You could bring a tech in that spends 4 hours at $125 per, so it might cost you $500 plus parts, but your employee whose job it is to do something else is still generating revnue, and your data will be accessible much sooner.
Or what could be even worse: completely losing valuable BILLING information and work you've done on your computer for your clients which ultimately results in a big fat $0 paycheck that month. It's not just the current time that's money, but your past time spent and data created in support of the future billing of your clients that's your money too.
I too live in Columbus, and the recent MicroCenter add I got in the mail was promoting a simple, but quite usable desktop computer sans monitor with Linspire 5.0 for a whopping $199. Personally I think something like that is going to stick out as a REALLY CHEAP alternative to getting a PC in your home to the low-income crowd in this town sooner or later. It may also appeal to someone like me who wants a simple, cheap Linux computer to run my home theater using MythTV, 'cause all I would need to do is get a Hauppauge card, install it, and download a few extra drivers for it to run MythTV ok. Granted, I already have the equipment to do that myself, but for the younger IT professionals without all the spare equipment sitting around their house this might just start moving off the shelf quickly. One of those boxes would actually make a nice simple file server for my wife's small office, come to think of it...
From the "whurleyvision" blog: Who knows--in the not so distant future, "countermeasures" (not "Strike Back" capabilities) may end up being a feature we all look for before deploying any security software. Perhaps tools with these features will come from collaborative efforts between the open source and security communities; which would give everyone equal input on their design, functionality, and ultimately their deployment. In the end a more secure, reliable, networking infrastructure is in the best interest of society as a whole. That's why I've made it one of my goals to do everything I can to move people towards a "Community Centric" approach to securing the assets we all depend on.
Now, I'm not going to advocate breaking "the law" directly in this post, but allow me to raise an important question to the/. community. Do we really want "a more secure, reliable, networking infrastructure" in the end? Allow me to now elaborate on that question.
A more secure, reliable, networking infrastructure sounds great on the face of it, but what if we were talking about a corporate infrastructure instead of a networking infrastructure? In other words, big barriers to entry for the little guys to innovate, force change, develop new things, and build NEW corporations. Same goes for networking I think. Script kiddies are not innovative as they are simply piggybacking off of others works, BUT they have been innovative in pushing every company to be highly concerned about protecting themselves against cracking and DDOS'ing, which HAS been good for us, the consumers, as the data and services that these companies provide to us is ultimately more secure, reliable, etc. Those who are doing the really devious crack attacks are being more innovative, and are forcing organizations with a 'net presence to build ever better security defenses to guard against these attacks. These new defense mechanisms in turn often get passed on to other like-minded individuals who desire the same security. I guess that ultimately I am trying to say that while we do want "more reliability" at certain levels, at other levels lack of reliability is what helps spur innovation, change, and pre-emptive corrections to problems which left unchecked, could cause massive, long-lasting damage when a chink in the armor is finally exploited.
So is "strike back" a good thing? Almost every time it is not going to help in any way. With our "War on Terror" we certainly had some excellent early gains, but now we're in a long, slow decay of gains due to the loss of life and new difficulties we created through our counterstrikes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush may have made the world a safer place immediately after 9/11, but now we have the Patriot Act, thousands of dead soldiers and civilians in a war that ultimately cannot "end", and what I perceive to be a whole new level of various threats to our country because we have only encouraged the terrorists to come up with better and more lethal attacks in response to our counterattack.
So, in summary, yes defending against malicious network activities is good for everyone, but I think that counterstrikes against an amorphous enemy with difficult to define borders (terrorists can come from any country, just as ip addresses can be spoofed to be marked as coming from ANY organization) in response to these attacks pose a serious risk to the network that we call "The Internet" because it will only increase the desire to make more chaos on it ultimately than it will to dissuade it. Then we get more government control, more devestating attacks, and more polarization of "sides" to the war on network intrusion. Let's keep these issues in mind when building our network security plans.
The startup folder in Windows IS good for auto-starting things that you want to have auto-start, but from my perspective not being told during the install that Acrobat will be autoloaded every time Windows starts up, AND that it's going to hog 15-30M bytes of my system RAM just to be able to say "loads faster than v6.0!!!" on their marketspeak webpage is insulting and a big load of BS.
