BillG: "None of the security problems recently affected people who had their software up to date..."
Oh. You mean how my laptop, despite having the latest security patches, managed to contract the Qhosts Trojan? You know, the one that exploits the flaw that Microsoft didn't totally fix in Internet Explorer? Thanks, Bill. I had fun removing that one.
Glad to know I wasn't affected because I was up to date on my patches. You put my mind at ease.
Your bosses are Nazis. Go somewhere else. Seriously! I have to say, that since I started working from home, my schedule goes like this:
1] Wake up at 7:50am. 2] Log into VPN, AIM, VNC right around 8:00am. 3] Work until 5pm. 4] Log off of VNC, AIM, VPN. 5] Profit!!!
Although sometimes here lately I'm working past 5pm, or working some really weird schedules because that is when things are going on. But I get comp time, which really is cool.
My favorite spam are ones that are dated at least several hours into the future. Sure, they appear at the top of my time-sorted mailbox, but they're so easy to pick off. I need to find a filter I can apply with the inbox method I use to delete messages from the future (even after accounting for time zone differences).
Question: I wonder if a potential trend towards wednesdays is more prounounced or less pronounced than it was months or years ago. Considering you've received 11,560 spam message, I have to wonder if that includes a very long period of time, or you are an exception in the volume of spam you receive. (And/or things like virus mailings or anything else is counted in.)
I seriously hope nobody patents this obvious idea. I was going to put the same suggestion before I saw you had it. That also, of course, includes OLEDs or any other movable type print technology. (Slashdot is great for creating prior art.)
I rarely buy anything with checks. But when I do, I get a little bit peeved. I wish those clerks wouldn't just wave my check around for anyone to see. I wish they'd treat it like it has confidential information, because it DOES! My bank routing number, by account number, my name, address, telephone number.
You'd think someone would train these register monkeys that they're holding a sensitive document in their hand, instead of proudly displaying it for anyone who wants my personal account information.
If you have an uncooperative vendor who doesn't want to replace a marginal part, I find that a stun gun provides a great deal of benefit. One small application to the device in question, and you've gone from a marginal device, to dead one, with an automatic RMA in your hands.
From Antic Magazine (December 1982): Until recently, no really satisfactory substitute for the Atari joystick has been available. The first alternative was "Le Stick" from DataSoft. Billed as a onehanded joystick, it has internal mercury switches which detect the angle at which it is being held. The "fire" button is mounted on top. Some people like Le Stick, but most find that it is very hard to keep the stick perfectly upright, a position often needed to keep the cursor from moving. A squeezetrigger in Le Stick is supposed to freeze the cursor, but my hand gets tired and it is hard to adjust to the joystick action. Also, the uncertainty of directional response makes this stick unsuitable for very fast action games. Datasoft. $39.95 (1982 dollars.)
Now, if you can stand to look at this, uh, unusually shaped creation, here it is.
Why do I have a feeling one of the trolls is going to enjoy this post?
Americans spend an average of 28hrs/wk watching television. I am sure that if they spend a fraction of that time undertaking some sort of training they will be able to acquire new skills. Yes, that is correct, in the future you may have to watch television for less than 28 hours each week to be competitive in the job marketplace.
That's it! THAT is the answer! Simple: We buy everyone a TiVo, and it raises GDP enough to not only pull the country out of a slump, but launches a new golden era of propserity! It is genius!;)
I like where you are going with this. But I want to insert some counter-arguments...
No CEO with any sense is going to push his own salary above a certain percentage of the company's profits.
Logical flaw: A hypothetical CEO pulls in a paltry $500k/year salary. No bonus, no stock, no other benefits. The kicker? The company doesn't post a profit but actually posts a loss. You can forget the entire percentage argument. Same for a non-profit organization. Now, if we're talking revenue, that might be different.
As far as the corporation is concerned, the CEO is a giant liability with a giant salary. A good CEO would keep his own salary relatively low and have most of his money in investments.
Assuming a corporation had an independant brain, that would probably be true. But because the CEO is part of the corporation's decision making process, the CEO corrupts that logical process.
"Employees" are also "Consumers" This is the one item that the paper forgets. If all "Employees" are thrown out of work, then there will be no one with any money to sell the products to.
I thought that was one of the very points they were addressing?
This is also a weakness that many people forget. Anyone who says "(Legal) Immigrants cost us jobs" is a damn fool. Legal immigrants may compete with us in the job market, but they produce wealth (by their labor) and consume what is produced, contributing to total economic output.
I think in this example, we're talking about more of an extreme. We're not shifting jobs to immigrants. We're shifting jobs to corporate robotic assets, which are very poor consumers when compared to the human variety corporate assets.
On the other hand as manufacturing capacity increases (due to the robots or other automation), wealth will increase as well. While the rich may be richer than they were in 1960, I guarantee that the poor are considerably richer than they were in 1960 as well.
I *do* agree that this is a strange paradox. Better items being produced at the lowest possible cost benefits consumers. But at the same time, the local population of consumers is being squeezed in order to produce said goods (be it through robotics, foreign labor, extended work hours, low minimum wage, whatever). It shifts the wealth around in a really strange way (in the US).
