... 'cause I think the partially nude woman in the car at the back of the scene was a bit unnecessary not being a prude or anything but kids could be viewing it
Totally agree with you. Almost all of my customers only upgrade to the next version of ANY software because of expiring support agreements. Heck, a local government client is only considering upgrading their CRM software because the support agreement for the version they are currently using will run out at the end of the year, no additional functionality will be activated.
Why did he come out and admit this? The US will either try to extradite him or ban him from entering the US again. And the poor soldier responsible will get shafted too. For what? Just wipe the drive and pretend it never happened moron.
In the UK we have had health care free at the point of use - without the need for digital health records. So why does the US need to do this? Obama should just bite the bullet and follow the UK system.
... why is it OK to just quote the top paragraph from the source article?
"Asus' success with its Eee line of netbooks might have come as a surprise, but the company is now determined to expand the Eee brand into every possible niche and form factor. Case in point: the insanely cool Eee Keyboard, which will surely bring a smile on the faces of those who remember the glory days of the home computer." is lifted directly from the article linked in the story.
No funny / inappropriate / factually incorrect comments from the editor either...in fact Timothy hasn't posted any editorial comments in the last few stories he's posted. I want Cmdr Taco back:)
... as a knife wielding teenage gang member I welcome any dark sky initiative - and I can assure you that all my victims will be seeing stars when I've finished with them (shortly before they die in a pool of their own blood...) At last, the needs of amateur astrologers, penny pinching local councils, and muggers finally coincide! Happy days!
.. of course I haven't got a family or an evil mortgage company to drain my income. What I did was save up enough cash to see me through three months of expenses (you might get redundancy!) and then I went freelance. Lots of time off, spend a lot of time with friends and relatives and going to music festivals, and really enjoy my work when I get it. Basically I've retired early. Sounds like you're as p****ed off with employers as I was - now I'm happy and free. With any luck your employers will be looking to lay some people off and offering severance. Your family? Well your wife can work and your kids can get paper rounds (if they're old enough). Why should you be the only one putting up will all the crap? Read 4 Hour Work Week and Covey's Seven Habits - not as life changing as the authors would have you believe but do let you into a few secrets. If you do this then I'll buy you a beer at Glastonbury this year;)
In the tradition of idiot Slashdot readers like myself (no, you're not all idiots, but I am) can I propose a totally different answer than the one you were asking for - that you buy him a table that can be raised to standing height instead? The God-like (or should that be Tetragrammaton-like?) Joel says (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/06/06.html) that standing up for part of the day while at a desk might be good for you (or so he's told) and I would agree with that. It would also keep your husband's precious PC out of your baby's grasp.
Get an external consultant in... because the consultant will be seen as the physical manifestation of the task at hand and will compel people to help to document their processes.
Added benefits (and the main point of external consultants): you won't get labelled as 'that irritating bugger who asked us all those questions and is really after my job' and you get to carry on with your day job and not get bogged down in a side project.
I've got personal experience of wikis and Sharepoint and, by the fact of their very existence they will not be used - because your less-than-enthusiastic colleagues will call it a 'toy' and not use it (they'll call it 'your wiki', or 'your sharepoint' and you'll be stuck with maintaining it and helping them type things into it for all time... sob...) - and it's your less-than-enthusiastic colleagues that are the ones who don't follow procedures in the first place. Stick with the pure simplicity of a folder with word-processing documents and diagrams in it and print everything out to paper. Add a lightweight SCM tool in their too, like Mercurial, and run it on a batch process every night.
One final thing, make sure that the procedures are added to your bonus / review / disciplinary procedures... then the buggers will actually have to follow them.
One final, final thing - do NOT take personal ownership of this problem - get your manager to see it was their idea - or you'll be doomed.
>> "What would happen if the problem they claim to address was actually solved?" If the answer to that question is "they would go out of business", then their motivation for always treating the symptoms and never treating the underlying cause will become clear.
You know, I ask that of the War on Terror / Drugs / Communists / File Sharers on a daily basis...
well I could argue some your points (the whole debate is not just about business models, it's also about political models and the interaction of the two; basic economics is really up in the air on both sides - for example I could suggest that the cost of copying music and movies is zero so how come media companies charge for distribution and suck up hydrocarbons for CDs/DVDs and cases that are not necessary; there's lots of free content out there - even/. is free - and lots of software we all uses daily is free so how come one-shot movies and music are not?)
and I could also say that I don't agree with everything that the pirate party says, but what I really want to say to you is that we NEED this debate to happen - and we NEED people to stand against the incumbents - media conglomorates, governments, accepted viewpoints - and do so in a non-violent way
in time the pirate party's views will get more depth and they will think through some of the libertarian ideologies they have and will develop into something pretty good - just like the green party has done - until then we need to support them
the last thing we need to be is stuck in the 20th century with non-libertarian politics and a society that doesn't fully utlise the liberative power of technology
I was really responding to the "Post your copyright free work URLs here. Right now please." bit in the parent to my message. Though of course, without copyright...