That's only because it preloads itself via the ever-popular evil that is the Windows Start-Up folder. Kick Adobe out of there and it's right back to it's bloated, slow-loading self.
ROFL! While I know this post was meant to be funny, it's funny because it's definitely NOT true! My wife and I after seeing Star Wars 3 in the theater a couple of weeks ago decided to watch the "original" 3 movie series which I had on VHS (the extended version, hadn't watched those tapes much). Before the opening credits were done we couldn't take it anymore and went and bought the full-DVD box set. VHS just looked that bad in comparison to my component video hooked up DVD player. I don't even have that fancy of a DVD player! So your post was funny because the vinyl/CD argument might *just barely* be valid, but the VHS/DVD one is definitely NOT! Analog "ambiance" on a VHS tape equates to a crappy picture, not a "richer" one as goes the argument over vinyl records vs. CD's.
Is it just me, or are all the "Outlook lovers" those Slashdot users with an ID greater than 500000, and all of the rest of us with an UID less than 500000 are either OK with it, or don't like it, or have actually used something else? Seems to me like this whole thread is getting swamped with "ooh, and you just can't beat Feature Set XYZ in Outlook 2003! I mean, ever since Outlook 2003 came out I just can't live without Outlook 2003!" Please! I've used Outlook before, and as others have pointed out -> it's just as non-intuitive with it's many "features" and menus hidden all over the place as any other Microsoft product. Hearing all these "Outlook 2003 rocks!" plugs makes most of these comments look like they're coming straight out of Redmond from a bunch of semi-employed corporate Microsoft schills posting from their local Starbucks.
Personally, I've found that the PalmOS calendaring system is the best in terms of ease of use, logical setup of options, and ability to keep yourself on track with meetings, appt's, all day events, etc. No, I don't fly overseas. No, I don't work with other people from different time zones very often. So PalmOS fits my bill. I also am forced to use Lotus Notes at work. I hate it, but mainly because out of all our systems it seems to have the most problems. And the many menus and scheduling ways of doing things just suck. Not easy to use at all. We're NOT allowed to even use Outlook in any of its many incarnations, but if we did I'm sure I'd be ripping my hair out even more than I currently am with Lotus Notes based on my personal experience at home with Outlook. And YES, I work in a medium-sized company with very qualified server admins who know what they're doing when they set up an email server. My frustrations with Outlook would certainly stem from the crazy ways in which Microsoft likes to set up their toolbar menus and the handling of something as simple as writing a quick email message. No, don't move the bullet point over there! No, I don't want it in HTML format! No, I don't want XYZ to happen, quit asking me!!
Well this is interesting and all considering we're all bantering back and forth about the ethics to be known from one little chart with some percentages on it from a SURVEY of researchers and scientists.
Lest we so quickly forget, I am compelled to repeat the oft quoted phrase: "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics."
And now, this one: "These aren't the statistics you're looking for... You can go about your business... move along."
Ah, but I disagree about Constantine. The real revolution between "Judaism" and "Christianity" occurred a few hundred years earlier with Jesus Christ, the spreading of The Gospels throughout the Mediterranean (well, the primarily Roman/Greek portion of it), and the eventual overtaking of "Christians" as the dominant and popular religion of Constantine's time. (Read "The Divine Conspiracy" by Dallas Willard - I promise, it's not gobbedly-gook like most pop-Christian books of today)
Constantine's move was, quite like you say, a blending of several religions - but this was primarily designed to be a political move on Rome's part to maintain control, not a purely noble religious one.
Yes, but I guess I forgot to mention how I don't like how basically it's still the human's feet touching the ground, the humans hands touching the objects, etc. So stomping on an ant with the force of Mack truck powered by this suit would do you no good as it liquified every bone in your foot from the impact force. I'm just trying to point out the fact that this is Good For Old People or disabled people, but not good enough for every slashdotter's Mechwarrior wet dreams.
But this isn't going to be intuitive enough for many tasks I think. What we need is something similar to the "power suit" in Aliens, but without having it so directly attached to the wearer of the suit. In other words, my muscular motions should be interpreted within microseconds and the suit responds accordingly. To me it would only feel natural if walking around in a 2-ton suit of metal parts felt exactly the same as walking around in 2-pounds worth of clothing.
