Yeah, and then he could blog about his experience filing for unemployment. Oh, not eligible because he was fired.
This agreement should in no way prevent him from telling the same facts he could tell before he signed it. He can still talk about anything public as long as he sticks the the facts and leaves out negative OPINION. "The cocksuckers fired 50 people for no reason." is not acceptable. "50 people are no longer employed." is acceptable. Assuming the information was already public. Prior to signing the agreement, the same exact reality already existed. Call your bosses a bunch of cocksuckers and you're likely to be fired. Disclose confidential information and you're likely to be fired.
Why the F is this on the front page (or any page) of a geek news aggregation site. If you couldn't figure this out based on the information provided by Microsoft (long before you download/install/use/etc.) Windows 7, you've got no business being near a keyboard. Stand up and take two steps back. How much did IT Pro have to pay to get this piece of crap on the front page of slashdot? I hope it was a lot.
"Williams gave the example of one piracy exploit that caused more than a million reported system crashes on machines running non-genuine Windows Vista before Microsoft was able to resolve it."
WTF do you care what happens to people running pirated copies? Why don't you tell us about all of the times WGA has screwed up legitimate installations with false positives? I've actually had to "hack" a few falsely tagged installations so they'd run until I had time to go through the hassle of getting my system re-legitimized. And I don't maintain that many windows systems. I can only imagine the shitstorm that could be caused in a company with thousands of identical systems that, through some quirk, got nailed with a false positive from WGA.
WGA does absolutely nothing to protect legitimate consumers. Nothing. The only thing WGA can do to any specific installation is disable it. It can't ENHANCE or IMPROVE the system in any way.
Seriously, WTF?!? I can get it in French, German, Japanese, Swedish, Lithuanian, and Macedonian for FSM's sake. Why is English still at 2.4.0? It's been stuck there since...well...2.4.0.
That and outgoing speeds. I've used a cellular data connection for my personal internet access at work for years. More as an experiment than because I'm worried about being snooped on. (And I'd just as soon not have to worry about clicking on a NSFW link and having that http request in the log.) For 2 years, I used EDGE and it was a bit better than surfing on a 56k modem. The incoming speed was ISDNish but the latency made the overall experience similar to a 56k modem. I've been using 3G for about a year and it's much more usable in terms of latency. Speed is all over the place. I've had days of 300k and days where I sustain over a megabit but reduced latency is what makes it more usable.
As far as streaming video/audio, VOIP, and other high bandwidth stuff, don't bother. I can usually keep up with a youtube stream but there will be times when it pauses for a bit. And you don't want to do streaming audio. That eats up bandwidth like crazy, even if it doesn't get choppy. The volume of data is what will get you.
3G is good for surfing, email, occasional downloads, limited remote access, and other bursty, downstream-heavy activity. Not good for highly interactive stuff.
As far as data volume and connection times go, I leave it connected from 9am to 6pm 5 days a week. My data usage is anywhere from 700 megs to 2 gigs per billing cycle. I've never heard a peep out of either company about the amount of time I stay connected or the volume of data transferred. Of course, I don't try to do anything stupid like run a P2P client or ftp server on the cellular connection.
Way back in the day, I used to be a netflix customer. About once a month, a movie would go missing. Always on the return, always a title like Breast Monsters from Jupiter. Not a single title went missing on its way to me and mainstream movies never went missing. First, Netflix tried to tell me that my mailbox was insecure. An asinine suggestion since the titles never went missing on their way TO me. And irrelevant as the mail dropped through a slot into a locked room. Then they suggested I could start paying for delivery confirmation or return my discs via UPS (both options at my expense). WTF?!?
I told them that it was pretty clear they had an internal theft problem because the pattern was obvious. Someone was grabbing "embarrassing" titles, hoping that the renter would be to flustered to make a fuss. "Absolutely not. There is no way our employees would be stealing movies. Blah, blah, blah."
Then they locked my account and sent me a bill - A BILL! - for the full retail value of the missing titles. Wrong f'ing move. But, before I worked up a righteous head of steam, I got an apology, my account was unlocked, and I was told to ignore the previous request for payment. A few days later, a story about the arrest of a bunch of Netflix employees hit the news. Surprise, surprise, surprise. They'd been stealing movies as they were returned by customers. Wish I could find an article about that incident. All I can find are the stories about various USPS employees being arrested for theft of Netflix discs.
