If you really miss Bloom County (and believe me, I *do*!), you might want to check out Gloom County... a rather well written (IMHO), darker (read: Gothic) version of Bloom County... but funny as all hell (again, IMHO).
Ack! But enough of my accolades... I'm not even part of the staff...:-)
Certainly it costs money to buy Anti-Virus software, and it costs overtime to clean up the mess, and then to get people caught up after you've neutralized the situation.
Do you send your other personnel home at this time? No, probably not. If for no other reason, you probably don't have legal standing to simply send them home without pay in the event of a virus attack.
Soooo... if you're down for 6 hours, that six horus of paid time with very little productivity (not counting cleaning out your desk, watering plants, or redecorating your office).
When asked what the biggest expense is in the budget every year, my boss didn't even take the time to blink before he said "Salaries".
Consider six hours, times the salaries of EVERYONE who's lost productivity and 17.1 billion doesn't sound like such an astronomical number... especially since six hours is a pretty paltry figure, given that some companies were down for DAYS after the "I Love You" virus hit.
I bought a Western Digital 30gb drive waaaay back when... like, ~6 months ago. About a month or so ago, I think I *finally* got the damn rebate check. Then, a week ago, I got my $25 Gift Certificate to Best Buy... the "other" half of the deal.
Then, a few days later, I get *another* $25 Gift Certificate in the mail. ?!?!? I don't remember buying TWO drives, and even if I did, a lot of this stuff maxxes out, "1 rebate per household, etc. etc.", anyway.
So I'm thinking, they sent me an extra one by mistake (sure couldn't be compensation for the utter lateness!!)... either way, I won't be giving it back!!
Who knows, maybe there's another Rebate Check floating around with my name on it, too...:-)
Welp, I've been with DSL for nearly 2 years... I got in real early and never had any "wait" problems on getting installed, and though the service was kinda "iffy" near the beginning, it's actually been quite solid for at least a year now.
However, due to some watering down of the news service: 128kbps connection, 2 connects max (was unlimited) on an outsourced SuperNews "corp" connection... I decided to switch to a cable modem (Road Runner).
Now for the most part, the DSL service has been great!! The service provider is a small firm called MMInternet.com, but they do it right, and are really nice people.
On the other hand, the cable folks are $10/month cheaper, and their line runs nearly twice as fast!! Road Runner was rolled out here ~18 months ago so there's been plenty of time to saturate those lines... so far, though, the speed is quite impressive.
The added bonus, of course, is that *their* news server runs at line speed, which is almost 10 times the speed I was seeing with the DSL account.
I'm actually sorry to leave the DSL guys, 'cause like I said, they're a really nice bunch... however, they've also been promising an in-house news server for ~4-5 months "any day now", and the latest word is that it might still be a few months away.
As far as I know, they're not Covad related... I know Verizon is in the pipe somewhere though... dunno if that's better or worse.
As someone just getting into DVDs, I'd like to applaud Paramount for *not* releasing a stock copy on DVD, only to produce a "Director's Cut" a year later, just to scoop up the bux.
I sincerely hope the director's cut works out as well as it sounds... I, for one, can't remember the last time I watched ST:TMP. If nothing else, I remember getting bored with all those long, seemingly extended shots of the exterior of the Enterprise (I think they were shuttling in?)... so I hope those get a snip or two here or there as well.
Also, will that "memory walk" be part of the outtakes? Seems only fitting...
Yup, been there, done that. When I started out, I was an intern, and although I didn't have the experience behind me, I still felt my words should hold value... ie: LISTEN, and then debunk me on my words, not my age.
One of my managers totally ignored an issue I'd brought up to him, and a month later he asked, "Why aren't we doing this?" so I told him, "YOU told me not to worry about it!!"
In another scenario, I'd barely gotten the words out of my mouth when I was shot down by a more senior engineer... the boss immediately took his words as the gospel truth without bothering to ask me to explain exactly why I felt I was right (I was)... as far as I know, that bug has still never been fixed.:-(
These days, I'm 32, and have 10+ years experience... so now folks listen to me. Over these 10 years, I've known folks older than me who knew less, and folks younger than me who were particularly sharp. *I* always judge on merit, and not on age... but most of the world still doesn't work that way.
So I tell all my younger friends, "the only plus to being old is that people take you seriously"... and unfortunately, it's true.
Wasn't the Internet initially designed as a tool for the military, with the ability to fire off missiles from remote locations even if Washington D.C., New York, Los Angeles, etc. were already laid to nuclear waste?
What if someone decided to fire missles at us while at the same time flooding all our military computers with packets such that we couldn't respond?!
Not that I'm in favor of a nuclear holocaust, mind you, but I figure the military brass would be particularly interested if their massive computers could get knocked off the 'net by a couple teenagers.
So how do we know Yahoo! won't turn into a walled garden all by themselves? I'll agree, I use Yahoo! for a lot of things, and for the most part, I always admired their service.
However, over the past few years, their presence on the 'net has been to suck up as many companies as they can, and somehow try to meld them into the Yahoo! universe... often badly. The Webring fiasco was probably the worst case and even today I continue to fight with the Yahoo! support team, telling them they really need to put back functionality that was originally on Webring.org. "Fight" probably isn't the correct word, since they haven't bothered to respond to any support Email from me since sometime in November. Near as I can tell, they simply don't care... either that or they're too embarassed at having bought Webring.org, broken it, and now refuse to fix it, or even acknowledge there are problems.
