Kudos to you. This is the most insightful, succint treatment I've ever read regarding competing self-interests. IMHO and in my experience, this is the way the world works.
Dunno about health effects on the eyes; I bought a 17" LCD because lugging the CRT to LAN parties was killing my back.
The eye strain factor seems about the same for me. Your mileage may vary. I *like* my LCD better; it seems crisper, but the CRT is getting long in the tooth.
Nope; no it wasn't. That's what the network admin initially told me;
then that it was automatically downloaded. He started walking me
through what he did on another testbed; he used Windows Update. So
this was wrong, wrong, wrong - SP1 was not deployed automatically.
This was not a production machine and I didn't deploy SP1; I was asked
to take a look at it after the fact.
The uninstall procedure for SP1 via the recovery console didn't work;
the Knoppix idea was nixed in favor of feeding the PowerVault tapes.
There's nothing important on the box anyway.
>>The $245 an hour Microsoft support guy
As it was pointed out below it's $245 per incident.
There's been much ballyhoo, bile, and whatnot on this thread about
this being a troll, lies, FUD, flamebait, etc. Nope, it happened
(albeit the reported autoupdate was *wrong*) and was relevant.
I was surprised that the Microsoft support folks we spoke with didn't
know that Windows 2003 SP1 was released today. We talked with two who
said MS usually lets them know a week or more in advance, but they
didn't get the word. Surprised, but not all bent out of shape about
it.
There were a lot of issues reported around XP SP2, but it worked fine
in my experience. I only had one box have a problem with XP SP2 - one
that had the "express" install. After doing the network install
everything was fine.
I'm reserving judgement on SP1; this is a single incident after all,
though someone else reported a similar problem in this thread. It will
probably work fine for most folks, but obviously it shouldn't be
slapped on production boxes just yet. And backups go without saying.
Just talked with the network admin again (he's on the phone w/MS); it wasn't automatically applied.
And no, it wasn't a production box. And no, this is not trolling or FUD; this is a legit problem and I doubt we're the only ones seeing it. When the problem reared its ugly head I thought I'd take a look on/. to see if anyone else is having this problem.
Once we get this sorted out, I'll post notes about how it worked out.
Wrong - it *is* on Windows Update. We just looked at it. If you're on Windows Server 2003 you'll see this too:
Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1*
Download size: 329.3 MB, 4 hours 15 minutes
Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) enhances manageability, control, and security infrastructure by providing new security tools such as Security Configuration Wizard, which helps secure your server for role-based operations. SP1 improves defense-in-depth with Data Execution Protection, and provides a safe and secure first-boot scenario with Post-setup Security Update Wizard. Read more...
* Must be installed separately from other updates
We pointed the Microsoft Support guy to Slashdot and he put us on hold to go check it out and ask around internally. Initially he didn't believe us and wanted to call us back later. He came back and said that yeah, SP1 was released today. They're sussing it out on the phone.
Knoppix is finished downloading. I suspect we will be able to fix the problem before we get off hold.
Go Knoppix!:) Will update with a howto when we get this sorted out.
It was automagically deployed on one of our Windows 2003 Server Standard servers at work this morning and we're currently on the phone with Microsoft trying to sort out the blue screen of death. Server won't boot in safe mode - it's completely dead.
I'm downloading Knoppix to do some disaster recovery.
The $245 an hour Microsoft support guy is still insisting that SP1 was in Beta and blah blah blah.
Putting aside the stupidity of keeping logs in the first place if you run a site like that, here's option #3: keeping your mouth shut.
Why the hell do you want to do a "press release", especially if you think some nut is going to cap you? If you're going to cooperate then why the hell are you going to shout it out to the world?
Sheesh.
Ring ring. Ring ring.