As soon as I confirmed my account was in good standing, I closed it. Buncha tools.
My 5+ year old P4 and G4 systems can do all of those things just fine. So what's your point? The only area where I've needed more power is gaming. And I expect that to plateau with the next generation of consoles which should be able to render true HD resolutions with decent quality.
"Businesses" don't know shiat about technology. How can the suits ask for something beyond the scope of their knowledge and experience? They do crazy crap with contracts and lawyers and stuff that would irritate the heck out of me but is a necessary part of running a company. I really don't care to get into the messy details of how they accomplish every task and I'm pretty sure they're not waiting for me to pipe up and tell them how to do their jobs. Likewise, I'm not waiting for one of them to tell me the best way to keep the computers running.
If IT wants something done, they need to play the suits' game and sell it like any other salesman pitching a product/solution/opportunity. With powerpoint full of graphs and charts and all that crap. Or just attach it like a rider on a bill. Towards the end of a meeting that's already heading your way, add, "BTW, we're going to implement a policy requiring most people to shut down their workstations when they go home for the day. This will reduce our power consumption by up to $1100 per month and should also increase productivity by reducing service calls." If there's any resistance, waive the Green flag, say utilities are putting a lot of pressure on the IT industry to economize, etc.
But the bottom line is you don't wait for a department to launch a program that's totally outside their purview. If the IT department doesn't kickstart this kind of program, nobody will because nobody else will understand the value.
They get taxes from the fuel used to transport the goods. They get money from the vehicle registrations. They get money from the vehicle purchases. They get taxes from the goods purchased to maintain the transportation vehicles. They get taxes from the corporations that sell the goods and the ones that transport the goods. They get taxes from the employees of both of those groups. THE GOVERNMENTS (local, state, and federal) GET PLENTY OF FUCKING MONEY OUT OF INTERSTATE COMMERCE!!!
They were waiting for Apple to get more than 0.0005% market share. (Yes, I'm exaggerating.)
The funny thing is, now that they've finally done it, it's not necessary. If someone wants to buy a Mac for the "cool" factor of the design or having 8 xeonriffic cores, they can load windows on it and run all the windows software they want.:)
No kidding. Many years ago, it was my roommate's turn to buy bathroom supplies. While looking for the cheapest soap, he spotted a hottie and was totally ogling her when she noticed him. His 'save' was to say, "Oh, there it is," and grab a bottle from the shelf near her ass then book it for the checkout.
So, the next day, I went to work smelling of that body wash that had the commercials with "orgasmic" women. I forget the name. I have to admit that I smelled nice. And three women at work confirmed it that very day. "Oh, you smell nice." Since then, I've used whatever "girly" body wash is on sale. I like it. Ladies like it. Probably because I don't smell like an ex-fratboy douchebag slathered in Sex Panther. It's win-win.
Absolutely nothing is going through their minds. That's the whole point of this insanity. ZERO TOLERANCE! ZERO THOUGHT!
If an administrator stops to think, they open themselves up to liability. If they blindly follow district policy without thought or consideration, they are shielded from liability. That is the basis of zero tolerance. "I can't be blamed. I was just doing what I was told to do in this situation."
It's all a flowchart. If suspect [controlled_substance] then search until [drugs_are_found or there_is_nowhere_left_to_search]. Prescription drug = controlled substance, therefore search until one of the criteria is met. She's lucky Lunch Lady Doris didn't have a speculum.
I want to know when I'll be able to run my porn through a facial recognition program and sort by actress. That is, uh, a friend of mine wants to know when...
Is that some kind of advanced troll? Unless there's an interface option I've missed, gmail is hardly cutting edge when it comes to web interfaces. If I want to read a message in a new window, I have to open it, then find the little icon, then click it. Why can't I just double-click on a message to open it in its own window? And why can't I collapse my folders? Sorry. Labels. Or stretch the folder...label window a bit so I can read the frickin' names? Or drag message into folders? Where's the context sensitive right-clicking? This is all incredibly basic stuff I've seen in other webmail clients.
At best, I'd rate gmail's interface as "adequate". It'll work in a pinch but I'd rather use just about any standalone client.