The middle class people all sit in cubicles. God knows what they do, but they sure as hell aren't making anything.
They make rules and systems and virtual products. Especially those computer people. They're really good at it. Unfortunately, American's aren't the only ones who are good at it. The barrier to entry in making virtual products is very low.
At the large company I work at, the office *is* almost entirely paperless, except for security control forms, startup HR work, and a few trivial things here and there which didn't go electronic.
In fact, that ties in very well work working from home. Of course, that ties in very well with outsourcing to India. Maybe I do like the paper office after all.
1. Tech support, network administration, system administration, etc are jobs that ( I hope I don't offend anyone ) aren't rocket science and probably would save companies $$ if outsourced overseas. However, language barriers, schedule problems, and cultural differences make the human interaction that these jobs always end up requiring usually end up making hiring an overseas workforce more expensive in the long run.
I'd disagree with systems administration for several reasons. They often compromise the 'glue' that holds IT together. Good ones are multiskilled and multifunctional. Great for hunting down problems in IT operations. And your better ones are quite intelligent and quite skilled. But ultimately, the reason you'd keep them is that you need face time between them and the rest of the IT staff. Communication skills ARE a must. Most efforts I've seen to outsource SAs and DBAs have been unfortunate.
If you're referring to the same expert system that I know about, it is a laughable ordeal that would only work in the most homogeneous environments. Otherwise, you get caught up in the overhead of maintaining and keeping the expert system an expert, or you make lots and lots of mistakes. And on a grand scale.
In my environment, it is being pushed down our throats by senior IT management. But now that intelligent people have looked at it, they basically know that the best it can do is cut an irrelevant portion of headcount. Its only major plus is pushing out patches really well.
Of course, they're just around the corner from figuring out how bad it is, even on its most promising feature. I can't wait!
One might prefer the term, "Ribbed, for her pleasure." To mix in another analogy, it seems they're doing a lot of, "Let's slap some lipstick on the pig, and shove it out the door!"
Slashdot Mirror
Why doesn't GNU file a 'friend of the court' brief or something?
BillG: "None of the security problems recently affected people who had their software up to date..."
Oh. You mean how my laptop, despite having the latest security patches, managed to contract the Qhosts Trojan? You know, the one that exploits the flaw that Microsoft didn't totally fix in Internet Explorer? Thanks, Bill. I had fun removing that one.
Glad to know I wasn't affected because I was up to date on my patches. You put my mind at ease.
Your bosses are Nazis. Go somewhere else. Seriously! I have to say, that since I started working from home, my schedule goes like this:
1] Wake up at 7:50am.
2] Log into VPN, AIM, VNC right around 8:00am.
3] Work until 5pm.
4] Log off of VNC, AIM, VPN.
5] Profit!!!
Although sometimes here lately I'm working past 5pm, or working some really weird schedules because that is when things are going on. But I get comp time, which really is cool.
My favorite spam are ones that are dated at least several hours into the future. Sure, they appear at the top of my time-sorted mailbox, but they're so easy to pick off. I need to find a filter I can apply with the inbox method I use to delete messages from the future (even after accounting for time zone differences).
Question: I wonder if a potential trend towards wednesdays is more prounounced or less pronounced than it was months or years ago. Considering you've received 11,560 spam message, I have to wonder if that includes a very long period of time, or you are an exception in the volume of spam you receive. (And/or things like virus mailings or anything else is counted in.)
I seriously hope nobody patents this obvious idea. I was going to put the same suggestion before I saw you had it. That also, of course, includes OLEDs or any other movable type print technology. (Slashdot is great for creating prior art.)
I rarely buy anything with checks. But when I do, I get a little bit peeved. I wish those clerks wouldn't just wave my check around for anyone to see. I wish they'd treat it like it has confidential information, because it DOES! My bank routing number, by account number, my name, address, telephone number.
You'd think someone would train these register monkeys that they're holding a sensitive document in their hand, instead of proudly displaying it for anyone who wants my personal account information.
If you have an uncooperative vendor who doesn't want to replace a marginal part, I find that a stun gun provides a great deal of benefit. One small application to the device in question, and you've gone from a marginal device, to dead one, with an automatic RMA in your hands.
THe funny thing is, if this story gets a lot of publicity, you'll see lots of people heading to P2P networks for it.
From Antic Magazine (December 1982):
Until recently, no really satisfactory substitute for the Atari joystick has been available. The first alternative was "Le Stick" from DataSoft. Billed as a onehanded joystick, it has internal mercury switches which detect the angle at which it is being held. The "fire" button is mounted on top. Some people like Le Stick, but most find that it is very hard to keep the stick perfectly upright, a position often needed to keep the cursor from moving. A squeezetrigger in Le Stick is supposed to freeze the cursor, but my hand gets tired and it is hard to adjust to the joystick action. Also, the uncertainty of directional response makes this stick unsuitable for very fast action games. Datasoft. $39.95 (1982 dollars.)
Now, if you can stand to look at this, uh, unusually shaped creation, here it is.