Mafia Buttonman: Hello? Rat: Hey. FYI, I'm ratting you guys out to the Feds. Mafia Buttonman: Uh-huh. Is that right? Rat: Yeah. Just though you guys ought to know. They're meeting me at Denny's in an hour. Mafia Buttonman: Oh. Well, okey-dokey. Best of luck with that. Rat: Thanks. Mafia Buttonman: Oh hey, you forgot your jacket at the thing the other day. Rat: Oh yeah, I wondered where that was. Listen, mind if I swing by to pick it up on the way to Denny's? Mafia Buttonman: Sure, no problem. Rat: See you in a few minutes.
Call me a pessimist but I have a feeling that the Internet Archive at archive.org may be a little bit more enduring than a paper magazine 50 years down the line.
I wouldn't count on it. Paper is remarkably resilient - acid free archival paper in particular. I'm not sure how glossy fares. Depending upon how it's stored paper can last for centuries; millenia in some cases. And you can manually copy paper.
Digital archives are sweet; I love 'em - I'm an IT geek after all. But you simply can't count on the ability to retrieve digital data decades or centuries down the line. You need period equipment to do that and it's doubtful that such equipment will be around in 50, 100, 500 years. Possible, but I'd rather count on multiple paper copies than soley digital copies. No reason you can't have both.
I work in the preservation field now and am bothered by the prospect of preserving information for future generations since so much is digital only. I'm particularly disturbed by DRM. It would be bad news for a researcher 500 years down the line (who may have period equipment) to be unable to view historically or culturally important media because there's no DRM server to unlock the content.
One of those inevitable moments when you wish you had a mod point left.
As the parent poster noted - sites go away. Even if you archive stuff, you can lose 'em. Sure, paper burns too, but my parents had decades of National Geographic for me to peruse when I was a young'in and I'm glad they did.
Some stuff needs to be more permanent than bits. In 50 years you may have technology to read electronically archived data from DVD-R and the like. But you'll still only need your eyeballs and a pair of hands to read Make or National Geographic.
Finally, transparent PNG support on by default without having to resort to js and css hacks. I'm disappointed that Microsoft (so far it seems) to not make IE7 available to Windows versions below XP SP2. There may be some reasons for that beyond "upgrade or suffer" (e.g. "security", incompatability), but I doubt it.
Not impuning Al-Jazerra; as you point out they (and many other journalists) have been killed bringing us news from the Middle East. I'm amazed at how poorly the American media covers this war. Ed Murrow must be spinning in his grave.
As I and many others have been repeatedly pointing out, there are special legal protections and exceptions for "whistleblowers".
Not suggesting that this guy/woman violating the NDA to supply ThinkSecret with information is a whistleblower - Apple wasn't doing anything wrong. I was simply saying that journalists get information from folks of all stripes and depend on that information for stories.
The person violating the NDA, not the journalist or publication, is the one who should pay the piper. Whenever Apple catches the NDA violator, it's up to the courts to deal with it. But it's not reasonable for the court to force the journalist to reveal his sources. Sure, it's reasonable for Apple to ask and for the journalist to say "go to hell". But it's up to Apple to find out who the leaker was, not the court.
Once the source has been determined, then Apple can drag that person into court. If you violate an NDA, you should be held accountable, not some third party.
Publishing blueprints, schematics, etc. would be violating a trade secret, not publishing the general specs of a new product. If it were the former, Apple would be in the right.
ThinkSecret signed no such NDA. They are under no obligation to protect Apple's secrets or anyone else's; neither are you, me, or CNN. The person breaching the NDA can get into hot water.
How you get your information as a journalist does matter. But as long as *you* do not commit a crime, then you're fine. There's no problem with interviewing someone who has committed a crime, what they know, etc. You're not a party to the crime when you do that.
If I interview John Doe about his exploits rummaging through your house and publish it, then I don't suddenly become party to his crimes. Writing an article using information provided by a criminal doesn't make you a criminal; it's part of being a journalist. And this NDA violator did not commit a crime by leaking; he/she breached a contract.
