This guy makes reference to the "Linux Compete Team." I think that if a super-behemoth company like M$ creates a team dedicated to eliminating choice through FUD, (i.e.: the "Linux Compete Team") well, that is noteworthy.
On the other hand, can you imagine being on that team? "Ok team, we have to convince people that a blue sky is not necesarilly the way to go. Sure, it may be free, pretty, and dovetail perfectly with the present environment, but blue skies do not integrate well in our.Net initiative, so try to sell them on green or mauve. If they put up a fight, remind them of that ozone hole that current blue skies allow! Remind them that, with us, the sky (with M$ SkyColor 2.0), is no longer our, er, I mean, THE limit."
Seriosly, though... I am a theatre major-turned bookseller-turned library tech guru, and when I started the tech stuff, I was a Windows neophyte. I hadn't programmed one line in about 15 years, and the library was about to move into a new building. By the time the hard drive on our NT server crashed, (a convenient excuse to replace NT with RH, even if it was a hardware problem) I was more than ready to cut the umbilical to M$. Now, with free office suites available for Linux, an apparantly endless upgrade path for Windows, and a gestapo-like enforcement of insane, outdated EULAs, there are fewer and fewer reasons for me to encourage the board of trustees to continue supporting the M$ model. That's $$ better spent on books, PCs, and tech toys for me, IMHO.
Maybe I can email my open-source success story to Mr. Valentine someday.;-)
Actually, the Hindenburg burned due to a special treatment applied to the canvas, which made it highly flammable. Add to that the diesel fuel for the engines, and your real culprit is > dead dinosaurs, aka fossil fuel. According to reports I have read, hydrogen will, essentially, evaporate and disperse immediately, since it is the lightest element in the whole big Universe.
Not only are filters ineffective against porn, but the focus on porn misses the point. Most censorers are idiots when it comes to email, chat, newsgroups, etc., for which there are many ways to get access.
As a former Borderite, I can voiuch for the fact that their Asset Protection people have been assuming your guilt from the day they were spun off from K-Mart with Waldenbooks. This whole thing is part of the 'Waldenization' process.
In fact, several years ago, they began installing camera bubbles (Most of which are fake, btw), without first looking into rearranging floor layouts, etc. to help prevent theft. They are more concerned with catching theifs rather than dissuading them. No employees were brought into the process, either. It was 'control shrink our way or no way."
The Borders shrink people are a bunch of cocks, IMHO.
>>1. About every 10 years, the Bering Strait freezes over, so you don't have to wait for an ice age to cross.
True, but it's awfully inconvenient to have to wait those ten years, especially when you are doing the time calculations with carved marks on mammoth tusks.
>>
2. Northern cultures have been using small boats for a long time, so you don't have to wait for an ice age to cross.
Try crossing the Pacific (or even the Bering Strait) in a birch bark canoe, especially in a mass migration. Any takers?;-)
>>
3. If I'm walking from Japan to Wyoming across mile-deep glaciers (as the "they walked here" theory states, what the hell were they eating? Or am I supposed to beleive each walker carried several months of food and fuel (to melt ice for water). A six-month supply of 2,000 calories per day of fish or meat jerky weighs how much? A ton? Two tons?
Actually, the glaciers formed on land, and the water was taken from the seas, ergo the land bridge after the water was gone. They didn't walk across on the glaciers.
Strangely enough, I hear tales of creatures living in the Artic, which not only provide meat for caloric intake, but also fat and oils for heating purposes and hides for fashionable neolithic Winter-wear. Feast on mammoth and caribou until their populations dwindles, then start on the seals, whales, and fish. Hell, why even leave the land bridge with all that feasting to do?
>>
4. 100,000 years ago, there were thriving pine forests in Antarctica. If it was that warm there, then it was that warm up North, and the whole north coast of Russia and Canada was probably a great place to live.