Seriously. My grandpa was perfectly content with his dialup for years. He knew "broadband" was faster but it cost a lot more money and he could deal with dialup. He had a pattern. He'd start the computer and fire up the email client then go make breakfast or lunch depending on the time of day. By the time he was done, his email attachments were usually downloaded. He'd read his messages, set a few pictures to forward, reply with some new ones of his own, then hit the send/receive button and go do something for a while. Come back in an hour or so and it was done. Then he'd check his weather reports. Each map could take 5+ minutes to download but he could wait.
Then his neighbor got a cablemodem. He and the neighbor got to talking about it and my grandpa went over to check it out. His weather sites loaded in seconds instead of minutes. News sites. Investment sites. Everything was so fast! He called me up. "So I imagine my email will be faster, too? No more waiting half an hour for a few pictures to download? And those updates you install when you visit?"
So, the next time I was there, we took a trip to the cable company's office and picked up a cablemodem. And, maybe a week after that, he had me order him a new computer 'cause the Celery/333 had become the bottleneck. And it's totally worth the extra money to him. He would probably pay a hundred bucks a month now that he knows that going from dialup to cable is like going from peeking through the keyhole of a library to having the doors thrown open.
I just wish cable companies would offer something like 512/128 for $10-15/month. That's all that many people need. Heck, I had 384/128 at a cheap rate for years and it was fine for me.
Okay, they'll make a modified one that doesn't keep those features active and opens a relay at the end of the hibernation process which is then closed by pressing a button on the case, triggering restoration from hibernation mode. And You can make hibernate zero-watt by unplugging the device. And you can still do all this by just turning the darn thing off and cutting the power. This isn't a situation that needs technological innovation. It needs people to be educated, then exercise some common sense. Then they can save money without having to spend it on new equipment.
If they want to save some freakin' power in the future, stop loading up operating systems with all this eye candy BS that require multicore processors and 128 megs of dedicated video ram just to work. Put out a "gets the job done" operating system that is rock solid and has a small resource footprint. Then start pushing the new low-power processors like Intel's Atom. Flood corporate America with those things and stop giving core 2 duos to secretaries who spend all day reading email, typing up documents, making powerpoint presentations, and all that other stuff that doesn't need a 100 watt CPU and aero effects.
THAT is where we need to cut power consumption. Saving 100 watts over 8-9 hours, not 1-4 watts over 15-16 hours.
Back in the 80s and 90s, all of my computers had "Zero-Watt" modes. After shutting down (in the latter days, parking the heads in the earlier days), I flipped a switch-like thingy that physically interrupted the flow of power to the computer. I had no idea this was so cutting edge that it would take so long to go mainstream.
BTW, you can cut the power to your computer if you use hibernate instead of standby. No need for new technology to do this. I can't help but wonder if re-labeling of hibernation mode will be the Big New Thing. "Look how amazing and Green(r)(c)(tm) we are by promoting this form of power savings that's been around for years. Aren't we awesome?"
Why is it stupid to prefer candidates with experience over candidates without experience?
Let's see. This guy interned with the IT departments of three different companies while he was in school. That guy worked in the university cafeteria all four years. Wow, that's a tough choice.
Wow. And all this time I've been plugging in external monitors, keyboards, and mice without a dock. What was I thinking?!? I should have known it was too simple.
Hell, you don't even need to do anything. And it's not just limited to the stuff you buy online. A year and a half ago, I bought some Counterstrike compilation package for cheap because my new roommate was into it. I had to install the valve/steam client to run the game. Weak. I bought the physical media. W[hy]TF should I have to sign onto their system every time I want to launch the game? Whatever. So I played a couple hours of single-player than left it sit for a while. Came back to play again. Couldn't log into my account. Couldn't reset the password. Couldn't do a damn thing. Checked some forums and found that there's some absurdly complex process I can go through to "recover" my key and re-activate on a new account. Screw that. It wasn't worth my time to fix a $10 game.
Now I'm all pissed off again. I should make them straighten that out. But I'll be damned if I'm going to buy another game that relies on some company maintaining a web presence (and not screwing up my account!) just to use its most basic single-player features.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, and then he could blog about his experience filing for unemployment. Oh, not eligible because he was fired.