The free press depends on information provided by whistleblowers, leakers, criminals, and insiders of all types. If journalists are forced to reveal sources - especially in a civil matter - this will hamstring the free press. Nobody will talk to them.
Apple is responsible for policing its own policies; ThinkSecret is not and neither are the courts.
And it's entirely possible (though highly improbable) that the person leaking this stuff never signed an NDA.
It ain't over yet. In the interim, I'm sure there will be an appeal and nobody will be forced to reveal anything until the appeal is decided. The judge is still hearing from Apple and the EFF.
If forced, I'd refuse to comply. Yes, doing so will park you in jail. Blogs are publications and are often widely syndicated; they're often used as sources for major broadcast and dead tree news stories. ThinkSecret is as legitimate as the Talon; well, bad example on the latter.
Trade secrets are not national security. ThinkSecret and the other folks weren't trafficing in them (selling them to competitors) which would be industrial espionage; they were writing news articles about them.
I've developed "Classic ASP" and PHP apps, mostly the former. If you're running Windows and need a great editor, give UltraEdit a whirl. I've used it for 8 years and have found it to be the coolest text/hex editor on the Windows platform. It's fast and cheap, supports macros, etc.
I've got no ties to the UltraEdit folks except as a highly satisfied user.
Classic ASP has a lot of problems; I'm in the midst of a transition to.Net for most projects for Windows clients. I'm delving back into PHP (5 is promising) for some other projects as soon as I ship the.Net stuff on my plate right now.
OK, so I'm certainly not the first to suggest a video iPod. But if Apple were to buy Tivo this could be the catalyst for an easy to use video enabled next gen iPod. Sure to be wireless; sync your shows.
Well Warren Buffett would say to cut your losers and let your winners ride.
Disclaimer: This is not investment advice, but my own personal opinion. I am not a financial advisor, I'm just an IT geek and web developer.
Right on, couldn't agree more - it may be well worth the risk to hang on to some stock but to recoup your initial investment to preserve capital in case it goes south. Buffett does an amazing amount of research into the companies he invests in and people who run it; he goes for the long haul. I like that.
The most important thing with day trading (and investing) is preservation of capital; things move so fast and you *never* hold a position overnight (you would be surprised how many people do this in day trading).
Keep a close eye on the volume. You can't afford losers; and like you I don't understand why folks hang on to stocks that are circling the drain with the forlorn hope things will get better. Just cut your losses when it downticks a couple of times and move on (in day trading; for long term it's all about fundamentals).
You have an excellent point about recouping your capital by selling 1/2 your position (if it doubled) or 3/4 of your position (for a smaller profit) on speculation that there will be good news from the conference call. Risky, as you point out; I'd get rid of at least 3/4 of the stock so I could lock in a small profit.
I tend to be conservative about this stuff, though it's easy to get caught up in the rush and excitement of day trading. And easy to get ulcers and have a heart attack.
My best friend (a level-headed guy) lost his entire stake. The stock went up-up-up, then crashed suddenly after expected news didn't materialize. All of his eggs in one basket, margin call, etc etc. He stayed in bed for a week after that.
Here's a weak analogy:
Everyone's trying to catch the big fish that will make them fat and happy forever. I prefer to go for the minnows and little fish; there are more of them and I'll catch my fill regularly. Sure, maybe a couple of folks will get lucky and feast long before me, others will go hungry and sometimes so will I, but in the long run I'll have eaten well for a lifetime.
The battery news is exciting, but the devil's in the details. I wouldn't put in a dime at this point; the day trading opportunity has come and gone for now. I would only take a long term position if the product was vetted by independent reviewers and the company had OEMs/distributors on board. I'd rather miss an opportunity for huge money and get in for small money than flush everything down the toilet on hype.
Day trading just ain't my thing anymore, I guess. Getting old; for me it's just too much stress.
The battery news is exciting and I hope it pans out.
The only question is... do you dump the stock before the conference call, or do you expect the hype to endure?
