Don't know about Europe, but in the US, if the call center is elsewhere in the state it's state jurisdiction, unless they can prove at any point the action crossed state lines, like to a phone switch in another state, then back into the original state. If it crosses state lines, it becomes a federal case.
And since just about everything in the southeastern US goes through Atlanta at some point at layer two in data or voice, at least in this part of the world, any "computer crime" _could_ be argued that it should be prosecuted in federal court. IE in a Charlotte NC to Durham NC circuit that looks point to point to the end user, usually requires a path through the DACS in Atlanta.
There is a significant segment of the US Banking, Insurance and Healthcare billing infrastructure that is managed off-shore. This means that someone in India has all the admin rights they need to packet sniff, say, an ATM connection or a mainframe access that some clerk in Boise uses to input your info for that mortgage/car loan/credit card. Chew on that for a second.
Off-shoring data entry was bad, off-shoring call centers marginally worse, but giving the ability to bring most of our monetary system's infrastructure to it's knees over to another country, any country, is a very,very bad idea.
The short-sightedness (is that a word?)of the concept baffles me. You find a off-shore person who will work for a fraction of the cost of his local counterpart and use him to replace the local guy. The off-shore asset doesn't pay taxes into the US system, he doesn't use the US facilities (banks, hospitals, insurance companies, etc) that he supports. The local guy no longer pays taxes, does drain the system elsewhere through aid programs, defaults on bank loans and credit cards, no longer can afford private insurance, defaults on hospital bills etc, doesn't buy the big ticket items (like cars) anymore, which drives up the cost of living for everyone. It's a downward spiral; sure, in the short term, corporate profits look better, but you've incurred basic erosion of the customer base. It happened in the textile, electronic and automoblie industries and those actually move hard goods back and forth. Moving ones and zeros across the wire it much easier, but potentially much more destructive.
I've seen 6 or 8 episodes from various seasons, and the series just sucked in my opinion. It was like "let's roll every overdone sci-fi cliche into one series and use cheap cheesy special effects to boot...WOW we can get Bruce Boxenleiter and Flounder from Animial House to star?...COOOOOL"
Aside from a suck-ass timeslot, showing the episodes out of order, and preempting it at any and all opportunities, the only thing Fox could have done to do more damage to a good televison series like "Firefly" was to air commercials saying "Don't watch this show, we're just going to cancel it soon and replace it with "Temptation Island", because everyone knows smart people like to watch train wrecks disguised as reality TV."
I heard that if this movie performs well, the studio will film the next two movies back-to-back or at the same time a la "The Matrix" sequels (only better I hope).
As far as a new series goes, although I really prefer that over a spread out movie series, I wouldn't look for that, at least until the movies play out, and then only with some drastic casting changes. Logically if these movies do really well, the cast will be properties considered too hot for series TV. One of the things I LIKED about "Firefly" was the fact that there was a careful "reveal" used on the characters. It definately left you wanting more. In a movie there isn't that much time, and you still have to include plot story and the obligitory "action", in order to make the movie stand on it's on merits. Another thing to look for is that if this movie is really successful, Joss himself will firmly movie into the "movie" realm, something that is kind of eluding him now.
It would ROCK if they used this series to bring back the old "serial" format and could crank out one every 6 or 8 months, or better yet, get picked up by HBO or Showtime for a monthly series, like "The Sopranos". Considering the attention to detail and quality for which HBO has been noted in it's series work, I think Joss would be in his element, and the abbreviated filming cycles would allow the actors plenty of time to work in other projects. AND the DVD marketing of the series episodes already have a proven path to market. The best of all worlds!
This is spot on, but...when was the last time management outsourced management?
Because your boss golfs with the boss of the company down the street, and THEY just outsourced their IT department to some third world nation, to a guy who lives in a mud hut, shits in a rice paddy and timeshares a lightbulb, and they're saving millions!
The object of outsourcing is not to save money, it is to make IT or the outsourced positions look as inept and inefficent as rest of the business. Middle management is as efficent as a monkey humping a football in most cases.
Mod parent up...This is EXACTLY the solution to piracy. Fix a freaking price point the consumer can live with. Adapt a business model that allow the sale at that price point.
Want to know the next big band? The band that has decent music, gets radio play, has a good distribution network, and sells the CD at $5-$8. Oh wait, they'll never get radio play...the same people that own recording labels own the radio stations.
Like I've always said, give the consumer something in the package that they can't get off a pirated copy of the the product...pictures, lyrics, a coupon for a discount price concert ticket, set the price reasonable for middle America, and it will be easier to buy it than "steal" it.
Compromise at 3 weeks as a full time employee, with the second and third week at 2x pay (you should be deep in training your replacement by then). Offer another 3 weeks as a PART TIME CONSULTANT at 4x pay (4hr min with drivetime, if it can't be handled remotely). Ask for a written and signed recommendation also. Your new employer should be impressed with your apparent dedication, if you explain the situation, but leave out the remuneration.
If your boss doesn't agree with your compromises, indicate that he had two years to get someone up to speed, and, since the company could have released you at any time without warning, 2 weeks is generous.
On another tack, I've never left a position without giving my current employer a chance to meet my new offer's pay and _conditions_. Just remember that if your boss DOES meet the new job's offer, he's going to be looking to get rid of you down the road. He's the boss, and it will not sit well with him that you got the upper hand.
Get it in writing, no matter how you decide to handle it.
"Microsoft responded that the tests prove that any operating system is vulnerable when not patched."
No. They KINDA show that only Microsoft products are vulnerable when not patched.