This agreement should in no way prevent him from telling the same facts he could tell before he signed it. He can still talk about anything public as long as he sticks the the facts and leaves out negative OPINION. "The cocksuckers fired 50 people for no reason." is not acceptable. "50 people are no longer employed." is acceptable. Assuming the information was already public. Prior to signing the agreement, the same exact reality already existed. Call your bosses a bunch of cocksuckers and you're likely to be fired. Disclose confidential information and you're likely to be fired.
Why the F is this on the front page (or any page) of a geek news aggregation site. If you couldn't figure this out based on the information provided by Microsoft (long before you download/install/use/etc.) Windows 7, you've got no business being near a keyboard. Stand up and take two steps back. How much did IT Pro have to pay to get this piece of crap on the front page of slashdot? I hope it was a lot.
"Williams gave the example of one piracy exploit that caused more than a million reported system crashes on machines running non-genuine Windows Vista before Microsoft was able to resolve it."
WTF do you care what happens to people running pirated copies? Why don't you tell us about all of the times WGA has screwed up legitimate installations with false positives? I've actually had to "hack" a few falsely tagged installations so they'd run until I had time to go through the hassle of getting my system re-legitimized. And I don't maintain that many windows systems. I can only imagine the shitstorm that could be caused in a company with thousands of identical systems that, through some quirk, got nailed with a false positive from WGA.
WGA does absolutely nothing to protect legitimate consumers. Nothing. The only thing WGA can do to any specific installation is disable it. It can't ENHANCE or IMPROVE the system in any way.
Hey, now I know why I've been hanging onto that hard drive that spews SMART errors. I knew there was a good reason to hang onto it.
Seriously, WTF?!? I can get it in French, German, Japanese, Swedish, Lithuanian, and Macedonian for FSM's sake. Why is English still at 2.4.0? It's been stuck there since...well...2.4.0.
That and outgoing speeds. I've used a cellular data connection for my personal internet access at work for years. More as an experiment than because I'm worried about being snooped on. (And I'd just as soon not have to worry about clicking on a NSFW link and having that http request in the log.) For 2 years, I used EDGE and it was a bit better than surfing on a 56k modem. The incoming speed was ISDNish but the latency made the overall experience similar to a 56k modem. I've been using 3G for about a year and it's much more usable in terms of latency. Speed is all over the place. I've had days of 300k and days where I sustain over a megabit but reduced latency is what makes it more usable.
As far as streaming video/audio, VOIP, and other high bandwidth stuff, don't bother. I can usually keep up with a youtube stream but there will be times when it pauses for a bit. And you don't want to do streaming audio. That eats up bandwidth like crazy, even if it doesn't get choppy. The volume of data is what will get you.
3G is good for surfing, email, occasional downloads, limited remote access, and other bursty, downstream-heavy activity. Not good for highly interactive stuff.
As far as data volume and connection times go, I leave it connected from 9am to 6pm 5 days a week. My data usage is anywhere from 700 megs to 2 gigs per billing cycle. I've never heard a peep out of either company about the amount of time I stay connected or the volume of data transferred. Of course, I don't try to do anything stupid like run a P2P client or ftp server on the cellular connection.
Way back in the day, I used to be a netflix customer. About once a month, a movie would go missing. Always on the return, always a title like Breast Monsters from Jupiter. Not a single title went missing on its way to me and mainstream movies never went missing. First, Netflix tried to tell me that my mailbox was insecure. An asinine suggestion since the titles never went missing on their way TO me. And irrelevant as the mail dropped through a slot into a locked room. Then they suggested I could start paying for delivery confirmation or return my discs via UPS (both options at my expense). WTF?!?
I told them that it was pretty clear they had an internal theft problem because the pattern was obvious. Someone was grabbing "embarrassing" titles, hoping that the renter would be to flustered to make a fuss. "Absolutely not. There is no way our employees would be stealing movies. Blah, blah, blah."
Then they locked my account and sent me a bill - A BILL! - for the full retail value of the missing titles. Wrong f'ing move. But, before I worked up a righteous head of steam, I got an apology, my account was unlocked, and I was told to ignore the previous request for payment. A few days later, a story about the arrest of a bunch of Netflix employees hit the news. Surprise, surprise, surprise. They'd been stealing movies as they were returned by customers. Wish I could find an article about that incident. All I can find are the stories about various USPS employees being arrested for theft of Netflix discs.