OK, so mice suck as an input device to our computers. The question then is: When do we get the cool screens where you can move stuff around, zoom in/out, etc. all "on screen" like Tom Cruise did in Minority Report? I know that would certainly improve MY productivity at work. (I usually have several spreadsheets, databases, and documents open all at once, and FREQUENTLY am jumping back and forth between many of them.)
Would everyone please stop calling judges "activists"? Any judge who doesn't want to be voted out of office, disbarred, or humiliated for being a complete dumbass will NOT do things contrary to the laws of this country. The judge's job and mandate by the legal profession's code of ethics is to basically uphold the laws that are being argued over in their court. YES, that is going to cause further disagreement amongst judges and the public at large over how to interpret a law that is not specific enough for the case at hand, but that does not mean that the judge in question is an "activist" working diligently to change the law. That's the politician's job.
If judges are not coming down on defendants with an iron fist for swapping entertainment media - more power to them! It IS ridiculous in the spirit and the letter of the law to be giving more time and penalties to "file swappers" than we give to all the psycho's out there causing havoc to everyone around them through their blatantly illegal actions. *cough* Enron executives *cough*. So stop calling them "activist judges", and refer to them instead as thoughtful judges who are considering each case carefully, not just how the RIAA or MPAA (or whatever your own country's media industry middlemen are called) tells them to.
"Nobody wants to admit that most of the money funding open source development, maybe 80% to 90%, is coming from companies that are not open source companies themselves. What happens when these sponsors go away and there is not enough money floating around?
When you have to guess at the amount of money being spent by companies on a "project" as amorphous as "open source software" then you're almost certainly not correct about the numbers.
But if the world goes to 100% open source, innovation goes to zero. The open source guys hate it when I say this, but it's true.
And I agree, this is the biggest load of crap statement of all time. Everyone likes to bash the Linux/GNU "hippies", but seriously, what type of crack is McVoy smoking to make such a logically and technically impossible statement??? The open source guys hate it when he says this because it just doesn't make any sense and is such a one-sided statement that it's just preposterous.
I do. Several years back I began getting access to so many different development servers, boxes, software packages, and websites that I couldn't keep anything straight anymore. I decided that PGP was the way to go. I've since switched to GPG, but the concept is the same.
I created an HTML file at the time, and listed everything out using a table format to store the website, software, etc. along with my username, password, and any other pertinent info needed to access the specific system. Then I signed and encrypted my html file with my GPG key. Virtually unbreakable (2048-bit) file, easy to remember passwords. (I only need to remember my GPG key now!) Yes, my GPG passphrase is long and is ONLY used as my GPG passphrase.
So now I have a file which I can email around to myself, store on my work laptop, and save out to my shared drive with little fear of anyone ever cracking my password schemes 'cause they're all different and constantly changing. Granted, I'm not usually that cavalier with this file, but at least I have that flexibility available when I need it.
I might add that I recently received my copy of "The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe" about 2 weeks ago due directly to the review about it available here on Slashdot. Now, Mr. Penrose may not provide the full text of his book online at once like Mr. Doctorow, but for me that doesn't matter. I want the hard copy book that I can keep around for years to come and read at my leisure, without having to have some electronic thing with me to do so. I most likely would have never heard about this book if it wasn't for the review on Slashdot.
I once had a roommate for a whopping 3 months who probably had this Asperger's Syndrome I think. I took him on as a roommate knowing he was pretty eccentric, but didn't understand just how difficult it would end up being to live with this person. Mind you, he was a very nice guy in his mid-20's like me, but he had very few social skills. I would want to go hang out with my buddies or go on a date and he would invariably ask me EVERY TIME I was going out if he could come along. Sorry pal, but you would definitely kill my mojo if I was seen at the bars I'm going to with you.
One time me and a half-dozen friends were all sitting in a circle playing with our friend's new golden retriever puppy that was only 8 weeks old. It was all hyper and didn't control it's limbs well yet so it was fun watching him roll around and stuff. My roommate just sat and stared with a crooked smile on his face. He didn't "get" it I guess.
He also, of course, did NOT respond to sarcasm. I think he just kept quiet to mask what he knew was odd about himself, but trust me it could be strange trying to talk to him; especially when you're very upset and laying on the sarcasm and verbal attack and he's not even responding to your emotional state.