Unfortunately I'm one of those suckers who pays for stuff - music (almost none now because it's all crap), movies (but I haven't been to the kino for a while), software (couple of hundred quid to MS every year, oh, and lots of FOSS).
But I AM saying stick two fingers up to 'those people'. As a general principle. test and challenge everything, especially the consensus. Especially your own most deeply held beliefs.
We must always test and oppose the consensus and the ruling classes otherwise they become overwhelmed with their own power and run riot.
Right now film makers, musicians, software developers, artists, all have the opportunity to change the way they work thanks to new technology. Produce smaller movies with less of the violent, macho, sexist themes that infect so-called blockbusters (Sundance is an example of people already doing that). Live music instead of recorded marketing crap (live musicians whose opportunity to earn has been eroded by recorded music tried to fight for their rights a couple of years ago in the UK with a campaign called 'keep music live'). FOSS software instead of flaky commercial crap (and boy is that happening).
The corporations and lawyers behind the companies once responsible for developing and nurturing these people have long since shifted their focus from artist development and R&D to marketing and rights-management. The latter required them to propose and support laws to protect their corporate rights. This is where they went wrong.
The Pirate Party are opposing and doing so in a non-violent way - and we need people like this. We need people who oppose the consensus, fight for rights we may ourselves not really agree with.
Oh gawd - now you're adding insult to insult - limey is such a derogatory term - you bastard!;)
Seriously though, I guess I get where you're coming from but please note that it is not acceptable to compliment the British - we hate being complimented because it sometimes makes us feel patriotic and that makes us feel pretty embarrassed and foolish (because we don't like to be associated with our pretty terrible crimes of the past and the twat-headed facists like the British National Party and the odd lot who sing at the Proms and wear Union Jack flags). It's much better to take the piss out of us and tell us how useless we are - we like that.
No need, just look for something called Linux, and Python, and take a gander at Sourceforge, and Gnu.
Hell - the whole frickin' world is running on computers and the most powerful tools are open-source. Probably / definitely provides more financial contribution than the world wide music and film industries combined.
More depressing still is your use of 'us and the Brits' - I know, 51st state and all that, but we Brits did do somethings ourselves and should not be referred to in such a sidekick sort of way.
Oh, fuck you America, you fucking bunch of fat-arsed, over-consuming, celebrity obsessed, loose moraled, fornicating, right-wing, fascist, bigoted, interfering, dullard, fuck-wits - before I forget;)
... because he's really trying to articulate the possibilities for new business and political models that the Internet presents us with. The EFF, the Pirate Party, RMS, Cory Doctorow, hell, even Slashdot - they're all part of the same revolution that most of us who read/. are part of - and we need to take what Falkvinge says seriously. Remember - big businesses, media empire, the government they've all got a natural, and completely understandable, vested interest in not letting the Internet become the medium for new business and political models - and only guys like Falkvinge are standing up to them. We may not agree with everything they say but we all need to support them vocally and financially so there are at least some counterbalances to the opposing forces. I've always believed that the incumbents in any situation should be challenged and attacked (non-violently) - the bigger the incumbent, the greater and more vociferous the challenge. The EFF and the Pirate Party aren't big enough yet - so let's support them - I know I'm going to right now.
... from the pro-NASA panel he asked - here's comment number 5 from the blog (and there are plenty of others):
"Everyone seems to be in agreement! I would think so being that 4 of the 5 panel memebers are current or former NASA employees! Perhaps more care should have been taken in ensuring the diversity of the panel. There must be some arguments to the contrary out there and I'd be curious to see those debated as well.
The negative stigma is totally undeserved - my first booze, first porn movie, first uncomfortable moment with a previously best friend (I killed his paladin and he got upset, not the other thing... that happened later on a railway station in Liverpool;, continuous outlet for pent up male aggression - all happened whilst playing D&D. Paranoia taught me about the absurdity of the real world (and yes, I still approach people in authority with a mixture of fear and loathing and wishing I had an ultraviolet pistol). Runequest taught me that even ducks can be heroic and that the world is just one big lozenge. 007 RPG taught me about guns and cars and beautiful foils. 2000AD taught me that everyone in the world falls into one of several UPPs. Trollquest showed me how most modern fiction is formulaic and soul-less. Of course while I was doing all that I passed up the chance to join the local boat club, get drunk and laid on a regular basis, and shower in front of other naked men. Bah.