Disclaimer: This is not investment advice, but my own personal opinion. I am not a financial advisor, I'm just an IT geek and web developer.
My two cents:
I'd sell before the conference call. In this case I would have already doubled my stake, it would be time for me to cash out. Stock is not money.
It's very very hard not to get caught up in the moment. I'd rather miss the next Google than suffer an Enron. If I'm going to speculate again, I'll do it wisely.
My rules:
Stick to your guns - if you're up by X percentage, sell. If you're down by Y percentage, sell.
Never, ever, *EVER* day trade with money you cannot afford to lose. Under *no circumstances* do you ever put all of your money into a single stock. Or even a single industry. Doing any of these is roulette, not speculative investment.
My personal opinion is that it's better to go with a stock market index fund and invest for the long term than it is to day trade. If long term investment is good enough for Warren Buffett, it's good enough for me. I don't have his savvy; hence an index fund.
Slashdot Mirror
Somewhere there's an unhappy contractor who finally realizes where he lost his stash of crack. ;)
I'd mod you up but alas I'm out of points.
The eye strain factor seems about the same for me. Your mileage may vary. I *like* my LCD better; it seems crisper, but the CRT is getting long in the tooth.
Nope; no it wasn't. That's what the network admin initially told me; then that it was automatically downloaded. He started walking me through what he did on another testbed; he used Windows Update. So this was wrong, wrong, wrong - SP1 was not deployed automatically.
This was not a production machine and I didn't deploy SP1; I was asked to take a look at it after the fact.
The uninstall procedure for SP1 via the recovery console didn't work; the Knoppix idea was nixed in favor of feeding the PowerVault tapes. There's nothing important on the box anyway.
>>The $245 an hour Microsoft support guy
As it was pointed out below it's $245 per incident.
There's been much ballyhoo, bile, and whatnot on this thread about this being a troll, lies, FUD, flamebait, etc. Nope, it happened (albeit the reported autoupdate was *wrong*) and was relevant.
I was surprised that the Microsoft support folks we spoke with didn't know that Windows 2003 SP1 was released today. We talked with two who said MS usually lets them know a week or more in advance, but they didn't get the word. Surprised, but not all bent out of shape about it.
There were a lot of issues reported around XP SP2, but it worked fine in my experience. I only had one box have a problem with XP SP2 - one that had the "express" install. After doing the network install everything was fine.
I'm reserving judgement on SP1; this is a single incident after all, though someone else reported a similar problem in this thread. It will probably work fine for most folks, but obviously it shouldn't be slapped on production boxes just yet. And backups go without saying.
Yes, we are running NAV corp. I'll check this out on another test server. Thanks.
And no, it wasn't a production box. And no, this is not trolling or FUD; this is a legit problem and I doubt we're the only ones seeing it. When the problem reared its ugly head I thought I'd take a look on /. to see if anyone else is having this problem.
Once we get this sorted out, I'll post notes about how it worked out.
Amazing how political this stuff gets.
You can also download SP1 here, though I wouldn't recommend it.
Knoppix is finished downloading. I suspect we will be able to fix the problem before we get off hold.
Go Knoppix! :) Will update with a howto when we get this sorted out.
I'm downloading Knoppix to do some disaster recovery.
The $245 an hour Microsoft support guy is still insisting that SP1 was in Beta and blah blah blah.
apt get vote
Why the hell do you want to do a "press release", especially if you think some nut is going to cap you? If you're going to cooperate then why the hell are you going to shout it out to the world?
Sheesh.
Ring ring. Ring ring.
: Hey. FYI, I'm ratting you guys out to the Feds. : Yeah. Just though you guys ought to know. They're meeting me at Denny's in an hour. : Thanks. : Oh yeah, I wondered where that was. Listen, mind if I swing by to pick it up on the way to Denny's? : See you in a few minutes.
Mafia Buttonman: Hello?
