. I learned Oracle programming and database design in the Canadian Army myself.
And it really gives you perspective when people say "this is a life or death problem" in relation to some project. You know that it isn't - noone's trying to kill you, you're not worried about being blown up, and not dealing with mud and dirt and temperature extremes - puts it all in perspective.
There are far worse jobs in life. And I actually enjoyed, and was very good at, my military career (made Sargeant in five years).
So, to the original poster - if you've always wanted to do something else - do it. You might want to finish your degree or switch to a hybrid degree (business + CS or something), as that might be useful, but if you don't try things you'll never know what you really do enjoy.
Seriously, the world needs fewer people doing jobs they don't enjoy.
.com days. Work can be fun, but not necessarily every day.
I've been in CS for a long time. Most of the people I've known burn out and never come back.
There's nothing wrong with realizing you want to do something else. I've had jobs that paid well and I hated, and jobs that paid ok and I liked. You should always do the job you like - it is very important.
On the other hand, expecting your job or career to provide the meaning of your life means you need other interests. The whole concept that work = fun is a hanger on from the
You might want to consider a hybrid career - maybe something like law and CS or business and CS or something like that. There's a lot of demand out there for such things. Just because you find it's not the most exciting doesn't mean you can't use it.
1. Intel is trying to dominate the market, and now that they have slashed prices to fight AMD, this means they are willing to lose money to beat TMTA. Remind you of anything? Like, say, monopolistic anti-competitive behaviours? There's a reason it's called ...
2. If TMTA sticks to its guns and survives in the Pacific and Japanese markets, they have a good chance of survival. If they try to expand to quickly, they will die.
3. The killer app for TMTA is the webpad and laptop. If you get a diskless version that lasts 8-12 hours with a TMTA chip or 4-6 hours for Intel - which one do you think will do well?
Of course, I'm biased, I bought TMTA stock after the market crash, cheap. Only a few hundred bucks and it's worth the risk.
Darn. You could be right. But they definitely did not stress Jar Jar being in the movie. There was more footage of the winged beastie trader/slaver, so maybe Lucas heard some of the criticism and downplayed his role a bit.
...
Rumor: Jar Jar dies in the volcano accident
Have to agree, saw four trailers with Monsters Inc - one was Harry Potter (must see), one was Send in the Clones (worst trailer I've ever seen, but will still see movie), one was Fellowship of the Ring (must see), and one was the short of For The Birds (hilarious).
Monsters, Inc rocked!
Don't know who did the trailers for Star Wars, but they should be immersed in Wookie entrails and left for dead on ice planet BillG.