Well I'm only going by own experience and it shows that Wolfbane is correct for my area (and the electronic desk staff at my local Tesco said that anyone buying a set top box from them will need a new aerial - which kind of confirms it for me). You're lucky i guess. Not sure about Wolfsbane being hardcoded - maybe the digital map isn't really changing a lot right now. I'll ask them. The map at ukfree.tv http://www.ukfree.tv/mapsofsignal_maxnewaerial.php suggests that a lot of people will need an new aerial, because the existing aerial will need to pick up wideband. I hate to reference a story on The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/10/telebusillis_digital_tv_analysis/) but it is one that drew my attention to the Whitby case (http://www.whitbygazette.co.uk/stories-of-the-week/Whitby-TV-mast-switchon-delayed.3242764.jp) where people in one area are going to lose their analogue TV signal, will not receive a digital TV signal, and will need sign up for cable or freesat instead - additional costs for something they already pay for. I really think that we're being ripped off - paying for something we don't need or want.
Sorry to disagree but I am unable to receive digital TV through my aerial at all. And I'm not alone. The map at the apparently reputable http://www.wolfbane.com/articles/ukdcmap.htm shows most areas of the country require an amplified extra hi-gain aerial (as of April 2007). The areas that require just a set-top aerial are very small so you're probably just lucky. The Freeview postcode checker at http://www.freeview.co.uk/ tells me that I won't receive channels until 2012. When that happens I will also probably have to upgrade to a wideband aerial (as will most houses in most areas that do not receive their signal from Crystal Palace). And here's the problem: I never asked for digital, I can say with confidence that most people didn't - but now I have to put up with extra costs and hassle, AND paying a TV licence that funds BBC channels I can't watch until 2012. Hooray! Who asked them to do this? I'd rather pay for more police on the streets, etc, etc. OR how about universal broadband?
Slashdot Mirror
... 'cause I think the partially nude woman in the car at the back of the scene was a bit unnecessary
not being a prude or anything but kids could be viewing it
But what *did* happen at Detroit in Oct 2000?
"when free of malware" - oh the irony
Totally agree with you. Almost all of my customers only upgrade to the next version of ANY software because of expiring support agreements. Heck, a local government client is only considering upgrading their CRM software because the support agreement for the version they are currently using will run out at the end of the year, no additional functionality will be activated.
Why did he come out and admit this? The US will either try to extradite him or ban him from entering the US again. And the poor soldier responsible will get shafted too. For what? Just wipe the drive and pretend it never happened moron.
"politically correct moderators can suck my white pierced tattooed dick." - so do you really MEAN what your tag line says or is this bullshit too?
In the UK we have had health care free at the point of use - without the need for digital health records. So why does the US need to do this? Obama should just bite the bullet and follow the UK system.
... why is it OK to just quote the top paragraph from the source article?
"Asus' success with its Eee line of netbooks might have come as a surprise, but the company is now determined to expand the Eee brand into every possible niche and form factor. Case in point: the insanely cool Eee Keyboard, which will surely bring a smile on the faces of those who remember the glory days of the home computer." is lifted directly from the article linked in the story.
No funny / inappropriate / factually incorrect comments from the editor either...in fact Timothy hasn't posted any editorial comments in the last few stories he's posted. I want Cmdr Taco back :)
Now I'm depressed ;)
... as a knife wielding teenage gang member I welcome any dark sky initiative - and I can assure you that all my victims will be seeing stars when I've finished with them (shortly before they die in a pool of their own blood ...)
At last, the needs of amateur astrologers, penny pinching local councils, and muggers finally coincide! Happy days!
.. of course I haven't got a family or an evil mortgage company to drain my income. What I did was save up enough cash to see me through three months of expenses (you might get redundancy!) and then I went freelance. Lots of time off, spend a lot of time with friends and relatives and going to music festivals, and really enjoy my work when I get it. Basically I've retired early. ;)
Sounds like you're as p****ed off with employers as I was - now I'm happy and free.
With any luck your employers will be looking to lay some people off and offering severance.
Your family? Well your wife can work and your kids can get paper rounds (if they're old enough). Why should you be the only one putting up will all the crap?
Read 4 Hour Work Week and Covey's Seven Habits - not as life changing as the authors would have you believe but do let you into a few secrets.