I doubt the claim of a forested Antarctic that recently (can you provide a link to reputable research on it?) The climates of the poles, however, do not parallel each other. Given the inclination of the Earth's axis (which changes over time), and the eccentricity of Earth's orbit, North and South recieve differring amounts of sunlight. Presently, When the Earth is closest to the Sun, the Northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun, and the Southern towards it. Additionally, the weather of the North is driven by oscillations in the Northern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (I recently read a book on this called 'The Little Ice Age')
>>5. The glaciers destroyed almost all evidence of human habitation in the north.
The glaciers were extant at the time of the migration, and would have advanced over uninhabited (by human) ground, and retreated afterwards, allowing humans to expand over the newly-exposed surface. Additionally, glaciation doesn't proceed in only a bulldozer-like fashion. Creatures would live (if you call that living) atop glacier fields, and die, leaving their bodies to be entombed in the ice, carried downstream, and deposited upon the ice thawing.
>>
6. Nomadic cultures use little, and waste even less. Most of what we find from older cultures is from their burial grounds, or from what they have abandoned. Inuit leave very little behind, and a couple decades of winter storms erases almost everything.
...And from those remains, scientists can determine relationships (from bone structure, as this article tells us) between populations. Additionally, refuse from hunting and feasting often ends up in the same disposal site, even with nomadic groups (one stays in the area til the food runs out, then one moves on--in the meantime, you toss the bones, broken spears, and dead hunters in that pit behind Og's cave)
Additionally, a couple decades of winter storms actually tends to preserve these remains. And that, class, is all for today's lecture.
Step 1: Identify and make list of the culprits
Step 2: Find a knowledgeable, accessable script kiddie
Step 3: Give list of offending pop-up servers to script kiddie.
Step 4: repeat and meditate on the following mantra: DDOS.... DDOS.... DDOS....
Of course, I note this for entertainment purposes ONLY...
Life does not exist anywhere but the Earth which was created by the almighty God.
I hope he applied for the patent...
It's funny, you claim you don't believe in God because you can't touch him.
I touched God once, and he's suing me for sexual harrassment. Shit, I can't catch a goddamned break...
Have you ever touched the Sun?
Isn't this a line from some flower-power song from the 60s??
Prove that it's not a big heat lamp created by God to give this planet warmth.
You are a moron. Go back to your church and don't come out again until the Rapture. No, wait, even then, stay inside. You'll be safe from us normal people partying like it's Armageddon.
Sheesh... Next we'll start hearing about the earth being flat.
Actually, the panspermia theory of biological dispersion holds that such microbes *could* survive the trip. Most people assume the only method of transport from Mars-to-Earth is the Express Route on the Meteor Express. However, there are less extreme ways of getting from there to here.
For example, dust-hitching microbes kicked-up by an impact on Mars could be blown into the upper Martian atmosphere--even low Mars orbit. Add the tug of the odd asteroid or two, and dust particles impregnated with microbial life could drift about between Earth and Mars for a few million years, eventually settling into Earth's upper atmosphere, where they drift down to the ground (and wonder where their luggage ended up).
This theory has been around for a while. Recently, I even read that scientists are now only BEGINNING to study the biosphere of Earth's upper atmosphere, where we get more particulates settling-in than you can shake a can of Endust at. Of course, one wonders what would happen to life up there, in the great blue yonder, with all the ozone and solar radiation a young mutant spore could absorb...
If NASA wanted to play it safe, though, they could always construct a clean room module for the ISS. Hell, at the rate NASA is going, Mars life will get here before we ever go there.
Every time I fire up Star Office 5.2, it takes a long time to get going. Now, bear in mind that I am running with only 64MB of RAM. Still, I get as much accomplished as I did with MS Office before I became 100% Linux.
Why?
Well, I chalk it up to the fact that I am simply not wasting time anymore restarting the app or the OS, my cheeks wet with tears from weeping over my lost work.
But, Hey! If people want to beat their head against a wall, I say let them. (And, hey, why not install Outlook while you're at it, suckers!)
So here is my rational assessment... The Law is by it's very definition public domain, so any corporate lamprey looking to get his pound of flesh outta this can go hang for all I care.
Microsoft and such corporate bottom-feeders best watch it: these reindeer games play both ways. Should code generated under GPL appear in MS Windblows Ecchs-Pee, it stands to reason that the proggies who wrote it could end up owning M$ (but then, if you hved everything, where would you put it?).