For what it's worth, IMHO, I think that SOME of the home users that don't patch their installs of MSXP are afraid that MS is trying to slip in some software that would automagically inventory thier MP3 collection, hacked software, etc and somehow "break" thier computer. I think many people think of MS operating systems as a "deal with the devil". They really DON'T want to use Windows, but isn't that Linux thing for computer gurus and really hard to use? It's really hard to combat that kind of FUD. If it wasn't, a HUGE number of corporate users would be using a *nix based solution, if only to shrink desktop support staff.
As a networking professional, I can tell you that the constant rolling out of virus and OS patching to our user base DOES impact network traffic and "regular job" throughput, but the top brass sees this as a necessary evil. But of course my corporation has MS stock in it's portfolio....
Pull in fiber during construction, even if it stays dark for a couple years. You never know when fiber could become a viable option for the home. Double up on your CAT5, even if you don't terminate it. You can always terminate it later, into whatever configuration you need at the time.
Like another poster said, every room, and I _would_ include the master bath plus plan for CAT5 for external surveillance and entertaining. Plan for speakers in the bathroom. News or music while you're getting ready for work...nice. Plan for more than one wall per room to be wired, it's a lot nicer NOT to have cables strung out around the room. Pull into a wiring closet to patch everything. Plan for speaker arrangment in the living/media room!!
In short, given the fact that wireless will never be as secure as wired, give yourself plenty of options when it comes to configuration. IMHO, wireless is to retrofit situations that the cable plants doesn't support.
As a counter-point, my Vonage account has been fully operational for several months. The biggest issue I had was "porting" my old POTS number to Vonage. It took a few months, but during that time, Vonage credited my account, essentially providing me my long distance service absolutely free. I'm not sure that it wasn't a reluctance on the part of the POTS provider to release the number.
I work for a large corporation that provides out-sourcing opportunities for smaller companies that do ostensibly the same business. Every day we get requests for small "mom and pop" companies, equipped with a off-brand, off-the-shelf or home rolled VPN concentrator, to connect to our network, without benefit of actually having a tech staff of thier own. It's often pretty funny (in a sad patehtic way) to hear some glorified secretary try to configure their end of a "meet in the middle" connection. I can explain the options available when you get to them, but I can't tell you how to operate in the OS of every piece of equipment ever built. This is a downside of the "plug and play" mentality. It's pretty easy to see that using anything configured by default increases the likelihood that it will be compromised by the less scrupulous among us.
Sure there have been a few glitches in my voice service, but I do not pay for business class on my cable internet service or Vonage. Absent business class connections, I have to concede that "best effort" is in effect here. I may change my mind about Vonage if I ever need to use 911 and find the service is impaired, but as of now, I use my basic Vonage service as well as my basic broadband internet service to conduct business for work frequently.
All that said, the few people I've known that have had problems with Vonage, usually stems from the fact that they are using a router/firewall between themselves and their carrier, and then didn't make any allowance for the VOIP service in the "whiz-bang" internet appliance they bought at Costco/downloaded from the internet. This is why there are certain things you should get professionals to do, or (even better) be willing to invest some time into teaching yourself. Expectations of service levels are moot if you try to do the work yourself, without proper knowledge. I mean, do you blame the power company for the fire if you connected your house to the commercial power grid yourself using unwound wire coat hangers? Sure, it's just point A to point B and wire coat hangers will carry voltage and current, but it's still not a good idea. This is why the government required inspections on such connections to public services.
This post is in direct response to above and not necessarily on-topic to the parent article.
Heck no North Korea isn't going to attack the United States...They'll attack SOUTH Korea and then get our pinko leftists to scream "It's a civil war!!!" to keep us out of it. The tenuous stability of the region will be thrown into chaos. Any agression by us, even defensive posturing, will be denounced by China in order to "justify" them getting involved. Why? China is nearly broke. A good financial "push" and their house of cards falls down. Communism runs counter to nature...when there is no reward for excellence, there is no reason to strive for it. If everyone "gets according to thier need" no one will truly strive to "give according to thier ability."
To answer a post above this one...sure the North Koreans got MOST of thier technology from China and the old USSR, but without the computers Clinton and Albright lifted the ban on, they were severely limited in thier ability to hit the targets. Heck even the Chinese weren't crazy enough to give that pyschopath Kim Jung Il the ability to really accurately use 'nukes.
Why? Simple...most corporations have investment holdings and those holding contain?... Yep Microsoft stock...
Honestly, 99% of day to day operations for 99% of employees could be handled with open-source software. The real rub comes not from some silly argument about retraining, but from someone in management succumbing to FUD. If software X doesn't work who do we call...the user base, that's silly...I want to call a big company who's support is offshored to some obscure country, at least I'll have someone to focus my righteous indignation on!
Added benefit...by purchasing Nortel products, companies can force thier current effective networking staff to leave rather than work with that junk and get blamed when it doesn't work as expected.
Keep infrastructure in the house and offshore development. Numbers look better in the short term. Long term deliverables falter. Middle management weenies who would rather gut the company than let go of thier fat bonuses to make an arbitrary number get cut. Competent worker geeks get promoted to middle management where they fail abysmally. Original developers are brought in as contractors to get the project back on track, although at twice the cost. CIO who prompted cycle gets new job with more money at another company. Original company gets bought by CIO's new company. Original company's officers stock options sell for enough to retire to Palm Springs. Second company's employees positions are threatened by management with first company's current staff. Keep infrastructure in the house and offshore development.... Rinse and repeat.
Oh yeah...you got em lining up for BLOCKS when your debate club or chess team makes it into the state finals...