If you do this then I'll buy you a beer at Glastonbury this year
In the tradition of idiot Slashdot readers like myself (no, you're not all idiots, but I am) can I propose a totally different answer than the one you were asking for - that you buy him a table that can be raised to standing height instead?
The God-like (or should that be Tetragrammaton-like?) Joel says (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/06/06.html) that standing up for part of the day while at a desk might be good for you (or so he's told) and I would agree with that. It would also keep your husband's precious PC out of your baby's grasp.
Get an external consultant in ... because the consultant will be seen as the physical manifestation of the task at hand and will compel people to help to document their processes.
... sob...) - and it's your less-than-enthusiastic colleagues that are the ones who don't follow procedures in the first place. Stick with the pure simplicity of a folder with word-processing documents and diagrams in it and print everything out to paper. Add a lightweight SCM tool in their too, like Mercurial, and run it on a batch process every night.
... then the buggers will actually have to follow them.
Added benefits (and the main point of external consultants): you won't get labelled as 'that irritating bugger who asked us all those questions and is really after my job' and you get to carry on with your day job and not get bogged down in a side project.
I've got personal experience of wikis and Sharepoint and, by the fact of their very existence they will not be used - because your less-than-enthusiastic colleagues will call it a 'toy' and not use it (they'll call it 'your wiki', or 'your sharepoint' and you'll be stuck with maintaining it and helping them type things into it for all time
One final thing, make sure that the procedures are added to your bonus / review / disciplinary procedures
One final, final thing - do NOT take personal ownership of this problem - get your manager to see it was their idea - or you'll be doomed.
>> "What would happen if the problem they claim to address was actually solved?" If the answer to that question is "they would go out of business", then their motivation for always treating the symptoms and never treating the underlying cause will become clear.
...
You know, I ask that of the War on Terror / Drugs / Communists / File Sharers on a daily basis
well I could argue some your points (the whole debate is not just about business models, it's also about political models and the interaction of the two; basic economics is really up in the air on both sides - for example I could suggest that the cost of copying music and movies is zero so how come media companies charge for distribution and suck up hydrocarbons for CDs/DVDs and cases that are not necessary; there's lots of free content out there - even /. is free - and lots of software we all uses daily is free so how come one-shot movies and music are not?)
and I could also say that I don't agree with everything that the pirate party says, but what I really want to say to you is that we NEED this debate to happen - and we NEED people to stand against the incumbents - media conglomorates, governments, accepted viewpoints - and do so in a non-violent way
in time the pirate party's views will get more depth and they will think through some of the libertarian ideologies they have and will develop into something pretty good - just like the green party has done - until then we need to support them
the last thing we need to be is stuck in the 20th century with non-libertarian politics and a society that doesn't fully utlise the liberative power of technology
I was really responding to the "Post your copyright free work URLs here. Right now please." bit in the parent to my message. Though of course, without copyright...
Unfortunately I'm one of those suckers who pays for stuff - music (almost none now because it's all crap), movies (but I haven't been to the kino for a while), software (couple of hundred quid to MS every year, oh, and lots of FOSS).
But I AM saying stick two fingers up to 'those people'. As a general principle. test and challenge everything, especially the consensus. Especially your own most deeply held beliefs.
We must always test and oppose the consensus and the ruling classes otherwise they become overwhelmed with their own power and run riot.
Right now film makers, musicians, software developers, artists, all have the opportunity to change the way they work thanks to new technology. Produce smaller movies with less of the violent, macho, sexist themes that infect so-called blockbusters (Sundance is an example of people already doing that). Live music instead of recorded marketing crap (live musicians whose opportunity to earn has been eroded by recorded music tried to fight for their rights a couple of years ago in the UK with a campaign called 'keep music live'). FOSS software instead of flaky commercial crap (and boy is that happening).
The corporations and lawyers behind the companies once responsible for developing and nurturing these people have long since shifted their focus from artist development and R&D to marketing and rights-management. The latter required them to propose and support laws to protect their corporate rights. This is where they went wrong.
The Pirate Party are opposing and doing so in a non-violent way - and we need people like this. We need people who oppose the consensus, fight for rights we may ourselves not really agree with.
Oh gawd - now you're adding insult to insult - limey is such a derogatory term - you bastard! ;)
;)
Seriously though, I guess I get where you're coming from but please note that it is not acceptable to compliment the British - we hate being complimented because it sometimes makes us feel patriotic and that makes us feel pretty embarrassed and foolish (because we don't like to be associated with our pretty terrible crimes of the past and the twat-headed facists like the British National Party and the odd lot who sing at the Proms and wear Union Jack flags). It's much better to take the piss out of us and tell us how useless we are - we like that.