My opinions only. Your Mileage may vary.
So does this mean that I can't reproduce the Consitution online on my own page, the code still being the property of the descendents of Messrs. Jefferson, Hancock, Hamilton, Madison, yada yada yada...
>
Ok... I'll go read this article now, but my blood pressure sure son't need it!
As the network administrator and SOLE computer guru for a medium-sized public library, I find myself getting the short end of the stick, so far as salary is concerned. You see, if you don't have that gold-embossed MS degree in library Science here, you don't get paid shit (pardon my language, I know many of you have sensitive eyes;-) )
Some would argue that a higher degree should mean more money, but here I am with a degree entirely unrelated to computers or library science (Theatre Arts, thank you very much), getting paid 10k less than the librarians who are both YOUNGER than me and INCAPABLE of anything beyond typing a document in M$ Word. Do I feel slighted because I started as a Mac person who eventually worked his way to an understanding of Linux and still gets paid squat?
Mmmmmm...... COULD BE!
Of course, not having formal training in IT means that no one would hire me if I chose to jump ship, ergo my return to the classroom at the local community college. But I can see how IT unionization would benefit me, or at least others like me.
What would you do if you were a big corporation, bloated on the carcasses of your vanquished competitors, and suddenly you discovered a.: you were intellectually bankrupt, b.: your business plan had painted you into a cybernetic corner, and c.: your heretofore monolithic business model, upon which your monopoly was based, was fatally cracked?
What would you do if you discovered you were circulating more bug fixes, er, uh, "system patches", than actual OS installation disks?
In short, what would you do if your gravy train had reached the end of the tracks and you still had a trainload of passengers suckin at yer teat?
BINGO! Slip a paradigm shift past 'em, and make 'em think it's the new "IN" thing! Make 'em pay for their ticket a second time! A third time! Ad nauseum....
What a rip, if I do say so myself...
As it stands, I work for a public library, which is in turn a member of a library cooperative with over 60 member libraries. I have a sneaking suspicion that MS won't just charge the big corporations. I'll bet member libraries will have to up their software budgets in order to pay a future toll to the Redmond Troll.
They admit that in the future they will be a "services"-oriented company (odd, considering the service they provide... but I digress).
Color me silly, but maybe I'll look for ways around using Windows for our public stations. Nyah, Bill.
Hello. My name is Billy Gates, and I attend the Senior High with your daughter, ________, where I am the student computer tutor and future pant-shittingly rich tech entrepreneuter.
It is common knowledge that your daughter has received a great deal of tutoring from me, yet has chosen not to allow the installation of my OS on her HD.
Therefore, I am offering you this opportunity to win one of many prizes, and all you need to do is convince your daughter to achieve some measure of installation. Simply convince your daughter to be mine for an evening, and you could win (based on, well, bases achieved):
First Base: if I am able to proceed to FB, you will receive a year's subscription to free Windows Bug Patches, er, I mean upgrades. (But remember, just registering will get you a FREE PC with a three-decade subscription to MSN!).
Second Base: Second base will earn you a shrink-wrapped, previously unowned copy of Windows NT4 Server on floppy disks, complete with all half-dozen or so updates. Also includes the option of free Hailstorm enrollment (when announced). What a deal already, and only half-way to Home!
Third Base: Should your daughter and I proceed to Third Base, you will receive a preview version of the Toast-Box, running MS Toaster-Struedel 2001. This special MS product also includes InternetRadio 2001, preset to WMSN, my favorite station here in Redmond.
Home plate: If I get to home plate, you will recieve 10 shares of Microsoft stock.
Thanks,
Billy
p.s.: Know a neighbor with a little hottie at home? Forward names and addresses to me, and if I succeed in installing my OS on their daughter's HD, you will be registered to win many more neat-o prizes!
This text is from http://www.courier-gazette.com/front1.shtml. Figured I'd c&p the story before it disappears elsewhere...
