Women aren't dumb enough to work 12-16 hours a day playing the same game over and over and over again until they're sick to death of it and never want to see it again, in return for tiny amounts of pay, with no creative input or influence, only - perhaps - a token mention on the back page of the manual.
And lest we forget, the exploding wealth of the last 70-some years has been founded pretty much on one thing: oil. We use it as raw material to make things, we burn it to get the energy to make them, we burn it to move the things around. It's a one off bonanza, and while I'm not going to scream "It's nearly gone!", the price is only going one way over the next forty years or so.
So don't pity gen-X so much as our kids and grandkids, because a world that has to get by on renewable power rather than rolling in the black gold is going to be a much leaner place. We can do it, but it's going to hurt.
Sure, I once used to have very and involved debates about why "warp engine" was a misnomer and it should be "warp drive" or "warp motor". But then I got laid.
since the rest of the family live in England, there isn't any ID transmitted
Ahem. There's a BT standard CLID tag on it, which is different from the CLID used by the rest of the world, for reasons that could only be described as imbecilic. Don't get me started on the joys of working on PBX's that have to work with that musty old monopololy's warped ideas of what constitutes a 'phone network.
Uh, what century are you in? My calls go straight to my machine, and my message is me saying "Beep" (if you don't know who you're calling, I'm sure as hell not going to tell you), which means a shorter wait than waiting for me to pick up. All of my friends and family use each other's machines as speakerphones, on the assumption that the other person is there and listening and will pick up half way through. If not, then nothing lost, they just hang up after saying their piece. If it turns out that I was there screening, then it's just as quick for me to call them back as it is for them to sit there going "Did you get that? Are you there? Hello?"
It's a remarkably efficient system, you just need to get used to it and learn - and teach - how to use it effectively. It does require some thought, but not much. For example, if you pick up in the middle of someone's speech, don't make a big deal of it and interrupt them with "Hi! I'm here!". Wait for a natural pause and then just reply as though they were talking to you all the time (which they were). They soon get used to it and forget that they're speaking to a machine some of the time. Seriously, if my mother can re-learn how to use the phone, you can too.
My favourite (verbal, undocumented AFAIK) Buzz Aldrin quote:
"I never imagined that space exploration would mean parking cargo in low earth orbit"
So sure, if that's all we're going to do, let's do it for profit, not for knowlege. Jeezus, we know how to park cargo in orbit.
Further, if the trillions pumped into NASA really can't be made to pay off, then we should do some pretty harsh assessment of what the purpose of a space program is. I don't mean that we should can it, I mean that we should skip the screwing around and just start flinging brave souls out in rickety generation ships to nearby systems on the honest basis that we're 99.9% confident of condeming them (and their possible children) to death, but that if we wait until we're even 10% confident that we can get a foothold on another planet, we'll never go, because our actual research has effectively stalled and we have neither the will to push it on, or the guts to accept failure.
With an interesting point: "Around 7:15 p.m., law-enforcement dispatchers began receiving reports from most corners of the state"
Granted that these people probably had good intentions, but it does demonstrate how arrogant we are, assuming that anything so big and showy must be an event generated by or concerning humans. We cannot accept that the universe does plenty all by itself, and doesn't really care about whether we're watching or not.
This is inspite of the fact that Microsoft is offering a 90% discount to the pakistan Government.
They're not idiots. They'll understand that the first hit is always free. Microsoft can discount all they like, but once they've wiped out the competition, they know that can charge whatever they want. Unfortunately for them, we know that too.
No, he responded to a journalists troll about enabling terrorists with a thoughtful answer that didn't make good copy, so it was redacted and replaced with blurb. At a wild guess.
Why not? Buy ten of them, then smash them to bits. Every one you buy takes money directly out of Bill-n-Steve's pockets and away from their DRM project. Just don't buy any games
Thanks, but this is Slashdot. We prefer uninformed soapbox ranting about how things should be rather than learning about how they are. Don't take my word for it, look at the 5 voted ramblings above your post.
The Secret Service/NSA/FBI/CIA assure us that evil criminal masterminds and cyberterrorists are poised to take down the internet and cripple the global economy at any moment. Given the accuracy of their past predictions, this too will surely come to pass. When it does, the government will need a scapegoat, and fast. I think we know who that will be.
My question is: where do you plan to hide, what psueodonym will you adopt, and will you be travelling in company with Al Gore?
Don't worry, we won't tell them. This is just between you and us.
I find it pleasing to see a click-through agreement being leveraged the other way. After all, we're repeatedly told by Big Interests that click-throughs (like EULA's) ARE binding contracts entered into by mutual agreement. Fine, then we have a contract, a.k.a. a business relationship, a.k.a. a high level strategic alliance.;-)
But he's not going far enough. Simply charging more for more patent filings isn't going to stop the companies that exist to do nothing other than file patents. They'll just factor it into their business models and pass the costs on to licencees.