News flash...sports programs bring money into school systems. Even the programs that are losing money exist as part of a structure that enable those that are making money to continue to provide a product. The fact that programs that ARE successful in garnering income are forced to subsidize the non-popular ones (football over, say, soccer in the southern US, as one example, boy's basketball over girl's basketball for another) shows that sports programs offer options to students and parents. Parents of athletes are, on average, more involved with the school than parents of non-athletes. Sports teach teamwork and foster the knowledge that rules exist and there is a punishment for breaking them. The fact that members of a team are often given special even preferential treatment is damning only to those who allow it. In my years in public school, my sports teams were held to a higher standard than the average student; you broke rules and you didn't play, you didn't make the grades you didn't play, etc etc
Of course, in my day, the parents never asked a teacher "why did you spank my child", they asked the child "what you did to deserve a spanking". The removal of the "public humiliation" tool from the teacher's arsenal seriously undermined their ability to teach.
Today's parents refuse to instill self-discipline into children and instead fill them with a rudderless ship full of self-esteem. These are kids who won't be able to understand why they can't get decent jobs with their collection of metal flesh-mutilating face apparati and tattoos on their necks. Self-discipline fosters situational awareness which spawns good citizenship...the acknowledgment that although you are unique, you are but one of many and the only people you are special to are those people you touch, emotionally, physically whatever. The only real choice you have is whether or not that "touch" is positive or negative.
Today's America is populated by people who were first told that their right to choose to wear a motorcycle helmet was vacated, they must wear one. Later they were told that they had the government had the right to control actions and force them to wear seat belts. The Patriot Act suspends much of the protections of individual. The last 150 years have slowly eroded the original intent of a loose confederation of states into a large centralized government. All this is done for the benefit of "the people" or "think of the children". The last generation or two of US children have been brainwashed into thinking the government has the individual's right at heart, when actually, at every turn, we've had choice vacated, reponsibility deferred, and information subverted in feality to agendas, both right and left.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean much to kids who get felony charges brought against them for "stick drawings depicting violent acts". "It's for the children" "remember Columbine" baaahhhh...for me, it's more "give me liberty or give me death" and "the people who would trade freedom for safety, deserve to be neither safe nor free."
I worked as a contractor for 2and a half years after being enticed away from a FT position. OK the FT position I left was a dead end and I wasn't really going to move anywhere. And yes, the bigger the company the harder it is to really get the raises you think you deserve while you stay in position. But the contract I was offered doubled my pay, was hourly with overtime (base was over $75 an hour), had holidays, was temp-to-perm (permanent position was salary), had an available insurance plan that was only a $25 a week increase from what I was paying, and had a better work environment. After my second six month contract(in which I had negotiated a weeks paid vacation every six months) was drawing close to closing and a permanent position was not agreed to yet, I started looking for something else, and let that be known. The company offered an additional $10 an hour to a job I was already averaging 40 hours + 10 at time and a half + 2 weeks vacation/holidays. Of course I stayed. Within a year, the company went into a merger and permanent hires at that level were frozen. The manager who had been having me run my part of the department for him got promoted and inherited a work crew from the acquired company; albeit with less skills but an agreement to retain spelled out in the merger. The manager kept me month to month for another 6 months until I was the last contractor in IT and the top brass said pull the plug. The market had TOTALLY changed, and the only way to make that kind of money again was road work, short gigs with mad money. So I took a couple of months off, lived off savings, and looked locally. I finally found something, as my savings were hitting dangerously low, that paid about 3/4 of the contract job (without overtime) as salary. At the original position, they have lost three slots and increased workload. At the contract spot, of the 11 people in my department pre-merger (only 6 were worth keeping), 5 of those have left the department, with 4 leaving the company altogether.
So in retrospect, the contract was really no different than being permanently assigned, except you can bank more. You do have to get your requests out front and negotiate them. Hint...easy money...negotiate holidays in the contract then volunteer to work the "minor" ones as they come along, for perks or in my case time and a half (for a Thanksgiving I worked my boss also sprang for a $75 buffet at the Hilton!); you look like a hero to your boss, your co-workers thank you and you get capital! Your title usually looks better for a resume, your salary disclosure will look alot better, and often it's really the only way most IT professionals can be their own boss. YMMV
as a response to many of the salient points raised in the smashing of this show I'd like to offer some arguments. Some have probably been mentioned in other posts, but these are mine and my reasoning alone
1. Western in space - anytime anyone sees the low slung pistol belt and horses, the comparison to a western will be made. Simply put, the same problems and attitudes with which the American frontier was settled, would translate into any "push in the bush". Tech level would drop to a point where it could be maintained on a local level, with various exceptions based on money/power. Sci-Fi references to this situation abound..."Ringworld" "Time enough for Love"
2. Incoherent story line - Fox producers didn't think that the original pilot had enough draw power to snag the target demographic so Joss and crew had to gin up the train job episode. Maybe a smarter move would have been to show the pilot as a movie first, but we'll never know. Also directly related to this , IMHO, is the fact they put the show in a timeslot that pretty much guaranteed that the demographic that the show would appeal to (intelligent non-teenagers under 50) would be unlikely to see, mostly because those folks usually aren't watching TV on a Friday night! Sunday's would have been better, ferchrissake!
3. Characters are one-dimensional. That's opinion, but I think that, just like in life, it takes time to really know a character, and just when you think you got them down, boom, here comes the curve ball. Mal's character went through the most changes, again IMHO, from reserved and sullen, to a likable, loyal rogue. River's tragic character didn't have time to properly develop and we only got hints at it, primarily from the last (in series not televised) episode. She went from pitiful and weak to downright scary powerful and it would have been interesting to see how the others in the group reacted to this new wrinkle. The preacher Book had a past obviously, ripe for exploration. Kayleigh's savant like talent for machinery and obvious need for acceptance was fully grounded in reality. Zoe could have been a great role model, loving and tender one minute, strong smart and able to kick @$$ the next. Jayne's full-on mercenary character is rooted in today's society(willing to sell out anyone to make a buck...remind you of the Fox network?). Simon and Wash's characters didn't have enough time to truly develop, but I suspect Wash was Joss's way of putting the viewer into the mix, plus the fact that he was the archtypical classclown of the group. The supporting characters and long story threads we re interesting to me. It showed that the writers were willing to invest as much time as the viewers. Niska and Saffron were different sides of the same coin and most of us "know" these characters in our lives. Add the ever present Alliance, with the Blue Sun corporation over sight, with the majoirty of the population going along with it as long as they get entertained, food on time, and creature comforts at the expense of freedom and a misguided sense of safety, and you've got an analogy to every powerful society ever concieved by man.