Just don't call us limeys.
PS - fuck off
No need, just look for something called Linux, and Python, and take a gander at Sourceforge, and Gnu.
Hell - the whole frickin' world is running on computers and the most powerful tools are open-source. Probably / definitely provides more financial contribution than the world wide music and film industries combined.
More depressing still is your use of 'us and the Brits' - I know, 51st state and all that, but we Brits did do somethings ourselves and should not be referred to in such a sidekick sort of way.
;)
Oh, fuck you America, you fucking bunch of fat-arsed, over-consuming, celebrity obsessed, loose moraled, fornicating, right-wing, fascist, bigoted, interfering, dullard, fuck-wits - before I forget
... because he's really trying to articulate the possibilities for new business and political models that the Internet presents us with. The EFF, the Pirate Party, RMS, Cory Doctorow, hell, even Slashdot - they're all part of the same revolution that most of us who read /. are part of - and we need to take what Falkvinge says seriously.
Remember - big businesses, media empire, the government they've all got a natural, and completely understandable, vested interest in not letting the Internet become the medium for new business and political models - and only guys like Falkvinge are standing up to them.
We may not agree with everything they say but we all need to support them vocally and financially so there are at least some counterbalances to the opposing forces.
I've always believed that the incumbents in any situation should be challenged and attacked (non-violently) - the bigger the incumbent, the greater and more vociferous the challenge.
The EFF and the Pirate Party aren't big enough yet - so let's support them - I know I'm going to right now.
... from the pro-NASA panel he asked - here's comment number 5 from the blog (and there are plenty of others):
"Everyone seems to be in agreement! I would think so being that 4 of the 5 panel memebers are current or former NASA employees! Perhaps more care should have been taken in ensuring the diversity of the panel. There must be some arguments to the contrary out there and I'd be curious to see those debated as well.
-- Posted by Mike Mogie"
The negative stigma is totally undeserved - my first booze, first porn movie, first uncomfortable moment with a previously best friend (I killed his paladin and he got upset, not the other thing ... that happened later on a railway station in Liverpool ;, continuous outlet for pent up male aggression - all happened whilst playing D&D.
Paranoia taught me about the absurdity of the real world (and yes, I still approach people in authority with a mixture of fear and loathing and wishing I had an ultraviolet pistol).
Runequest taught me that even ducks can be heroic and that the world is just one big lozenge.
007 RPG taught me about guns and cars and beautiful foils.
2000AD taught me that everyone in the world falls into one of several UPPs.
Trollquest showed me how most modern fiction is formulaic and soul-less.
Of course while I was doing all that I passed up the chance to join the local boat club, get drunk and laid on a regular basis, and shower in front of other naked men.
Bah.
Well I'm only going by own experience and it shows that Wolfbane is correct for my area (and the electronic desk staff at my local Tesco said that anyone buying a set top box from them will need a new aerial - which kind of confirms it for me). You're lucky i guess.
Not sure about Wolfsbane being hardcoded - maybe the digital map isn't really changing a lot right now. I'll ask them.
The map at ukfree.tv http://www.ukfree.tv/mapsofsignal_maxnewaerial.php suggests that a lot of people will need an new aerial, because the existing aerial will need to pick up wideband.
I hate to reference a story on The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/10/telebusillis_digital_tv_analysis/) but it is one that drew my attention to the Whitby case (http://www.whitbygazette.co.uk/stories-of-the-week/Whitby-TV-mast-switchon-delayed.3242764.jp) where people in one area are going to lose their analogue TV signal, will not receive a digital TV signal, and will need sign up for cable or freesat instead - additional costs for something they already pay for.
I really think that we're being ripped off - paying for something we don't need or want.
Sorry to disagree but I am unable to receive digital TV through my aerial at all. And I'm not alone.
The map at the apparently reputable http://www.wolfbane.com/articles/ukdcmap.htm shows most areas of the country require an amplified extra hi-gain aerial (as of April 2007). The areas that require just a set-top aerial are very small so you're probably just lucky.
The Freeview postcode checker at http://www.freeview.co.uk/ tells me that I won't receive channels until 2012.
When that happens I will also probably have to upgrade to a wideband aerial (as will most houses in most areas that do not receive their signal from Crystal Palace).
And here's the problem: I never asked for digital, I can say with confidence that most people didn't - but now I have to put up with extra costs and hassle, AND paying a TV licence that funds BBC channels I can't watch until 2012. Hooray! Who asked them to do this? I'd rather pay for more police on the streets, etc, etc. OR how about universal broadband?