Rat
Mafia Buttonman: Uh-huh. Is that right?
Rat
Mafia Buttonman: Oh. Well, okey-dokey. Best of luck with that.
Rat
Mafia Buttonman: Oh hey, you forgot your jacket at the thing the other day.
Rat
Mafia Buttonman: Sure, no problem.
Rat
Click.
Scene.
I wouldn't count on it. Paper is remarkably resilient - acid free archival paper in particular. I'm not sure how glossy fares. Depending upon how it's stored paper can last for centuries; millenia in some cases. And you can manually copy paper.
Digital archives are sweet; I love 'em - I'm an IT geek after all. But you simply can't count on the ability to retrieve digital data decades or centuries down the line. You need period equipment to do that and it's doubtful that such equipment will be around in 50, 100, 500 years. Possible, but I'd rather count on multiple paper copies than soley digital copies. No reason you can't have both.
I work in the preservation field now and am bothered by the prospect of preserving information for future generations since so much is digital only. I'm particularly disturbed by DRM. It would be bad news for a researcher 500 years down the line (who may have period equipment) to be unable to view historically or culturally important media because there's no DRM server to unlock the content.
Not stolen - Toshiba *licensed* from space aliens.
As the parent poster noted - sites go away. Even if you archive stuff, you can lose 'em. Sure, paper burns too, but my parents had decades of National Geographic for me to peruse when I was a young'in and I'm glad they did.
Some stuff needs to be more permanent than bits. In 50 years you may have technology to read electronically archived data from DVD-R and the like. But you'll still only need your eyeballs and a pair of hands to read Make or National Geographic.
Finally, transparent PNG support on by default without having to resort to js and css hacks. I'm disappointed that Microsoft (so far it seems) to not make IE7 available to Windows versions below XP SP2. There may be some reasons for that beyond "upgrade or suffer" (e.g. "security", incompatability), but I doubt it.
My bad; thank you. The correct link for Al-Jazeera is http://english.aljazeera.net
Not impuning Al-Jazerra; as you point out they (and many other journalists) have been killed bringing us news from the Middle East. I'm amazed at how poorly the American media covers this war. Ed Murrow must be spinning in his grave.
Not suggesting that this guy/woman violating the NDA to supply ThinkSecret with information is a whistleblower - Apple wasn't doing anything wrong. I was simply saying that journalists get information from folks of all stripes and depend on that information for stories.
The person violating the NDA, not the journalist or publication, is the one who should pay the piper. Whenever Apple catches the NDA violator, it's up to the courts to deal with it. But it's not reasonable for the court to force the journalist to reveal his sources. Sure, it's reasonable for Apple to ask and for the journalist to say "go to hell". But it's up to Apple to find out who the leaker was, not the court.
Once the source has been determined, then Apple can drag that person into court. If you violate an NDA, you should be held accountable, not some third party.
Publishing blueprints, schematics, etc. would be violating a trade secret, not publishing the general specs of a new product. If it were the former, Apple would be in the right.
How you get your information as a journalist does matter. But as long as *you* do not commit a crime, then you're fine. There's no problem with interviewing someone who has committed a crime, what they know, etc. You're not a party to the crime when you do that.
If I interview John Doe about his exploits rummaging through your house and publish it, then I don't suddenly become party to his crimes. Writing an article using information provided by a criminal doesn't make you a criminal; it's part of being a journalist. And this NDA violator did not commit a crime by leaking; he/she breached a contract.
The free press depends on information provided by whistleblowers, leakers, criminals, and insiders of all types. If journalists are forced to reveal sources - especially in a civil matter - this will hamstring the free press. Nobody will talk to them.
Apple is responsible for policing its own policies; ThinkSecret is not and neither are the courts.
And it's entirely possible (though highly improbable) that the person leaking this stuff never signed an NDA.