4. The comparisons to every other Sci-Fi space opera franchise ever. This isn't another iteration of Star Trek. Not knocking ST, but it did get preachy at times. Not star Wars, with it's convoluted sense of self. Farscape, interesting, but they kinda lost me early with the muppet character and the Alien for the sake of Alien tone. This was the story of humanity reaching the stars and bending them to it's will, for good or bad. That's what we do, we bend the environment around us to suit us. So it's only logical that we continue this practice into the future, not the "Prime Directive", which ignores the viral aspect of human behavior. This show takes the stance that man is his own worst enemy. And that, my friends, is damn interesting TV, much easier and more interesting than the "alien invader" scenario.
In closing, Firefly could have been the flagship series for Fo
Since my esteemed collegue decided to take his off topic, and critize a minor point rather than look at the merits of the whole and what was being said rather than how it was being said...I retort...
That McDonalds is responsible for you being over-weight, not that you eat there 3 times a day...Who would have thought that fast food might NOT be good for you...HORRORS!!!
The mugger shot the victim so the gun manufacturer is at fault...They should build in radio tracking and remote disablement features into each and every one!
Johnny can't read, so it's the schools fault... Yeah even though his parent(s) treated the process as a day care facility and gave the little monster no discipline...Self-discipline is the only discipline, everything else is fear or conditioning...and heaven forbid we bruise any of these tiny tyrant's over-inflated self-image. I'll be the bad guy and say it...the only reason today for a child to fail in school is that the child's family didn't care enough about him or her. that's not saying they'll get an education...from what I've seen lately education is WAY down in priority in the "things to accomplish at school today" list...
Where does it stop? In the end we are all responsible for our own actions and decisions; no tears, no excuses...no matter what the influences are, we make these the decisions, and each decision could just as easily be made the other way. Which is counter to the idealized victimology propagated by the left.
As far as obfuscation goes, the real culprits as you call them are pseudo-intellectual eliteists. People who rationalize any behavior based on it's direct influence to individuals, not as actions affecting the whole. People who think actions take place in a vacuum, and that simple decisons such as language and behavior don't have an impact on society as a whole. See the "Johnny" reference in the example above and picture how disruptive an undisciplined individual can be...especially one who cannot be removed. the rest of the class suffers, not because Johnny terrorizes them, but his decisions make the environment not suitable for the task at hand. Further Johnny's parent(s) decisions have now influenced the lives of children they've never met. Don't toss ADD and that crap up...we were turning out better educated people at the turn of the century and we didn't drug every other kid. We had a higher literacy percentage in 1918 than we do now. We held people accountable for the actions of themselves and their offspring. Self-discipline...
Corporations push profits because that's what they are supposed to do, generate money for the stock-holders. Non-incorporated ventures do not have this restraint. They also will probably get swallowed up or run out of business because Joe Public can get his or her pan-galactic froogleblaster cheaper at Wal-Mart than he can at his local mom and pop shop.
I don't know what church you belong to but mine says faith itself isn't enough...gotta be combined with a "good faith" effort to live by the big 10, plus an admission that alone you'll never get there. Just "being a good person" won't take you to the finish line, either...YMMV
Corporations are generally not left or right per se...neither are churches. They simply ARE. The people who make up these entities are either left or right.
In Communist China...the record companies make you into Mu Shu Pork....
In today's society the majority of people are conditioned by the leftist elite to assume no responsibility for their actions, so why should the music industry be different?
It couldn't be that the majority of music is cookie cutter schlock spewed out by a machine used to manufacturing "the next big thing" out of thin air since the 50's, talent and content be d@mned. NO!!! It's Napster...yeah that's the ticket..
It couldn't be that the price point set on the object is unrealistically high, especially considering the division of profits. The record companies NEED 40% + of the cost to defray the cost of forcing the next no talent bimbo down our throats. Not a chance...It's Grokster...they are doing this to us, actually eroding the fiber of what makes America great and single handedly bringing around the demise of capitalism!
No way it could be that WE'RE IN A FREAKING RECESSION!!! NO!!! We commissioned a study by the most expensive ad agency in the country and they say it's most assuredly all Kazaa's fault.
It's not possible that the RIAA and it's lapdog media machine are misrepresenting the facts...like that the sale of SINGLES is down while the rest of the industry held or increased, or that this study and others show that music sharing helps over all and especially the independant artist/producer. The RIAA's position?....We are working tirelessly to buy enough politicians to insure that eventually filesharing will become a capital crime. and it's communist... and definately pagan...and probably satanic...
The problem is that filesharing allows the consumer to intelligently compare and contrast different products. This means that a consumer will make up his or her own mind about quality based on a sampling of all that is offered, and vote with their dollars accordingly. This runs counter to the big corporation view that they know quality more so than the unwashed masses.
But it was never a partnership of equals, alleges Sendo, and after promising that StinkerOS was ready in the middle of last year, Microsoft used the delays to uncover Sendo's integration secrets and carrier relationships, and then cut off their air supply, using this knowledge to promote its new sweetheart, the Orange SPV instead.
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Don't know about Europe, but in the US, if the call center is elsewhere in the state it's state jurisdiction, unless they can prove at any point the action crossed state lines, like to a phone switch in another state, then back into the original state. If it crosses state lines, it becomes a federal case.