What the PTO needs to do is to charge punitive fees when they reject patents. Yes, you heard me. Currently, they get their income from granting patents, so there's absolutely no, zero, zilch, nada incentive to reject, and so there's no disincentive to file.
Let's turn that on its head. Patents should be granted grudgingly. Examiners should be looking for excuses to reject them.
I'd quite seriously propose a deposit of $10,000 for each patent filing, most of which would be refundable on granting. I want filers to be sure that they're actually filing genuine inventions, and I want the PTO examiner (and/or subcontractor) to be eyeing that $10,000 as her reward for finding prior art that you've missed or "forgotten" to mention.
If $10,000 looks like a lot, then consider how many genuinely novel inventions you're likely to have during your working life, and compare that to the number of cars you might buy over that same period. If you still think that's too much for basement inventors, then consider that they can always sell their idea to one of the patent swallowing companies, and we can go back to business as usual.
Aw, how sweet! Wil's got a stalker! Come and see, everyone, this is just so adorable! Wook at him wiggle his widdle stalker paws! Wook at his paws. He's a cwever stalker. Yes he is. Who's a cwever stalker then? Who is? Who is? Oo is!
IT guy: Since you keep pestering us about network issues, we've decided to let you trial our new teleworker VPN. Me: 'kay, what are we using? IT guy: eSmith VPN Me: Which is? PPTP VPN? IpSec? IT guy: What? Use Windows 2K VPN to connect. Me: Uh, right. I'll be using PPTP on my linux box, is that all right? IT guy: No way! Me: Why not? IT guy: It's not on the approved software list, therefore it's a potential security risk. Me: Uhhh... all right. Then I'll use Win2K VPN. IT guy: Really? Me: Sure, as far as you know.
Which pretty much sums up commercial IT. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.
It lets them re-assign security staff from lazily eyeballing baby-Jesus lovin' white folks to their number one priority, "random" stop-and-searches of shifty moon-god worshipping Arabiac-looking types.
That's the best case scenario. The real world scenario is that they just sack some staff and return to business as usual... until the next hijacking.
And when the first caveman tied his sharp rock to the end of a long stick, there was an old guy sitting next to him saying "Huh, in my day, we had to learn how to kill wild pigs up close and personal. Sure, your way is more efficient, but I understand the fundamentals."
Slashdot Mirror
Women aren't dumb enough to work 12-16 hours a day playing the same game over and over and over again until they're sick to death of it and never want to see it again, in return for tiny amounts of pay, with no creative input or influence, only - perhaps - a token mention on the back page of the manual.
And lest we forget, the exploding wealth of the last 70-some years has been founded pretty much on one thing: oil. We use it as raw material to make things, we burn it to get the energy to make them, we burn it to move the things around. It's a one off bonanza, and while I'm not going to scream "It's nearly gone!", the price is only going one way over the next forty years or so.
So don't pity gen-X so much as our kids and grandkids, because a world that has to get by on renewable power rather than rolling in the black gold is going to be a much leaner place. We can do it, but it's going to hurt.
Sure, I once used to have very and involved debates about why "warp engine" was a misnomer and it should be "warp drive" or "warp motor". But then I got laid.
Holy heck, we could do a hardware version of the venerable Robot Auto Racing Simulator!
You mean the Democratic People's Republic of China.
Ahem. There's a BT standard CLID tag on it, which is different from the CLID used by the rest of the world, for reasons that could only be described as imbecilic. Don't get me started on the joys of working on PBX's that have to work with that musty old monopololy's warped ideas of what constitutes a 'phone network.
Uh, what century are you in? My calls go straight to my machine, and my message is me saying "Beep" (if you don't know who you're calling, I'm sure as hell not going to tell you), which means a shorter wait than waiting for me to pick up. All of my friends and family use each other's machines as speakerphones, on the assumption that the other person is there and listening and will pick up half way through. If not, then nothing lost, they just hang up after saying their piece. If it turns out that I was there screening, then it's just as quick for me to call them back as it is for them to sit there going "Did you get that? Are you there? Hello?"
It's a remarkably efficient system, you just need to get used to it and learn - and teach - how to use it effectively. It does require some thought, but not much. For example, if you pick up in the middle of someone's speech, don't make a big deal of it and interrupt them with "Hi! I'm here!". Wait for a natural pause and then just reply as though they were talking to you all the time (which they were). They soon get used to it and forget that they're speaking to a machine some of the time. Seriously, if my mother can re-learn how to use the phone, you can too.
Well said.
My favourite (verbal, undocumented AFAIK) Buzz Aldrin quote:
"I never imagined that space exploration would mean parking cargo in low earth orbit"
So sure, if that's all we're going to do, let's do it for profit, not for knowlege. Jeezus, we know how to park cargo in orbit.