Interestingly, he now has his Masters in Civil Engineering and has a good job working for a city in Indiana planning roads, zoning, etc. So while his social skills were seriously lacking, he was still a contributing member of society as much as any of the rest of us. (In a purely economical sense of course) He was also very knowledgeable, even if apparently "unwise" at times due to his social inabilities.
You sound like the same type of schmuck who blames lawyers for the world's ills, because of course it's all the lawyer's faults for people fighting with each other for YEARS over custody of kids, who gets the house, and a million other nit-picky things when they get divorced... or battle royale's between company and former employee, or two organizations who hate each other, or...
Suck it up and take some responsibility for your actions!
Unions were definitely useful back in the day in the US when unscrupulous employers basically forced their "employees" (which were usually just one distinct ethnic group that just got off the boat, not some "by will employee" who chose to do that job) to work 16 hours a day, buy all their basic necessities from the "company", and live in "company" housing which was filthy, disease ridden, and at times dangerous due to the construction of the facility. Unions back then definitely made a difference, and in fact changed laws in the US to stop such racial segregation and indentured servitude from happening in the future. Well, it's the future NOW, and if you don't like your job and all the money you're spending: STOP! Your NOT a "wage" slave today except by your own damn will. YOU bought all that stuff, YOU maxed out your credit cards, and YOU purchased those huge-ass SUV's that you can't afford without your current salary. Get off your high horse already!
Oh, by no means do I expect the US to remain the superpower that it is/was in the 20th century. I was merely hoping to delay our nation's decline until after I'm dead and gone. Given I probably have a life expectancy of an additional 50-70 years, I'm hoping we have one more Next Big Thing to keep us going strong until I die.
Besides, the European nations are still all pretty well off, even after numerous major wars, and nearly constant fighting for a millenia (the "Dark Ages"). They may be shadows of their former selves, but Europe is still a decent place to live. More decent than Mozambique or Argentina.
Interesting analogy, but remember that computing these days is all about communication. CRM packages, databases, and websites are the rage now; not some military trajectory calculating device called a 'computer'. While it's true that the rest of the world will eventually catch up and/or surpass our lazy asses in the computer sciences, I would hope that we'll have moved on to the Next Big Thing by that time and that a job in CS will be like a job in the auto-industry. i.e. dull, not glamorous, and doesn't pay all that spectacularly, but it's a *good job*.
But have you tried XFCE on a minimal install using Debian or Gentoo? Mandrake, RedHat, and Suse all install a ton of bloat, it's true, but it doesn't HAVE to be that way...
I also agree. I lost my key to GetRight about a year ago, and within a few hours of me requesting some way to recover my key to reinstall it on my new computer, a professional, friendly email was waiting in my inbox with the necessary key. I find it pretty funny that a SMALL company would actually have such trouble keeping track of their customers, especially the business ones!
Unfortunately, I am either at work or school approximately 12 hours out of the day, 5 days a week, so spending the time and money to build such an elaborate system is just not even close to an option for me right now. Yes, I'd like something that ridiculously cool in the future, but I'm 28, have a very busy life, and don't really need entertained THAT badly at home right now. Sleeping is entertainment enough for me right now.
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Or what could be even worse: completely losing valuable BILLING information and work you've done on your computer for your clients which ultimately results in a big fat $0 paycheck that month. It's not just the current time that's money, but your past time spent and data created in support of the future billing of your clients that's your money too.
In light of my post on this very issue yesterday.
I too live in Columbus, and the recent MicroCenter add I got in the mail was promoting a simple, but quite usable desktop computer sans monitor with Linspire 5.0 for a whopping $199. Personally I think something like that is going to stick out as a REALLY CHEAP alternative to getting a PC in your home to the low-income crowd in this town sooner or later. It may also appeal to someone like me who wants a simple, cheap Linux computer to run my home theater using MythTV, 'cause all I would need to do is get a Hauppauge card, install it, and download a few extra drivers for it to run MythTV ok. Granted, I already have the equipment to do that myself, but for the younger IT professionals without all the spare equipment sitting around their house this might just start moving off the shelf quickly. One of those boxes would actually make a nice simple file server for my wife's small office, come to think of it...