As soon as I confirmed my account was in good standing, I closed it. Buncha tools.
Awwww. The NYPD thinks they're special. :rolleyes:
I must be special, too, because I log tons of probes. Hundreds, sometimes thousands a day.
My 5+ year old P4 and G4 systems can do all of those things just fine. So what's your point? The only area where I've needed more power is gaming. And I expect that to plateau with the next generation of consoles which should be able to render true HD resolutions with decent quality.
"Businesses" don't know shiat about technology. How can the suits ask for something beyond the scope of their knowledge and experience? They do crazy crap with contracts and lawyers and stuff that would irritate the heck out of me but is a necessary part of running a company. I really don't care to get into the messy details of how they accomplish every task and I'm pretty sure they're not waiting for me to pipe up and tell them how to do their jobs. Likewise, I'm not waiting for one of them to tell me the best way to keep the computers running.
If IT wants something done, they need to play the suits' game and sell it like any other salesman pitching a product/solution/opportunity. With powerpoint full of graphs and charts and all that crap. Or just attach it like a rider on a bill. Towards the end of a meeting that's already heading your way, add, "BTW, we're going to implement a policy requiring most people to shut down their workstations when they go home for the day. This will reduce our power consumption by up to $1100 per month and should also increase productivity by reducing service calls." If there's any resistance, waive the Green flag, say utilities are putting a lot of pressure on the IT industry to economize, etc.
But the bottom line is you don't wait for a department to launch a program that's totally outside their purview. If the IT department doesn't kickstart this kind of program, nobody will because nobody else will understand the value.
They get taxes from the fuel used to transport the goods. They get money from the vehicle registrations. They get money from the vehicle purchases. They get taxes from the goods purchased to maintain the transportation vehicles. They get taxes from the corporations that sell the goods and the ones that transport the goods. They get taxes from the employees of both of those groups. THE GOVERNMENTS (local, state, and federal) GET PLENTY OF FUCKING MONEY OUT OF INTERSTATE COMMERCE!!!
They were waiting for Apple to get more than 0.0005% market share. (Yes, I'm exaggerating.)
The funny thing is, now that they've finally done it, it's not necessary. If someone wants to buy a Mac for the "cool" factor of the design or having 8 xeonriffic cores, they can load windows on it and run all the windows software they want. :)
A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat.
No kidding. Many years ago, it was my roommate's turn to buy bathroom supplies. While looking for the cheapest soap, he spotted a hottie and was totally ogling her when she noticed him. His 'save' was to say, "Oh, there it is," and grab a bottle from the shelf near her ass then book it for the checkout.
So, the next day, I went to work smelling of that body wash that had the commercials with "orgasmic" women. I forget the name. I have to admit that I smelled nice. And three women at work confirmed it that very day. "Oh, you smell nice." Since then, I've used whatever "girly" body wash is on sale. I like it. Ladies like it. Probably because I don't smell like an ex-fratboy douchebag slathered in Sex Panther. It's win-win.
Absolutely nothing is going through their minds. That's the whole point of this insanity. ZERO TOLERANCE! ZERO THOUGHT!
If an administrator stops to think, they open themselves up to liability. If they blindly follow district policy without thought or consideration, they are shielded from liability. That is the basis of zero tolerance. "I can't be blamed. I was just doing what I was told to do in this situation."
It's all a flowchart. If suspect [controlled_substance] then search until [drugs_are_found or there_is_nowhere_left_to_search]. Prescription drug = controlled substance, therefore search until one of the criteria is met. She's lucky Lunch Lady Doris didn't have a speculum.
I thought it was a beer thing.
Never underestimate a user's ability to fark up something that is, in theory, unfarkupable.
I want to know when I'll be able to run my porn through a facial recognition program and sort by actress. That is, uh, a friend of mine wants to know when...
Is that some kind of advanced troll? Unless there's an interface option I've missed, gmail is hardly cutting edge when it comes to web interfaces. If I want to read a message in a new window, I have to open it, then find the little icon, then click it. Why can't I just double-click on a message to open it in its own window? And why can't I collapse my folders? Sorry. Labels. Or stretch the folder...label window a bit so I can read the frickin' names? Or drag message into folders? Where's the context sensitive right-clicking? This is all incredibly basic stuff I've seen in other webmail clients.