Columbine anniversary, threat has MISD on alert
By RYAN BAUER
McKinney Courier-Gazette
- Around this time of year, one word hangs heavily on the minds of school staff and administrators. It's the word that symbolizes every student's, teacher's and parent's worst nightmare about what could happen in school. Columbine. That one word alone immediately conjures up images of the spring morning in a suburban Denver high school two years ago -- the morning that two students rained bullets on their classmates and teachers.
That's why, when the word recently wormed its way to school officials in a rumor passed around by students at McKinney High School North, MISD officials didn't dismiss it as idle chatter.
According to an MISD release, a rumor that some students had been talking about recreating Columbine reached a parent from their student at North or Johnson Middle School. The parent called the school, which, in turn, contacted the police. School officials and police immediately began following the rumor back to its source, eventually discovering that several students had been discussing whether they thought anyone they knew would be capable of a Columbine-like episode. They mentioned one student who was not present. That student, it was later determined by police through interviews with him and his parents, had never said anything relating to such behavior. Nevertheless, school officials announced at the Tuesday night school board meeting that the district has been placed on high alert because of the significance of this week, April 16-20.
April 20 is the second anniversary of the Columbine tragedy. That in itself was enough to warrant extra precautions at the middle and high schools last year. But, the MHS North rumor has made school administrators that much more conscious and committed to the safety of students and teachers.
"It is not uncommon for students across the country to discuss and, regretfully, even begin rumors about violence as the anniversary of this date approaches," said MISD Superintendent David Anthony. Sgt. John Duscio of the McKinney Police, who has served as a school resource officer at McKinney High School, said rumors like the most recent one are always taken seriously and investigated to exhaustion.
"When we hear something, we don't let it go," Duscio said.
MISD Safety/Transportation Director Woody Bryan said investigations of threats involve every member of the staff and security team. "We've adopted the policy that there are no rumor threats. Every threat is real until proven not," said Bryan.
Because of that, this week, the district is positioning additional police officers at the middle and high schools -- three additional officers at each high school, in addition to the one already based there, and one extra officer in the middle schools, as well as one at the ACT Academy.
Last year, the extra police presence was only for the Columbine anniversary and only at McKinney High School.
"The reason we're doing this is the same reason officers drive around the city," said Anthony. "Students see the officers talking to everybody and they feel safer.
"There is no reason for a child to be afraid. It's worth the extra time and money." Anthony added that schools have also taken additional precautions in case of a violent act that officials are not talking about.
"We can't mention those because they're designed to work against the people who won't follow the rules," he said.
Bryan also detailed a contingency crisis plan that has been in effect for schools for some time. The plan involves a quick-reference, color-coded flip-book that every teacher and staffer is trained to know how to use. Everything from fires and plane crashes to a "Columbine" is taken into account and has its own unique set of responses, Bryan said.
Anthony and others said it was unfortunate that the district must spend so much time and effort on issues of school violence. But, he said, it is absolutely necessary.
"You can't educate a scared child just like you can't educate a hungry child. There needs to be a safe environment first, then a quality education."
Re:Life as an adult holds the revenge!!!
on
Sean In The Middle
·
· Score: 1
How true. In high school, one of my proudest moments was sitting at commencement and looking around at the lemmings sitting near me, and thinking "Today is the first day of the rest of your lives, you poor saps..."
...That most school administrators have simply risen to their highest level of ineptitude. As someone who has worked intimately with teachers and public school administrators, I can attest to this. Most administrators start with teaching (and are poor teachers, at that), and move their way up the ladder trying to flee being "administered" into being the "Administrator."
Additionally, I can recall only a mere HANDFUL of teachers who had any clue as to what students' real lives consist of, and what they have to deal with during a "normal" school day. This episode reflects what happens when morons apply moronic policies to protect younger morons from those like us who have their head above the waterline of "common" sense.
I could go on, but would ya want me to?;-)
It's a wonder *anyone* continues to use MSIE X.Anything. As a by-my-bootstraps network administrator, I have been very fortunate in avoiding MSIE (and Outlook, for that matter).
Not the most enlightening post, but I gotta wonder.
Slashdot Mirror
A cursory glance at the few non-/.ed pics reveals an apparant convergent evolution between KDE and OSX... Anyone else see this?