Who knows--in the not so distant future, "countermeasures" (not "Strike Back" capabilities) may end up being a feature we all look for before deploying any security software. Perhaps tools with these features will come from collaborative efforts between the open source and security communities; which would give everyone equal input on their design, functionality, and ultimately their deployment. In the end a more secure, reliable, networking infrastructure is in the best interest of society as a whole. That's why I've made it one of my goals to do everything I can to move people towards a "Community Centric" approach to securing the assets we all depend on.
Now, I'm not going to advocate breaking "the law" directly in this post, but allow me to raise an important question to the /. community. Do we really want "a more secure, reliable, networking infrastructure" in the end? Allow me to now elaborate on that question.
A more secure, reliable, networking infrastructure sounds great on the face of it, but what if we were talking about a corporate infrastructure instead of a networking infrastructure? In other words, big barriers to entry for the little guys to innovate, force change, develop new things, and build NEW corporations. Same goes for networking I think. Script kiddies are not innovative as they are simply piggybacking off of others works, BUT they have been innovative in pushing every company to be highly concerned about protecting themselves against cracking and DDOS'ing, which HAS been good for us, the consumers, as the data and services that these companies provide to us is ultimately more secure, reliable, etc. Those who are doing the really devious crack attacks are being more innovative, and are forcing organizations with a 'net presence to build ever better security defenses to guard against these attacks. These new defense mechanisms in turn often get passed on to other like-minded individuals who desire the same security. I guess that ultimately I am trying to say that while we do want "more reliability" at certain levels, at other levels lack of reliability is what helps spur innovation, change, and pre-emptive corrections to problems which left unchecked, could cause massive, long-lasting damage when a chink in the armor is finally exploited.
So is "strike back" a good thing? Almost every time it is not going to help in any way. With our "War on Terror" we certainly had some excellent early gains, but now we're in a long, slow decay of gains due to the loss of life and new difficulties we created through our counterstrikes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush may have made the world a safer place immediately after 9/11, but now we have the Patriot Act, thousands of dead soldiers and civilians in a war that ultimately cannot "end", and what I perceive to be a whole new level of various threats to our country because we have only encouraged the terrorists to come up with better and more lethal attacks in response to our counterattack.
So, in summary, yes defending against malicious network activities is good for everyone, but I think that counterstrikes against an amorphous enemy with difficult to define borders (terrorists can come from any country, just as ip addresses can be spoofed to be marked as coming from ANY organization) in response to these attacks pose a serious risk to the network that we call "The Internet" because it will only increase the desire to make more chaos on it ultimately than it will to dissuade it. Then we get more government control, more devestating attacks, and more polarization of "sides" to the war on network intrusion. Let's keep these issues in mind when building our network security plans.
The startup folder in Windows IS good for auto-starting things that you want to have auto-start, but from my perspective not being told during the install that Acrobat will be autoloaded every time Windows starts up, AND that it's going to hog 15-30M bytes of my system RAM just to be able to say "loads faster than v6.0!!!" on their marketspeak webpage is insulting and a big load of BS.
That's only because it preloads itself via the ever-popular evil that is the Windows Start-Up folder. Kick Adobe out of there and it's right back to it's bloated, slow-loading self.
ROFL! While I know this post was meant to be funny, it's funny because it's definitely NOT true! My wife and I after seeing Star Wars 3 in the theater a couple of weeks ago decided to watch the "original" 3 movie series which I had on VHS (the extended version, hadn't watched those tapes much). Before the opening credits were done we couldn't take it anymore and went and bought the full-DVD box set. VHS just looked that bad in comparison to my component video hooked up DVD player. I don't even have that fancy of a DVD player! So your post was funny because the vinyl/CD argument might *just barely* be valid, but the VHS/DVD one is definitely NOT! Analog "ambiance" on a VHS tape equates to a crappy picture, not a "richer" one as goes the argument over vinyl records vs. CD's.
Personally, I've found that the PalmOS calendaring system is the best in terms of ease of use, logical setup of options, and ability to keep yourself on track with meetings, appt's, all day events, etc. No, I don't fly overseas. No, I don't work with other people from different time zones very often. So PalmOS fits my bill. I also am forced to use Lotus Notes at work. I hate it, but mainly because out of all our systems it seems to have the most problems. And the many menus and scheduling ways of doing things just suck. Not easy to use at all. We're NOT allowed to even use Outlook in any of its many incarnations, but if we did I'm sure I'd be ripping my hair out even more than I currently am with Lotus Notes based on my personal experience at home with Outlook. And YES, I work in a medium-sized company with very qualified server admins who know what they're doing when they set up an email server. My frustrations with Outlook would certainly stem from the crazy ways in which Microsoft likes to set up their toolbar menus and the handling of something as simple as writing a quick email message. No, don't move the bullet point over there! No, I don't want it in HTML format! No, I don't want XYZ to happen, quit asking me!!