And since just about everything in the southeastern US goes through Atlanta at some point at layer two in data or voice, at least in this part of the world, any "computer crime" _could_ be argued that it should be prosecuted in federal court. IE in a Charlotte NC to Durham NC circuit that looks point to point to the end user, usually requires a path through the DACS in Atlanta.
There is a significant segment of the US Banking, Insurance and Healthcare billing infrastructure that is managed off-shore. This means that someone in India has all the admin rights they need to packet sniff, say, an ATM connection or a mainframe access that some clerk in Boise uses to input your info for that mortgage/car loan/credit card. Chew on that for a second.
Off-shoring data entry was bad, off-shoring call centers marginally worse, but giving the ability to bring most of our monetary system's infrastructure to it's knees over to another country, any country, is a very,very bad idea.
The short-sightedness (is that a word?)of the concept baffles me. You find a off-shore person who will work for a fraction of the cost of his local counterpart and use him to replace the local guy. The off-shore asset doesn't pay taxes into the US system, he doesn't use the US facilities (banks, hospitals, insurance companies, etc) that he supports. The local guy no longer pays taxes, does drain the system elsewhere through aid programs, defaults on bank loans and credit cards, no longer can afford private insurance, defaults on hospital bills etc, doesn't buy the big ticket items (like cars) anymore, which drives up the cost of living for everyone. It's a downward spiral; sure, in the short term, corporate profits look better, but you've incurred basic erosion of the customer base. It happened in the textile, electronic and automoblie industries and those actually move hard goods back and forth. Moving ones and zeros across the wire it much easier, but potentially much more destructive.
I agree, this is only the tip of the iceberg.
I've tried to watch B5.
I've seen 6 or 8 episodes from various seasons, and the series just sucked in my opinion. It was like "let's roll every overdone sci-fi cliche into one series and use cheap cheesy special effects to boot...WOW we can get Bruce Boxenleiter and Flounder from Animial House to star?...COOOOOL"
Aside from a suck-ass timeslot, showing the episodes out of order, and preempting it at any and all opportunities, the only thing Fox could have done to do more damage to a good televison series like "Firefly" was to air commercials saying "Don't watch this show, we're just going to cancel it soon and replace it with "Temptation Island", because everyone knows smart people like to watch train wrecks disguised as reality TV."
I heard that if this movie performs well, the studio will film the next two movies back-to-back or at the same time a la "The Matrix" sequels (only better I hope).
As far as a new series goes, although I really prefer that over a spread out movie series, I wouldn't look for that, at least until the movies play out, and then only with some drastic casting changes. Logically if these movies do really well, the cast will be properties considered too hot for series TV. One of the things I LIKED about "Firefly" was the fact that there was a careful "reveal" used on the characters. It definately left you wanting more. In a movie there isn't that much time, and you still have to include plot story and the obligitory "action", in order to make the movie stand on it's on merits. Another thing to look for is that if this movie is really successful, Joss himself will firmly movie into the "movie" realm, something that is kind of eluding him now.
It would ROCK if they used this series to bring back the old "serial" format and could crank out one every 6 or 8 months, or better yet, get picked up by HBO or Showtime for a monthly series, like "The Sopranos". Considering the attention to detail and quality for which HBO has been noted in it's series work, I think Joss would be in his element, and the abbreviated filming cycles would allow the actors plenty of time to work in other projects. AND the DVD marketing of the series episodes already have a proven path to market. The best of all worlds!
This is spot on, but...when was the last time management outsourced management?
Because your boss golfs with the boss of the company down the street, and THEY just outsourced their IT department to some third world nation, to a guy who lives in a mud hut, shits in a rice paddy and timeshares a lightbulb, and they're saving millions!
The object of outsourcing is not to save money, it is to make IT or the outsourced positions look as inept and inefficent as rest of the business. Middle management is as efficent as a monkey humping a football in most cases.
People you frighten are not going to respect you.
Insightful...parent is flamebait. No one in their right mind trades feedom for safety. Poster is a moron.
Mod parent up...This is EXACTLY the solution to piracy. Fix a freaking price point the consumer can live with. Adapt a business model that allow the sale at that price point.
Want to know the next big band? The band that has decent music, gets radio play, has a good distribution network, and sells the CD at $5-$8. Oh wait, they'll never get radio play...the same people that own recording labels own the radio stations.
Like I've always said, give the consumer something in the package that they can't get off a pirated copy of the the product...pictures, lyrics, a coupon for a discount price concert ticket, set the price reasonable for middle America, and it will be easier to buy it than "steal" it.
Compromise at 3 weeks as a full time employee, with the second and third week at 2x pay (you should be deep in training your replacement by then). Offer another 3 weeks as a PART TIME CONSULTANT at 4x pay (4hr min with drivetime, if it can't be handled remotely). Ask for a written and signed recommendation also. Your new employer should be impressed with your apparent dedication, if you explain the situation, but leave out the remuneration.
If your boss doesn't agree with your compromises, indicate that he had two years to get someone up to speed, and, since the company could have released you at any time without warning, 2 weeks is generous.
On another tack, I've never left a position without giving my current employer a chance to meet my new offer's pay and _conditions_. Just remember that if your boss DOES meet the new job's offer, he's going to be looking to get rid of you down the road. He's the boss, and it will not sit well with him that you got the upper hand.
Get it in writing, no matter how you decide to handle it.
From the article
"Microsoft responded that the tests prove that any operating system is vulnerable when not patched."
No. They KINDA show that only Microsoft products are vulnerable when not patched.