Why do I have a feeling one of the trolls is going to enjoy this post?
Americans spend an average of 28hrs/wk watching television. I am sure that if they spend a fraction of that time undertaking some sort of training they will be able to acquire new skills. Yes, that is correct, in the future you may have to watch television for less than 28 hours each week to be competitive in the job marketplace.
;)
That's it! THAT is the answer!
Simple: We buy everyone a TiVo, and it raises GDP enough to not only pull the country out of a slump, but launches a new golden era of propserity! It is genius!
And then they'll install us in a virtual reality that keeps us pacified while they harvest thermal energy from our imprisoned bodies!
It seems to me that a modern trash-to-energy plant or some really neat microbes could do a much better job at that than we do.
I like where you are going with this. But I want to insert some counter-arguments...
No CEO with any sense is going to push his own salary above a certain percentage of the company's profits.
Logical flaw:
A hypothetical CEO pulls in a paltry $500k/year salary. No bonus, no stock, no other benefits. The kicker? The company doesn't post a profit but actually posts a loss. You can forget the entire percentage argument. Same for a non-profit organization. Now, if we're talking revenue, that might be different.
As far as the corporation is concerned, the CEO is a giant liability with a giant salary. A good CEO would keep his own salary relatively low and have most of his money in investments.
Assuming a corporation had an independant brain, that would probably be true. But because the CEO is part of the corporation's decision making process, the CEO corrupts that logical process.
"Employees" are also "Consumers" This is the one item that the paper forgets. If all "Employees" are thrown out of work, then there will be no one with any money to sell the products to.
I thought that was one of the very points they were addressing?
This is also a weakness that many people forget. Anyone who says "(Legal) Immigrants cost us jobs" is a damn fool. Legal immigrants may compete with us in the job market, but they produce wealth (by their labor) and consume what is produced, contributing to total economic output.
I think in this example, we're talking about more of an extreme. We're not shifting jobs to immigrants. We're shifting jobs to corporate robotic assets, which are very poor consumers when compared to the human variety corporate assets.
On the other hand as manufacturing capacity increases (due to the robots or other automation), wealth will increase as well. While the rich may be richer than they were in 1960, I guarantee that the poor are considerably richer than they were in 1960 as well.
I *do* agree that this is a strange paradox. Better items being produced at the lowest possible cost benefits consumers. But at the same time, the local population of consumers is being squeezed in order to produce said goods (be it through robotics, foreign labor, extended work hours, low minimum wage, whatever). It shifts the wealth around in a really strange way (in the US).
The middle class people all sit in cubicles. God knows what they do, but they sure as hell aren't making anything.
They make rules and systems and virtual products. Especially those computer people. They're really good at it. Unfortunately, American's aren't the only ones who are good at it. The barrier to entry in making virtual products is very low.
At the large company I work at, the office *is* almost entirely paperless, except for security control forms, startup HR work, and a few trivial things here and there which didn't go electronic.
In fact, that ties in very well work working from home. Of course, that ties in very well with outsourcing to India. Maybe I do like the paper office after all.
1. Tech support, network administration, system administration, etc are jobs that ( I hope I don't offend anyone ) aren't rocket science and probably would save companies $$ if outsourced overseas. However, language barriers, schedule problems, and cultural differences make the human interaction that these jobs always end up requiring usually end up making hiring an overseas workforce more expensive in the long run.
I'd disagree with systems administration for several reasons. They often compromise the 'glue' that holds IT together. Good ones are multiskilled and multifunctional. Great for hunting down problems in IT operations. And your better ones are quite intelligent and quite skilled. But ultimately, the reason you'd keep them is that you need face time between them and the rest of the IT staff. Communication skills ARE a must. Most efforts I've seen to outsource SAs and DBAs have been unfortunate.
If you're referring to the same expert system that I know about, it is a laughable ordeal that would only work in the most homogeneous environments. Otherwise, you get caught up in the overhead of maintaining and keeping the expert system an expert, or you make lots and lots of mistakes. And on a grand scale.
In my environment, it is being pushed down our throats by senior IT management. But now that intelligent people have looked at it, they basically know that the best it can do is cut an irrelevant portion of headcount. Its only major plus is pushing out patches really well.
Of course, they're just around the corner from figuring out how bad it is, even on its most promising feature. I can't wait!
It's like saying gential warts is sexy.
One might prefer the term, "Ribbed, for her pleasure." To mix in another analogy, it seems they're doing a lot of, "Let's slap some lipstick on the pig, and shove it out the door!"
Will it include Dr. Who?
I glad those Zathras people started numbering themselves. They kept telling me their names but I still couldn't tell one from another.
When will we see The Women of SCO?
You gleefully danced on both sides of the issue without getting muddy. Congratulations. Are YOU ready for CEO?
There was a follow-up to Paradroid? Oh gawd. I'm getting an Amiga.
Lots of console stuff and home computer stuff. But it is awfully lacking in the coin-op department. But still, quite a collection!
Is we get rid of the BSD code, wouldn't that mean we have to get rid of BSD, too? ;)
Oh well. BSD has been dying for years anyhow.