This guy makes reference to the "Linux Compete Team." I think that if a super-behemoth company like M$ creates a team dedicated to eliminating choice through FUD, (i.e.: the "Linux Compete Team") well, that is noteworthy.
.Net initiative, so try to sell them on green or mauve. If they put up a fight, remind them of that ozone hole that current blue skies allow! Remind them that, with us, the sky (with M$ SkyColor 2.0), is no longer our, er, I mean, THE limit."
;-)
On the other hand, can you imagine being on that team? "Ok team, we have to convince people that a blue sky is not necesarilly the way to go. Sure, it may be free, pretty, and dovetail perfectly with the present environment, but blue skies do not integrate well in our
Seriosly, though... I am a theatre major-turned bookseller-turned library tech guru, and when I started the tech stuff, I was a Windows neophyte. I hadn't programmed one line in about 15 years, and the library was about to move into a new building. By the time the hard drive on our NT server crashed, (a convenient excuse to replace NT with RH, even if it was a hardware problem) I was more than ready to cut the umbilical to M$. Now, with free office suites available for Linux, an apparantly endless upgrade path for Windows, and a gestapo-like enforcement of insane, outdated EULAs, there are fewer and fewer reasons for me to encourage the board of trustees to continue supporting the M$ model. That's $$ better spent on books, PCs, and tech toys for me, IMHO.
Maybe I can email my open-source success story to Mr. Valentine someday.
Actually, the Hindenburg burned due to a special treatment applied to the canvas, which made it highly flammable. Add to that the diesel fuel for the engines, and your real culprit is > dead dinosaurs, aka fossil fuel. According to reports I have read, hydrogen will, essentially, evaporate and disperse immediately, since it is the lightest element in the whole big Universe.
Not only are filters ineffective against porn, but the focus on porn misses the point. Most censorers are idiots when it comes to email, chat, newsgroups, etc., for which there are many ways to get access.
As a former Borderite, I can voiuch for the fact that their Asset Protection people have been assuming your guilt from the day they were spun off from K-Mart with Waldenbooks. This whole thing is part of the 'Waldenization' process.
In fact, several years ago, they began installing camera bubbles (Most of which are fake, btw), without first looking into rearranging floor layouts, etc. to help prevent theft. They are more concerned with catching theifs rather than dissuading them. No employees were brought into the process, either. It was 'control shrink our way or no way."
The Borders shrink people are a bunch of cocks, IMHO.
I think it stands for eXPloit.
>>1. About every 10 years, the Bering Strait freezes over, so you don't have to wait for an ice age to cross.
;-)
...And from those remains, scientists can determine relationships (from bone structure, as this article tells us) between populations. Additionally, refuse from hunting and feasting often ends up in the same disposal site, even with nomadic groups (one stays in the area til the food runs out, then one moves on--in the meantime, you toss the bones, broken spears, and dead hunters in that pit behind Og's cave)
True, but it's awfully inconvenient to have to wait those ten years, especially when you are doing the time calculations with carved marks on mammoth tusks.
>> 2. Northern cultures have been using small boats for a long time, so you don't have to wait for an ice age to cross.
Try crossing the Pacific (or even the Bering Strait) in a birch bark canoe, especially in a mass migration. Any takers?
>> 3. If I'm walking from Japan to Wyoming across mile-deep glaciers (as the "they walked here" theory states, what the hell were they eating? Or am I supposed to beleive each walker carried several months of food and fuel (to melt ice for water). A six-month supply of 2,000 calories per day of fish or meat jerky weighs how much? A ton? Two tons?
Actually, the glaciers formed on land, and the water was taken from the seas, ergo the land bridge after the water was gone. They didn't walk across on the glaciers.
Strangely enough, I hear tales of creatures living in the Artic, which not only provide meat for caloric intake, but also fat and oils for heating purposes and hides for fashionable neolithic Winter-wear. Feast on mammoth and caribou until their populations dwindles, then start on the seals, whales, and fish. Hell, why even leave the land bridge with all that feasting to do?