Well this is interesting and all considering we're all bantering back and forth about the ethics to be known from one little chart with some percentages on it from a SURVEY of researchers and scientists.
Lest we so quickly forget, I am compelled to repeat the oft quoted phrase:
"There are lies, damn lies, and statistics."
And now, this one:
"These aren't the statistics you're looking for... You can go about your business... move along."
Constantine's move was, quite like you say, a blending of several religions - but this was primarily designed to be a political move on Rome's part to maintain control, not a purely noble religious one.
This guy is definitely NOT l337 - that BIOS screenshot was running a version of Phoenix BIOS!! Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children!
Yes, but I guess I forgot to mention how I don't like how basically it's still the human's feet touching the ground, the humans hands touching the objects, etc. So stomping on an ant with the force of Mack truck powered by this suit would do you no good as it liquified every bone in your foot from the impact force. I'm just trying to point out the fact that this is Good For Old People or disabled people, but not good enough for every slashdotter's Mechwarrior wet dreams.
But this isn't going to be intuitive enough for many tasks I think. What we need is something similar to the "power suit" in Aliens, but without having it so directly attached to the wearer of the suit. In other words, my muscular motions should be interpreted within microseconds and the suit responds accordingly. To me it would only feel natural if walking around in a 2-ton suit of metal parts felt exactly the same as walking around in 2-pounds worth of clothing.
OK, so mice suck as an input device to our computers. The question then is: When do we get the cool screens where you can move stuff around, zoom in/out, etc. all "on screen" like Tom Cruise did in Minority Report? I know that would certainly improve MY productivity at work. (I usually have several spreadsheets, databases, and documents open all at once, and FREQUENTLY am jumping back and forth between many of them.)
If judges are not coming down on defendants with an iron fist for swapping entertainment media - more power to them! It IS ridiculous in the spirit and the letter of the law to be giving more time and penalties to "file swappers" than we give to all the psycho's out there causing havoc to everyone around them through their blatantly illegal actions. *cough* Enron executives *cough*. So stop calling them "activist judges", and refer to them instead as thoughtful judges who are considering each case carefully, not just how the RIAA or MPAA (or whatever your own country's media industry middlemen are called) tells them to.
When you have to guess at the amount of money being spent by companies on a "project" as amorphous as "open source software" then you're almost certainly not correct about the numbers.
But if the world goes to 100% open source, innovation goes to zero. The open source guys hate it when I say this, but it's true.
And I agree, this is the biggest load of crap statement of all time. Everyone likes to bash the Linux/GNU "hippies", but seriously, what type of crack is McVoy smoking to make such a logically and technically impossible statement??? The open source guys hate it when he says this because it just doesn't make any sense and is such a one-sided statement that it's just preposterous.
I do. Several years back I began getting access to so many different development servers, boxes, software packages, and websites that I couldn't keep anything straight anymore. I decided that PGP was the way to go. I've since switched to GPG, but the concept is the same.
I created an HTML file at the time, and listed everything out using a table format to store the website, software, etc. along with my username, password, and any other pertinent info needed to access the specific system. Then I signed and encrypted my html file with my GPG key. Virtually unbreakable (2048-bit) file, easy to remember passwords. (I only need to remember my GPG key now!) Yes, my GPG passphrase is long and is ONLY used as my GPG passphrase.
So now I have a file which I can email around to myself, store on my work laptop, and save out to my shared drive with little fear of anyone ever cracking my password schemes 'cause they're all different and constantly changing. Granted, I'm not usually that cavalier with this file, but at least I have that flexibility available when I need it.
Well said by Cory.
I might add that I recently received my copy of "The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe" about 2 weeks ago due directly to the review about it available here on Slashdot. Now, Mr. Penrose may not provide the full text of his book online at once like Mr. Doctorow, but for me that doesn't matter. I want the hard copy book that I can keep around for years to come and read at my leisure, without having to have some electronic thing with me to do so. I most likely would have never heard about this book if it wasn't for the review on Slashdot.