Further, if the trillions pumped into NASA really can't be made to pay off, then we should do some pretty harsh assessment of what the purpose of a space program is. I don't mean that we should can it, I mean that we should skip the screwing around and just start flinging brave souls out in rickety generation ships to nearby systems on the honest basis that we're 99.9% confident of condeming them (and their possible children) to death, but that if we wait until we're even 10% confident that we can get a foothold on another planet, we'll never go, because our actual research has effectively stalled and we have neither the will to push it on, or the guts to accept failure.
With an interesting point: "Around 7:15 p.m., law-enforcement dispatchers began receiving reports from most corners of the state"
Granted that these people probably had good intentions, but it does demonstrate how arrogant we are, assuming that anything so big and showy must be an event generated by or concerning humans. We cannot accept that the universe does plenty all by itself, and doesn't really care about whether we're watching or not.
They're not idiots. They'll understand that the first hit is always free. Microsoft can discount all they like, but once they've wiped out the competition, they know that can charge whatever they want. Unfortunately for them, we know that too.
Gosh, that would be illegal. I certainly would recommend that you don't click here to find out how to do it.
No, he responded to a journalists troll about enabling terrorists with a thoughtful answer that didn't make good copy, so it was redacted and replaced with blurb. At a wild guess.
Why not? Buy ten of them, then smash them to bits. Every one you buy takes money directly out of Bill-n-Steve's pockets and away from their DRM project. Just don't buy any games
Thanks, but this is Slashdot. We prefer uninformed soapbox ranting about how things should be rather than learning about how they are. Don't take my word for it, look at the 5 voted ramblings above your post.
The Secret Service/NSA/FBI/CIA assure us that evil criminal masterminds and cyberterrorists are poised to take down the internet and cripple the global economy at any moment. Given the accuracy of their past predictions, this too will surely come to pass. When it does, the government will need a scapegoat, and fast. I think we know who that will be.
My question is: where do you plan to hide, what psueodonym will you adopt, and will you be travelling in company with Al Gore?
Don't worry, we won't tell them. This is just between you and us.
Look great, but you step 1 could be improved: mount dossiere.nsa.gov:/home/$USER@$HOST ~/trash
I find it pleasing to see a click-through agreement being leveraged the other way. After all, we're repeatedly told by Big Interests that click-throughs (like EULA's) ARE binding contracts entered into by mutual agreement. Fine, then we have a contract, a.k.a. a business relationship, a.k.a. a high level strategic alliance. ;-)
But he's not going far enough. Simply charging more for more patent filings isn't going to stop the companies that exist to do nothing other than file patents. They'll just factor it into their business models and pass the costs on to licencees.
What the PTO needs to do is to charge punitive fees when they reject patents. Yes, you heard me. Currently, they get their income from granting patents, so there's absolutely no, zero, zilch, nada incentive to reject, and so there's no disincentive to file.
Let's turn that on its head. Patents should be granted grudgingly. Examiners should be looking for excuses to reject them.
I'd quite seriously propose a deposit of $10,000 for each patent filing, most of which would be refundable on granting. I want filers to be sure that they're actually filing genuine inventions, and I want the PTO examiner (and/or subcontractor) to be eyeing that $10,000 as her reward for finding prior art that you've missed or "forgotten" to mention.
If $10,000 looks like a lot, then consider how many genuinely novel inventions you're likely to have during your working life, and compare that to the number of cars you might buy over that same period. If you still think that's too much for basement inventors, then consider that they can always sell their idea to one of the patent swallowing companies, and we can go back to business as usual.
So, it'll be run like a dot com? When's the IPO?
They recommend installing an OS with an EULA that allows Microsoft to root your box?
Aw, how sweet! Wil's got a stalker! Come and see, everyone, this is just so adorable! Wook at him wiggle his widdle stalker paws! Wook at his paws. He's a cwever stalker. Yes he is. Who's a cwever stalker then? Who is? Who is? Oo is!
If it's that well established, could you cite some case law please.
Me: 'kay, what are we using?
IT guy: eSmith VPN
Me: Which is? PPTP VPN? IpSec?
IT guy: What? Use Windows 2K VPN to connect.
Me: Uh, right. I'll be using PPTP on my linux box, is that all right?
IT guy: No way!
Me: Why not?
IT guy: It's not on the approved software list, therefore it's a potential security risk.
Me: Uhhh... all right. Then I'll use Win2K VPN.
IT guy: Really?
Me: Sure, as far as you know.
Which pretty much sums up commercial IT. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.
It lets them re-assign security staff from lazily eyeballing baby-Jesus lovin' white folks to their number one priority, "random" stop-and-searches of shifty moon-god worshipping Arabiac-looking types.
That's the best case scenario. The real world scenario is that they just sack some staff and return to business as usual... until the next hijacking.
And when the first caveman tied his sharp rock to the end of a long stick, there was an old guy sitting next to him saying "Huh, in my day, we had to learn how to kill wild pigs up close and personal. Sure, your way is more efficient, but I understand the fundamentals."