Yeah, maybe Yahoo! was great once, and maybe it shouldn't take one (really) bad experience to tarnish such a reputation... but at the point where they start ignoring support Emails, I can only see a downward spiral.:-(
Maybe it's a ploy to drain eToys' funds... they *know* they don't have the money to go hire high-priced lawyers... if they pummel them enough in court, either they win, or eToys will die even earlier than 3/31.
Yup, payback is definately a bitch!!
Slashdot Mirror
Er wait ... doesn't somebody have a patent on this?
I haven't tried this before, but here goes, link.
Ack! But enough of my accolades ... I'm not even part of the staff... :-)
Check it out at: http://www.gloomcounty.com/
"Oh Bill the Cat, we hardly knew ye..."
Someone ought to remind Allchin that Microsoft Internet Explorer went out the door for $0.00.
Unamerican?
On the other hand, *that* was used to crush a competitor and destroy a viable marketplace. Maybe that was the "American Way" after all...
Wow, finally a credit card that can play Gary Numan's "Cars", just like in that American Express commercial...
Do you send your other personnel home at this time? No, probably not. If for no other reason, you probably don't have legal standing to simply send them home without pay in the event of a virus attack.
Soooo ... if you're down for 6 hours, that six horus of paid time with very little productivity (not counting cleaning out your desk, watering plants, or redecorating your office).
When asked what the biggest expense is in the budget every year, my boss didn't even take the time to blink before he said "Salaries".
Consider six hours, times the salaries of EVERYONE who's lost productivity and 17.1 billion doesn't sound like such an astronomical number ... especially since six hours is a pretty paltry figure, given that some companies were down for DAYS after the "I Love You" virus hit.
Then, a few days later, I get *another* $25 Gift Certificate in the mail. ?!?!? I don't remember buying TWO drives, and even if I did, a lot of this stuff maxxes out, "1 rebate per household, etc. etc.", anyway.
So I'm thinking, they sent me an extra one by mistake (sure couldn't be compensation for the utter lateness!!) ... either way, I won't be giving it back!!
Who knows, maybe there's another Rebate Check floating around with my name on it, too... :-)
However, due to some watering down of the news service: 128kbps connection, 2 connects max (was unlimited) on an outsourced SuperNews "corp" connection ... I decided to switch to a cable modem (Road Runner).
Now for the most part, the DSL service has been great!! The service provider is a small firm called MMInternet.com, but they do it right, and are really nice people.
On the other hand, the cable folks are $10/month cheaper, and their line runs nearly twice as fast!! Road Runner was rolled out here ~18 months ago so there's been plenty of time to saturate those lines ... so far, though, the speed is quite impressive.
The added bonus, of course, is that *their* news server runs at line speed, which is almost 10 times the speed I was seeing with the DSL account.
I'm actually sorry to leave the DSL guys, 'cause like I said, they're a really nice bunch ... however, they've also been promising an in-house news server for ~4-5 months "any day now", and the latest word is that it might still be a few months away.
As far as I know, they're not Covad related ... I know Verizon is in the pipe somewhere though ... dunno if that's better or worse.
I sincerely hope the director's cut works out as well as it sounds ... I, for one, can't remember the last time I watched ST:TMP. If nothing else, I remember getting bored with all those long, seemingly extended shots of the exterior of the Enterprise (I think they were shuttling in?) ... so I hope those get a snip or two here or there as well.
Also, will that "memory walk" be part of the outtakes? Seems only fitting...
I'm thinking of making bikinis out of this stuff ... then all hackers have to do is find a way to make it suddenly transparent. :-)
Or maybe LockheedMartinSucksYourMother.com would be better...
One of my managers totally ignored an issue I'd brought up to him, and a month later he asked, "Why aren't we doing this?" so I told him, "YOU told me not to worry about it!!"
In another scenario, I'd barely gotten the words out of my mouth when I was shot down by a more senior engineer ... the boss immediately took his words as the gospel truth without bothering to ask me to explain exactly why I felt I was right (I was) ... as far as I know, that bug has still never been fixed. :-(
These days, I'm 32, and have 10+ years experience ... so now folks listen to me. Over these 10 years, I've known folks older than me who knew less, and folks younger than me who were particularly sharp. *I* always judge on merit, and not on age ... but most of the world still doesn't work that way.
So I tell all my younger friends, "the only plus to being old is that people take you seriously" ... and unfortunately, it's true.
What if someone decided to fire missles at us while at the same time flooding all our military computers with packets such that we couldn't respond?!
Not that I'm in favor of a nuclear holocaust, mind you, but I figure the military brass would be particularly interested if their massive computers could get knocked off the 'net by a couple teenagers.
So, is this the root of copy cat crimes? :-)
However, over the past few years, their presence on the 'net has been to suck up as many companies as they can, and somehow try to meld them into the Yahoo! universe ... often badly. The Webring fiasco was probably the worst case and even today I continue to fight with the Yahoo! support team, telling them they really need to put back functionality that was originally on Webring.org. "Fight" probably isn't the correct word, since they haven't bothered to respond to any support Email from me since sometime in November. Near as I can tell, they simply don't care ... either that or they're too embarassed at having bought Webring.org, broken it, and now refuse to fix it, or even acknowledge there are problems.
Yeah, maybe Yahoo! was great once, and maybe it shouldn't take one (really) bad experience to tarnish such a reputation ... but at the point where they start ignoring support Emails, I can only see a downward spiral. :-(
Maybe it's a ploy to drain eToys' funds ... they *know* they don't have the money to go hire high-priced lawyers ... if they pummel them enough in court, either they win, or eToys will die even earlier than 3/31.
Yup, payback is definately a bitch!!