Interesting. On a serious, non-sarcastic note:
I once had a roommate for a whopping 3 months who probably had this Asperger's Syndrome I think. I took him on as a roommate knowing he was pretty eccentric, but didn't understand just how difficult it would end up being to live with this person. Mind you, he was a very nice guy in his mid-20's like me, but he had very few social skills. I would want to go hang out with my buddies or go on a date and he would invariably ask me EVERY TIME I was going out if he could come along. Sorry pal, but you would definitely kill my mojo if I was seen at the bars I'm going to with you.
One time me and a half-dozen friends were all sitting in a circle playing with our friend's new golden retriever puppy that was only 8 weeks old. It was all hyper and didn't control it's limbs well yet so it was fun watching him roll around and stuff. My roommate just sat and stared with a crooked smile on his face. He didn't "get" it I guess.
He also, of course, did NOT respond to sarcasm. I think he just kept quiet to mask what he knew was odd about himself, but trust me it could be strange trying to talk to him; especially when you're very upset and laying on the sarcasm and verbal attack and he's not even responding to your emotional state.
Interestingly, he now has his Masters in Civil Engineering and has a good job working for a city in Indiana planning roads, zoning, etc. So while his social skills were seriously lacking, he was still a contributing member of society as much as any of the rest of us. (In a purely economical sense of course) He was also very knowledgeable, even if apparently "unwise" at times due to his social inabilities.
You sound like the same type of schmuck who blames lawyers for the world's ills, because of course it's all the lawyer's faults for people fighting with each other for YEARS over custody of kids, who gets the house, and a million other nit-picky things when they get divorced... or battle royale's between company and former employee, or two organizations who hate each other, or...
Suck it up and take some responsibility for your actions!
Unions were definitely useful back in the day in the US when unscrupulous employers basically forced their "employees" (which were usually just one distinct ethnic group that just got off the boat, not some "by will employee" who chose to do that job) to work 16 hours a day, buy all their basic necessities from the "company", and live in "company" housing which was filthy, disease ridden, and at times dangerous due to the construction of the facility. Unions back then definitely made a difference, and in fact changed laws in the US to stop such racial segregation and indentured servitude from happening in the future. Well, it's the future NOW, and if you don't like your job and all the money you're spending: STOP! Your NOT a "wage" slave today except by your own damn will. YOU bought all that stuff, YOU maxed out your credit cards, and YOU purchased those huge-ass SUV's that you can't afford without your current salary. Get off your high horse already!
Oh, by no means do I expect the US to remain the superpower that it is/was in the 20th century. I was merely hoping to delay our nation's decline until after I'm dead and gone. Given I probably have a life expectancy of an additional 50-70 years, I'm hoping we have one more Next Big Thing to keep us going strong until I die.
Besides, the European nations are still all pretty well off, even after numerous major wars, and nearly constant fighting for a millenia (the "Dark Ages"). They may be shadows of their former selves, but Europe is still a decent place to live. More decent than Mozambique or Argentina.
Interesting analogy, but remember that computing these days is all about communication. CRM packages, databases, and websites are the rage now; not some military trajectory calculating device called a 'computer'. While it's true that the rest of the world will eventually catch up and/or surpass our lazy asses in the computer sciences, I would hope that we'll have moved on to the Next Big Thing by that time and that a job in CS will be like a job in the auto-industry. i.e. dull, not glamorous, and doesn't pay all that spectacularly, but it's a *good job*.
But have you tried XFCE on a minimal install using Debian or Gentoo? Mandrake, RedHat, and Suse all install a ton of bloat, it's true, but it doesn't HAVE to be that way...
I also agree. I lost my key to GetRight about a year ago, and within a few hours of me requesting some way to recover my key to reinstall it on my new computer, a professional, friendly email was waiting in my inbox with the necessary key. I find it pretty funny that a SMALL company would actually have such trouble keeping track of their customers, especially the business ones!
Unfortunately, I am either at work or school approximately 12 hours out of the day, 5 days a week, so spending the time and money to build such an elaborate system is just not even close to an option for me right now. Yes, I'd like something that ridiculously cool in the future, but I'm 28, have a very busy life, and don't really need entertained THAT badly at home right now. Sleeping is entertainment enough for me right now.