For what it's worth, IMHO, I think that SOME of the home users that don't patch their installs of MSXP are afraid that MS is trying to slip in some software that would automagically inventory thier MP3 collection, hacked software, etc and somehow "break" thier computer. I think many people think of MS operating systems as a "deal with the devil". They really DON'T want to use Windows, but isn't that Linux thing for computer gurus and really hard to use? It's really hard to combat that kind of FUD. If it wasn't, a HUGE number of corporate users would be using a *nix based solution, if only to shrink desktop support staff.
As a networking professional, I can tell you that the constant rolling out of virus and OS patching to our user base DOES impact network traffic and "regular job" throughput, but the top brass sees this as a necessary evil. But of course my corporation has MS stock in it's portfolio....
Pull in fiber during construction, even if it stays dark for a couple years. You never know when fiber could become a viable option for the home. Double up on your CAT5, even if you don't terminate it. You can always terminate it later, into whatever configuration you need at the time.
Like another poster said, every room, and I _would_ include the master bath plus plan for CAT5 for external surveillance and entertaining. Plan for speakers in the bathroom. News or music while you're getting ready for work...nice. Plan for more than one wall per room to be wired, it's a lot nicer NOT to have cables strung out around the room. Pull into a wiring closet to patch everything. Plan for speaker arrangment in the living/media room!!
In short, given the fact that wireless will never be as secure as wired, give yourself plenty of options when it comes to configuration. IMHO, wireless is to retrofit situations that the cable plants doesn't support.
As a counter-point, my Vonage account has been fully operational for several months. The biggest issue I had was "porting" my old POTS number to Vonage. It took a few months, but during that time, Vonage credited my account, essentially providing me my long distance service absolutely free. I'm not sure that it wasn't a reluctance on the part of the POTS provider to release the number.
I work for a large corporation that provides out-sourcing opportunities for smaller companies that do ostensibly the same business. Every day we get requests for small "mom and pop" companies, equipped with a off-brand, off-the-shelf or home rolled VPN concentrator, to connect to our network, without benefit of actually having a tech staff of thier own. It's often pretty funny (in a sad patehtic way) to hear some glorified secretary try to configure their end of a "meet in the middle" connection. I can explain the options available when you get to them, but I can't tell you how to operate in the OS of every piece of equipment ever built. This is a downside of the "plug and play" mentality. It's pretty easy to see that using anything configured by default increases the likelihood that it will be compromised by the less scrupulous among us.
Sure there have been a few glitches in my voice service, but I do not pay for business class on my cable internet service or Vonage. Absent business class connections, I have to concede that "best effort" is in effect here. I may change my mind about Vonage if I ever need to use 911 and find the service is impaired, but as of now, I use my basic Vonage service as well as my basic broadband internet service to conduct business for work frequently.
All that said, the few people I've known that have had problems with Vonage, usually stems from the fact that they are using a router/firewall between themselves and their carrier, and then didn't make any allowance for the VOIP service in the "whiz-bang" internet appliance they bought at Costco/downloaded from the internet. This is why there are certain things you should get professionals to do, or (even better) be willing to invest some time into teaching yourself. Expectations of service levels are moot if you try to do the work yourself, without proper knowledge. I mean, do you blame the power company for the fire if you connected your house to the commercial power grid yourself using unwound wire coat hangers? Sure, it's just point A to point B and wire coat hangers will carry voltage and current, but it's still not a good idea. This is why the government required inspections on such connections to public services.
This post is in direct response to above and not necessarily on-topic to the parent article.
Heck no North Korea isn't going to attack the United States...They'll attack SOUTH Korea and then get our pinko leftists to scream "It's a civil war!!!" to keep us out of it. The tenuous stability of the region will be thrown into chaos. Any agression by us, even defensive posturing, will be denounced by China in order to "justify" them getting involved. Why? China is nearly broke. A good financial "push" and their house of cards falls down. Communism runs counter to nature...when there is no reward for excellence, there is no reason to strive for it. If everyone "gets according to thier need" no one will truly strive to "give according to thier ability."
To answer a post above this one...sure the North Koreans got MOST of thier technology from China and the old USSR, but without the computers Clinton and Albright lifted the ban on, they were severely limited in thier ability to hit the targets. Heck even the Chinese weren't crazy enough to give that pyschopath Kim Jung Il the ability to really accurately use 'nukes.
Why? Simple...most corporations have investment holdings and those holding contain?... Yep Microsoft stock...
Honestly, 99% of day to day operations for 99% of employees could be handled with open-source software. The real rub comes not from some silly argument about retraining, but from someone in management succumbing to FUD. If software X doesn't work who do we call...the user base, that's silly...I want to call a big company who's support is offshored to some obscure country, at least I'll have someone to focus my righteous indignation on!
Added benefit...by purchasing Nortel products, companies can force thier current effective networking staff to leave rather than work with that junk and get blamed when it doesn't work as expected.
Keep infrastructure in the house and offshore development. Numbers look better in the short term. Long term deliverables falter. Middle management weenies who would rather gut the company than let go of thier fat bonuses to make an arbitrary number get cut. Competent worker geeks get promoted to middle management where they fail abysmally. Original developers are brought in as contractors to get the project back on track, although at twice the cost. CIO who prompted cycle gets new job with more money at another company. Original company gets bought by CIO's new company. Original company's officers stock options sell for enough to retire to Palm Springs. Second company's employees positions are threatened by management with first company's current staff. Keep infrastructure in the house and offshore development.... Rinse and repeat.
Oh yeah...you got em lining up for BLOCKS when your debate club or chess team makes it into the state finals...