At best, I'd rate gmail's interface as "adequate". It'll work in a pinch but I'd rather use just about any standalone client.
Seriously. My grandpa was perfectly content with his dialup for years. He knew "broadband" was faster but it cost a lot more money and he could deal with dialup. He had a pattern. He'd start the computer and fire up the email client then go make breakfast or lunch depending on the time of day. By the time he was done, his email attachments were usually downloaded. He'd read his messages, set a few pictures to forward, reply with some new ones of his own, then hit the send/receive button and go do something for a while. Come back in an hour or so and it was done. Then he'd check his weather reports. Each map could take 5+ minutes to download but he could wait.
Then his neighbor got a cablemodem. He and the neighbor got to talking about it and my grandpa went over to check it out. His weather sites loaded in seconds instead of minutes. News sites. Investment sites. Everything was so fast! He called me up. "So I imagine my email will be faster, too? No more waiting half an hour for a few pictures to download? And those updates you install when you visit?"
So, the next time I was there, we took a trip to the cable company's office and picked up a cablemodem. And, maybe a week after that, he had me order him a new computer 'cause the Celery/333 had become the bottleneck. And it's totally worth the extra money to him. He would probably pay a hundred bucks a month now that he knows that going from dialup to cable is like going from peeking through the keyhole of a library to having the doors thrown open.
I just wish cable companies would offer something like 512/128 for $10-15/month. That's all that many people need. Heck, I had 384/128 at a cheap rate for years and it was fine for me.
Okay, they'll make a modified one that doesn't keep those features active and opens a relay at the end of the hibernation process which is then closed by pressing a button on the case, triggering restoration from hibernation mode. And You can make hibernate zero-watt by unplugging the device. And you can still do all this by just turning the darn thing off and cutting the power. This isn't a situation that needs technological innovation. It needs people to be educated, then exercise some common sense. Then they can save money without having to spend it on new equipment.
If they want to save some freakin' power in the future, stop loading up operating systems with all this eye candy BS that require multicore processors and 128 megs of dedicated video ram just to work. Put out a "gets the job done" operating system that is rock solid and has a small resource footprint. Then start pushing the new low-power processors like Intel's Atom. Flood corporate America with those things and stop giving core 2 duos to secretaries who spend all day reading email, typing up documents, making powerpoint presentations, and all that other stuff that doesn't need a 100 watt CPU and aero effects.
THAT is where we need to cut power consumption. Saving 100 watts over 8-9 hours, not 1-4 watts over 15-16 hours.
Back in the 80s and 90s, all of my computers had "Zero-Watt" modes. After shutting down (in the latter days, parking the heads in the earlier days), I flipped a switch-like thingy that physically interrupted the flow of power to the computer. I had no idea this was so cutting edge that it would take so long to go mainstream.
BTW, you can cut the power to your computer if you use hibernate instead of standby. No need for new technology to do this. I can't help but wonder if re-labeling of hibernation mode will be the Big New Thing. "Look how amazing and Green(r)(c)(tm) we are by promoting this form of power savings that's been around for years. Aren't we awesome?"
Why is it stupid to prefer candidates with experience over candidates without experience?
Let's see. This guy interned with the IT departments of three different companies while he was in school. That guy worked in the university cafeteria all four years. Wow, that's a tough choice.
Wow. And all this time I've been plugging in external monitors, keyboards, and mice without a dock. What was I thinking?!? I should have known it was too simple.
Hell, you don't even need to do anything. And it's not just limited to the stuff you buy online. A year and a half ago, I bought some Counterstrike compilation package for cheap because my new roommate was into it. I had to install the valve/steam client to run the game. Weak. I bought the physical media. W[hy]TF should I have to sign onto their system every time I want to launch the game? Whatever. So I played a couple hours of single-player than left it sit for a while. Came back to play again. Couldn't log into my account. Couldn't reset the password. Couldn't do a damn thing. Checked some forums and found that there's some absurdly complex process I can go through to "recover" my key and re-activate on a new account. Screw that. It wasn't worth my time to fix a $10 game.
Now I'm all pissed off again. I should make them straighten that out. But I'll be damned if I'm going to buy another game that relies on some company maintaining a web presence (and not screwing up my account!) just to use its most basic single-player features.