>> 4. 100,000 years ago, there were thriving pine forests in Antarctica. If it was that warm there, then it was that warm up North, and the whole north coast of Russia and Canada was probably a great place to live.
I doubt the claim of a forested Antarctic that recently (can you provide a link to reputable research on it?) The climates of the poles, however, do not parallel each other. Given the inclination of the Earth's axis (which changes over time), and the eccentricity of Earth's orbit, North and South recieve differring amounts of sunlight. Presently, When the Earth is closest to the Sun, the Northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun, and the Southern towards it. Additionally, the weather of the North is driven by oscillations in the Northern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (I recently read a book on this called 'The Little Ice Age')
>>5. The glaciers destroyed almost all evidence of human habitation in the north.
The glaciers were extant at the time of the migration, and would have advanced over uninhabited (by human) ground, and retreated afterwards, allowing humans to expand over the newly-exposed surface. Additionally, glaciation doesn't proceed in only a bulldozer-like fashion. Creatures would live (if you call that living) atop glacier fields, and die, leaving their bodies to be entombed in the ice, carried downstream, and deposited upon the ice thawing.
>> 6. Nomadic cultures use little, and waste even less. Most of what we find from older cultures is from their burial grounds, or from what they have abandoned. Inuit leave very little behind, and a couple decades of winter storms erases almost everything.
Additionally, a couple decades of winter storms actually tends to preserve these remains. And that, class, is all for today's lecture.
Step 1: Identify and make list of the culprits
Step 2: Find a knowledgeable, accessable script kiddie
Step 3: Give list of offending pop-up servers to script kiddie.
Step 4: repeat and meditate on the following mantra: DDOS.... DDOS.... DDOS....
Of course, I note this for entertainment purposes ONLY...
Life does not exist anywhere but the Earth which was created by the almighty God.
I hope he applied for the patent...
It's funny, you claim you don't believe in God because you can't touch him.
I touched God once, and he's suing me for sexual harrassment. Shit, I can't catch a goddamned break...
Have you ever touched the Sun?
Isn't this a line from some flower-power song from the 60s??
Prove that it's not a big heat lamp created by God to give this planet warmth.
You are a moron. Go back to your church and don't come out again until the Rapture. No, wait, even then, stay inside. You'll be safe from us normal people partying like it's Armageddon.
Sheesh... Next we'll start hearing about the earth being flat.
Actually, the panspermia theory of biological dispersion holds that such microbes *could* survive the trip. Most people assume the only method of transport from Mars-to-Earth is the Express Route on the Meteor Express. However, there are less extreme ways of getting from there to here.
For example, dust-hitching microbes kicked-up by an impact on Mars could be blown into the upper Martian atmosphere--even low Mars orbit. Add the tug of the odd asteroid or two, and dust particles impregnated with microbial life could drift about between Earth and Mars for a few million years, eventually settling into Earth's upper atmosphere, where they drift down to the ground (and wonder where their luggage ended up).
This theory has been around for a while. Recently, I even read that scientists are now only BEGINNING to study the biosphere of Earth's upper atmosphere, where we get more particulates settling-in than you can shake a can of Endust at. Of course, one wonders what would happen to life up there, in the great blue yonder, with all the ozone and solar radiation a young mutant spore could absorb...
If NASA wanted to play it safe, though, they could always construct a clean room module for the ISS. Hell, at the rate NASA is going, Mars life will get here before we ever go there.
Every time I fire up Star Office 5.2, it takes a long time to get going. Now, bear in mind that I am running with only 64MB of RAM. Still, I get as much accomplished as I did with MS Office before I became 100% Linux.
Why?
Well, I chalk it up to the fact that I am simply not wasting time anymore restarting the app or the OS, my cheeks wet with tears from weeping over my lost work.
But, Hey! If people want to beat their head against a wall, I say let them. (And, hey, why not install Outlook while you're at it, suckers!)
So here is my rational assessment... The Law is by it's very definition public domain, so any corporate lamprey looking to get his pound of flesh outta this can go hang for all I care.