News flash...sports programs bring money into school systems. Even the programs that are losing money exist as part of a structure that enable those that are making money to continue to provide a product. The fact that programs that ARE successful in garnering income are forced to subsidize the non-popular ones (football over, say, soccer in the southern US, as one example, boy's basketball over girl's basketball for another) shows that sports programs offer options to students and parents. Parents of athletes are, on average, more involved with the school than parents of non-athletes. Sports teach teamwork and foster the knowledge that rules exist and there is a punishment for breaking them. The fact that members of a team are often given special even preferential treatment is damning only to those who allow it. In my years in public school, my sports teams were held to a higher standard than the average student; you broke rules and you didn't play, you didn't make the grades you didn't play, etc etc
Of course, in my day, the parents never asked a teacher "why did you spank my child", they asked the child "what you did to deserve a spanking". The removal of the "public humiliation" tool from the teacher's arsenal seriously undermined their ability to teach.
Today's parents refuse to instill self-discipline into children and instead fill them with a rudderless ship full of self-esteem. These are kids who won't be able to understand why they can't get decent jobs with their collection of metal flesh-mutilating face apparati and tattoos on their necks. Self-discipline fosters situational awareness which spawns good citizenship...the acknowledgment that although you are unique, you are but one of many and the only people you are special to are those people you touch, emotionally, physically whatever. The only real choice you have is whether or not that "touch" is positive or negative.
Today's America is populated by people who were first told that their right to choose to wear a motorcycle helmet was vacated, they must wear one. Later they were told that they had the government had the right to control actions and force them to wear seat belts. The Patriot Act suspends much of the protections of individual. The last 150 years have slowly eroded the original intent of a loose confederation of states into a large centralized government. All this is done for the benefit of "the people" or "think of the children". The last generation or two of US children have been brainwashed into thinking the government has the individual's right at heart, when actually, at every turn, we've had choice vacated, reponsibility deferred, and information subverted in feality to agendas, both right and left.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean much to kids who get felony charges brought against them for "stick drawings depicting violent acts". "It's for the children" "remember Columbine" baaahhhh...for me, it's more "give me liberty or give me death" and "the people who would trade freedom for safety, deserve to be neither safe nor free."
A decent umbrella company with steady work
http://www.teksystems.com/
I worked as a contractor for 2and a half years after being enticed away from a FT position. OK the FT position I left was a dead end and I wasn't really going to move anywhere. And yes, the bigger the company the harder it is to really get the raises you think you deserve while you stay in position. But the contract I was offered doubled my pay, was hourly with overtime (base was over $75 an hour), had holidays, was temp-to-perm (permanent position was salary), had an available insurance plan that was only a $25 a week increase from what I was paying, and had a better work environment. After my second six month contract(in which I had negotiated a weeks paid vacation every six months) was drawing close to closing and a permanent position was not agreed to yet, I started looking for something else, and let that be known. The company offered an additional $10 an hour to a job I was already averaging 40 hours + 10 at time and a half + 2 weeks vacation/holidays. Of course I stayed. Within a year, the company went into a merger and permanent hires at that level were frozen. The manager who had been having me run my part of the department for him got promoted and inherited a work crew from the acquired company; albeit with less skills but an agreement to retain spelled out in the merger. The manager kept me month to month for another 6 months until I was the last contractor in IT and the top brass said pull the plug. The market had TOTALLY changed, and the only way to make that kind of money again was road work, short gigs with mad money. So I took a couple of months off, lived off savings, and looked locally. I finally found something, as my savings were hitting dangerously low, that paid about 3/4 of the contract job (without overtime) as salary. At the original position, they have lost three slots and increased workload. At the contract spot, of the 11 people in my department pre-merger (only 6 were worth keeping), 5 of those have left the department, with 4 leaving the company altogether.
So in retrospect, the contract was really no different than being permanently assigned, except you can bank more. You do have to get your requests out front and negotiate them. Hint...easy money...negotiate holidays in the contract then volunteer to work the "minor" ones as they come along, for perks or in my case time and a half (for a Thanksgiving I worked my boss also sprang for a $75 buffet at the Hilton!); you look like a hero to your boss, your co-workers thank you and you get capital! Your title usually looks better for a resume, your salary disclosure will look alot better, and often it's really the only way most IT professionals can be their own boss. YMMV
Jar Jar Binks and Ewoks team up to make a suckfest...
as a response to many of the salient points raised in the smashing of this show I'd like to offer some arguments. Some have probably been mentioned in other posts, but these are mine and my reasoning alone
1. Western in space - anytime anyone sees the low slung pistol belt and horses, the comparison to a western will be made. Simply put, the same problems and attitudes with which the American frontier was settled, would translate into any "push in the bush". Tech level would drop to a point where it could be maintained on a local level, with various exceptions based on money/power. Sci-Fi references to this situation abound..."Ringworld" "Time enough for Love"
2. Incoherent story line - Fox producers didn't think that the original pilot had enough draw power to snag the target demographic so Joss and crew had to gin up the train job episode. Maybe a smarter move would have been to show the pilot as a movie first, but we'll never know. Also directly related to this , IMHO, is the fact they put the show in a timeslot that pretty much guaranteed that the demographic that the show would appeal to (intelligent non-teenagers under 50) would be unlikely to see, mostly because those folks usually aren't watching TV on a Friday night! Sunday's would have been better, ferchrissake!
3. Characters are one-dimensional. That's opinion, but I think that, just like in life, it takes time to really know a character, and just when you think you got them down, boom, here comes the curve ball. Mal's character went through the most changes, again IMHO, from reserved and sullen, to a likable, loyal rogue. River's tragic character didn't have time to properly develop and we only got hints at it, primarily from the last (in series not televised) episode. She went from pitiful and weak to downright scary powerful and it would have been interesting to see how the others in the group reacted to this new wrinkle. The preacher Book had a past obviously, ripe for exploration. Kayleigh's savant like talent for machinery and obvious need for acceptance was fully grounded in reality. Zoe could have been a great role model, loving and tender one minute, strong smart and able to kick @$$ the next. Jayne's full-on mercenary character is rooted in today's society(willing to sell out anyone to make a buck...remind you of the Fox network?). Simon and Wash's characters didn't have enough time to truly develop, but I suspect Wash was Joss's way of putting the viewer into the mix, plus the fact that he was the archtypical classclown of the group. The supporting characters and long story threads we re interesting to me. It showed that the writers were willing to invest as much time as the viewers. Niska and Saffron were different sides of the same coin and most of us "know" these characters in our lives. Add the ever present Alliance, with the Blue Sun corporation over sight, with the majoirty of the population going along with it as long as they get entertained, food on time, and creature comforts at the expense of freedom and a misguided sense of safety, and you've got an analogy to every powerful society ever concieved by man.