Microsoft and such corporate bottom-feeders best watch it: these reindeer games play both ways. Should code generated under GPL appear in MS Windblows Ecchs-Pee, it stands to reason that the proggies who wrote it could end up owning M$ (but then, if you hved everything, where would you put it?).
My opinions only. Your Mileage may vary.
So does this mean that I can't reproduce the Consitution online on my own page, the code still being the property of the descendents of Messrs. Jefferson, Hancock, Hamilton, Madison, yada yada yada...
> Ok... I'll go read this article now, but my blood pressure sure son't need it!
As the network administrator and SOLE computer guru for a medium-sized public library, I find myself getting the short end of the stick, so far as salary is concerned. You see, if you don't have that gold-embossed MS degree in library Science here, you don't get paid shit (pardon my language, I know many of you have sensitive eyes ;-) )
Some would argue that a higher degree should mean more money, but here I am with a degree entirely unrelated to computers or library science (Theatre Arts, thank you very much), getting paid 10k less than the librarians who are both YOUNGER than me and INCAPABLE of anything beyond typing a document in M$ Word. Do I feel slighted because I started as a Mac person who eventually worked his way to an understanding of Linux and still gets paid squat?
Mmmmmm...... COULD BE!
Of course, not having formal training in IT means that no one would hire me if I chose to jump ship, ergo my return to the classroom at the local community college. But I can see how IT unionization would benefit me, or at least others like me.
What would you do if you were a big corporation, bloated on the carcasses of your vanquished competitors, and suddenly you discovered a.: you were intellectually bankrupt, b.: your business plan had painted you into a cybernetic corner, and c.: your heretofore monolithic business model, upon which your monopoly was based, was fatally cracked?
What would you do if you discovered you were circulating more bug fixes, er, uh, "system patches", than actual OS installation disks?
In short, what would you do if your gravy train had reached the end of the tracks and you still had a trainload of passengers suckin at yer teat?
BINGO! Slip a paradigm shift past 'em, and make 'em think it's the new "IN" thing! Make 'em pay for their ticket a second time! A third time! Ad nauseum....
What a rip, if I do say so myself...
As it stands, I work for a public library, which is in turn a member of a library cooperative with over 60 member libraries. I have a sneaking suspicion that MS won't just charge the big corporations. I'll bet member libraries will have to up their software budgets in order to pay a future toll to the Redmond Troll.
They admit that in the future they will be a "services"-oriented company (odd, considering the service they provide... but I digress).
Color me silly, but maybe I'll look for ways around using Windows for our public stations. Nyah, Bill.
Ok, it's a stretch, buuuuttttt....
Dear Sir (or Madam),
Hello. My name is Billy Gates, and I attend the Senior High with your daughter, ________, where I am the student computer tutor and future pant-shittingly rich tech entrepreneuter.
It is common knowledge that your daughter has received a great deal of tutoring from me, yet has chosen not to allow the installation of my OS on her HD.
Therefore, I am offering you this opportunity to win one of many prizes, and all you need to do is convince your daughter to achieve some measure of installation. Simply convince your daughter to be mine for an evening, and you could win (based on, well, bases achieved):
First Base: if I am able to proceed to FB, you will receive a year's subscription to free Windows Bug Patches, er, I mean upgrades. (But remember, just registering will get you a FREE PC with a three-decade subscription to MSN!).
Second Base: Second base will earn you a shrink-wrapped, previously unowned copy of Windows NT4 Server on floppy disks, complete with all half-dozen or so updates. Also includes the option of free Hailstorm enrollment (when announced). What a deal already, and only half-way to Home!
Third Base: Should your daughter and I proceed to Third Base, you will receive a preview version of the Toast-Box, running MS Toaster-Struedel 2001. This special MS product also includes InternetRadio 2001, preset to WMSN, my favorite station here in Redmond.
Home plate: If I get to home plate, you will recieve 10 shares of Microsoft stock.
Thanks,
Billy
p.s.: Know a neighbor with a little hottie at home? Forward names and addresses to me, and if I succeed in installing my OS on their daughter's HD, you will be registered to win many more neat-o prizes!
Please send to:
MS DateGetter Services Division
Gates Compound
Redmond, Washington
This text is from http://www.courier-gazette.com/front1.shtml. Figured I'd c&p the story before it disappears elsewhere...