4. The comparisons to every other Sci-Fi space opera franchise ever. This isn't another iteration of Star Trek. Not knocking ST, but it did get preachy at times. Not star Wars, with it's convoluted sense of self. Farscape, interesting, but they kinda lost me early with the muppet character and the Alien for the sake of Alien tone. This was the story of humanity reaching the stars and bending them to it's will, for good or bad. That's what we do, we bend the environment around us to suit us. So it's only logical that we continue this practice into the future, not the "Prime Directive", which ignores the viral aspect of human behavior. This show takes the stance that man is his own worst enemy. And that, my friends, is damn interesting TV, much easier and more interesting than the "alien invader" scenario.
In closing, Firefly could have been the flagship series for Fo
Since my esteemed collegue decided to take his off topic, and critize a minor point rather than look at the merits of the whole and what was being said rather than how it was being said...I retort...
That McDonalds is responsible for you being over-weight, not that you eat there 3 times a day...Who would have thought that fast food might NOT be good for you...HORRORS!!!
The mugger shot the victim so the gun manufacturer is at fault...They should build in radio tracking and remote disablement features into each and every one!
Johnny can't read, so it's the schools fault... Yeah even though his parent(s) treated the process as a day care facility and gave the little monster no discipline...Self-discipline is the only discipline, everything else is fear or conditioning...and heaven forbid we bruise any of these tiny tyrant's over-inflated self-image. I'll be the bad guy and say it...the only reason today for a child to fail in school is that the child's family didn't care enough about him or her. that's not saying they'll get an education...from what I've seen lately education is WAY down in priority in the "things to accomplish at school today" list...
Where does it stop? In the end we are all responsible for our own actions and decisions; no tears, no excuses...no matter what the influences are, we make these the decisions, and each decision could just as easily be made the other way. Which is counter to the idealized victimology propagated by the left.
As far as obfuscation goes, the real culprits as you call them are pseudo-intellectual eliteists. People who rationalize any behavior based on it's direct influence to individuals, not as actions affecting the whole. People who think actions take place in a vacuum, and that simple decisons such as language and behavior don't have an impact on society as a whole. See the "Johnny" reference in the example above and picture how disruptive an undisciplined individual can be...especially one who cannot be removed. the rest of the class suffers, not because Johnny terrorizes them, but his decisions make the environment not suitable for the task at hand. Further Johnny's parent(s) decisions have now influenced the lives of children they've never met. Don't toss ADD and that crap up...we were turning out better educated people at the turn of the century and we didn't drug every other kid. We had a higher literacy percentage in 1918 than we do now. We held people accountable for the actions of themselves and their offspring. Self-discipline...
Corporations push profits because that's what they are supposed to do, generate money for the stock-holders. Non-incorporated ventures do not have this restraint. They also will probably get swallowed up or run out of business because Joe Public can get his or her pan-galactic froogleblaster cheaper at Wal-Mart than he can at his local mom and pop shop.
I don't know what church you belong to but mine says faith itself isn't enough...gotta be combined with a "good faith" effort to live by the big 10, plus an admission that alone you'll never get there. Just "being a good person" won't take you to the finish line, either...YMMV
Corporations are generally not left or right per se...neither are churches. They simply ARE. The people who make up these entities are either left or right.
In Communist China...the record companies make you into Mu Shu Pork....
In today's society the majority of people are conditioned by the leftist elite to assume no responsibility for their actions, so why should the music industry be different?
It couldn't be that the majority of music is cookie cutter schlock spewed out by a machine used to manufacturing "the next big thing" out of thin air since the 50's, talent and content be d@mned. NO!!! It's Napster...yeah that's the ticket..
It couldn't be that the price point set on the object is unrealistically high, especially considering the division of profits. The record companies NEED 40% + of the cost to defray the cost of forcing the next no talent bimbo down our throats. Not a chance...It's Grokster...they are doing this to us, actually eroding the fiber of what makes America great and single handedly bringing around the demise of capitalism!
No way it could be that WE'RE IN A FREAKING RECESSION!!! NO!!! We commissioned a study by the most expensive ad agency in the country and they say it's most assuredly all Kazaa's fault.
It's not possible that the RIAA and it's lapdog media machine are misrepresenting the facts...like that the sale of SINGLES is down while the rest of the industry held or increased, or that this study and others show that music sharing helps over all and especially the independant artist/producer. The RIAA's position?....We are working tirelessly to buy enough politicians to insure that eventually filesharing will become a capital crime. and it's communist... and definately pagan...and probably satanic...
The problem is that filesharing allows the consumer to intelligently compare and contrast different products. This means that a consumer will make up his or her own mind about quality based on a sampling of all that is offered, and vote with their dollars accordingly. This runs counter to the big corporation view that they know quality more so than the unwashed masses.
Grab some old hardware and use Dachstein. Easy rolled firewall
But it was never a partnership of equals, alleges Sendo, and after promising that StinkerOS was ready in the middle of last year, Microsoft used the delays to uncover Sendo's integration secrets and carrier relationships, and then cut off their air supply, using this knowledge to promote its new sweetheart, the Orange SPV instead.