Columbine anniversary, threat has MISD on alert
By RYAN BAUER McKinney Courier-Gazette
- Around this time of year, one word hangs heavily on the minds of school staff and administrators. It's the word that symbolizes every student's, teacher's and parent's worst nightmare about what could happen in school. Columbine. That one word alone immediately conjures up images of the spring morning in a suburban Denver high school two years ago -- the morning that two students rained bullets on their classmates and teachers.
That's why, when the word recently wormed its way to school officials in a rumor passed around by students at McKinney High School North, MISD officials didn't dismiss it as idle chatter.
According to an MISD release, a rumor that some students had been talking about recreating Columbine reached a parent from their student at North or Johnson Middle School. The parent called the school, which, in turn, contacted the police. School officials and police immediately began following the rumor back to its source, eventually discovering that several students had been discussing whether they thought anyone they knew would be capable of a Columbine-like episode. They mentioned one student who was not present. That student, it was later determined by police through interviews with him and his parents, had never said anything relating to such behavior. Nevertheless, school officials announced at the Tuesday night school board meeting that the district has been placed on high alert because of the significance of this week, April 16-20.
April 20 is the second anniversary of the Columbine tragedy. That in itself was enough to warrant extra precautions at the middle and high schools last year. But, the MHS North rumor has made school administrators that much more conscious and committed to the safety of students and teachers.
"It is not uncommon for students across the country to discuss and, regretfully, even begin rumors about violence as the anniversary of this date approaches," said MISD Superintendent David Anthony. Sgt. John Duscio of the McKinney Police, who has served as a school resource officer at McKinney High School, said rumors like the most recent one are always taken seriously and investigated to exhaustion.
"When we hear something, we don't let it go," Duscio said.
MISD Safety/Transportation Director Woody Bryan said investigations of threats involve every member of the staff and security team. "We've adopted the policy that there are no rumor threats. Every threat is real until proven not," said Bryan.
Because of that, this week, the district is positioning additional police officers at the middle and high schools -- three additional officers at each high school, in addition to the one already based there, and one extra officer in the middle schools, as well as one at the ACT Academy.
Last year, the extra police presence was only for the Columbine anniversary and only at McKinney High School.
"The reason we're doing this is the same reason officers drive around the city," said Anthony. "Students see the officers talking to everybody and they feel safer.
"There is no reason for a child to be afraid. It's worth the extra time and money." Anthony added that schools have also taken additional precautions in case of a violent act that officials are not talking about. "We can't mention those because they're designed to work against the people who won't follow the rules," he said. Bryan also detailed a contingency crisis plan that has been in effect for schools for some time. The plan involves a quick-reference, color-coded flip-book that every teacher and staffer is trained to know how to use. Everything from fires and plane crashes to a "Columbine" is taken into account and has its own unique set of responses, Bryan said. Anthony and others said it was unfortunate that the district must spend so much time and effort on issues of school violence. But, he said, it is absolutely necessary.
"You can't educate a scared child just like you can't educate a hungry child. There needs to be a safe environment first, then a quality education."
How true. In high school, one of my proudest moments was sitting at commencement and looking around at the lemmings sitting near me, and thinking "Today is the first day of the rest of your lives, you poor saps..."
...That most school administrators have simply risen to their highest level of ineptitude. As someone who has worked intimately with teachers and public school administrators, I can attest to this. Most administrators start with teaching (and are poor teachers, at that), and move their way up the ladder trying to flee being "administered" into being the "Administrator." Additionally, I can recall only a mere HANDFUL of teachers who had any clue as to what students' real lives consist of, and what they have to deal with during a "normal" school day. This episode reflects what happens when morons apply moronic policies to protect younger morons from those like us who have their head above the waterline of "common" sense. I could go on, but would ya want me to? ;-)
It's a wonder *anyone* continues to use MSIE X.Anything. As a by-my-bootstraps network administrator, I have been very fortunate in avoiding MSIE (and Outlook, for that matter). Not the most enlightening post, but I gotta wonder.