If forced, I'd refuse to comply. Yes, doing so will park you in jail. Blogs are publications and are often widely syndicated; they're often used as sources for major broadcast and dead tree news stories. ThinkSecret is as legitimate as the Talon; well, bad example on the latter.
Trade secrets are not national security. ThinkSecret and the other folks weren't trafficing in them (selling them to competitors) which would be industrial espionage; they were writing news articles about them.
Is The Register a legitimate news service? Is Tomshardware? Is Slashdot? Is Democracy Now? What about al-Jazeera? Fox News? Who gets to decide what constitutes a "legitimate" and an "illegitmate" news agency?
I've developed "Classic ASP" and PHP apps, mostly the former. If you're running Windows and need a great editor, give UltraEdit a whirl. I've used it for 8 years and have found it to be the coolest text/hex editor on the Windows platform. It's fast and cheap, supports macros, etc.
I've got no ties to the UltraEdit folks except as a highly satisfied user.
Classic ASP has a lot of problems; I'm in the midst of a transition to .Net for most projects for Windows clients. I'm delving back into PHP (5 is promising) for some other projects as soon as I ship the .Net stuff on my plate right now.
You definitely have to be prepared to lose it all if you're going to speculate or invest.
Maybe this is pie in the sky, but one can hope. :)
Disclaimer: This is not investment advice, but my own personal opinion. I am not a financial advisor, I'm just an IT geek and web developer.
Right on, couldn't agree more - it may be well worth the risk to hang on to some stock but to recoup your initial investment to preserve capital in case it goes south. Buffett does an amazing amount of research into the companies he invests in and people who run it; he goes for the long haul. I like that.
The most important thing with day trading (and investing) is preservation of capital; things move so fast and you *never* hold a position overnight (you would be surprised how many people do this in day trading).
Keep a close eye on the volume. You can't afford losers; and like you I don't understand why folks hang on to stocks that are circling the drain with the forlorn hope things will get better. Just cut your losses when it downticks a couple of times and move on (in day trading; for long term it's all about fundamentals).
You have an excellent point about recouping your capital by selling 1/2 your position (if it doubled) or 3/4 of your position (for a smaller profit) on speculation that there will be good news from the conference call. Risky, as you point out; I'd get rid of at least 3/4 of the stock so I could lock in a small profit.
I tend to be conservative about this stuff, though it's easy to get caught up in the rush and excitement of day trading. And easy to get ulcers and have a heart attack.
My best friend (a level-headed guy) lost his entire stake. The stock went up-up-up, then crashed suddenly after expected news didn't materialize. All of his eggs in one basket, margin call, etc etc. He stayed in bed for a week after that.
Here's a weak analogy:
Everyone's trying to catch the big fish that will make them fat and happy forever. I prefer to go for the minnows and little fish; there are more of them and I'll catch my fill regularly. Sure, maybe a couple of folks will get lucky and feast long before me, others will go hungry and sometimes so will I, but in the long run I'll have eaten well for a lifetime.
The battery news is exciting, but the devil's in the details. I wouldn't put in a dime at this point; the day trading opportunity has come and gone for now. I would only take a long term position if the product was vetted by independent reviewers and the company had OEMs/distributors on board. I'd rather miss an opportunity for huge money and get in for small money than flush everything down the toilet on hype.
Day trading just ain't my thing anymore, I guess. Getting old; for me it's just too much stress.
The battery news is exciting and I hope it pans out.
Disclaimer: This is not investment advice, but my own personal opinion. I am not a financial advisor, I'm just an IT geek and web developer.
My two cents:
I'd sell before the conference call. In this case I would have already doubled my stake, it would be time for me to cash out. Stock is not money.
It's very very hard not to get caught up in the moment. I'd rather miss the next Google than suffer an Enron. If I'm going to speculate again, I'll do it wisely.
My rules:
Stick to your guns - if you're up by X percentage, sell. If you're down by Y percentage, sell.
Never, ever, *EVER* day trade with money you cannot afford to lose. Under *no circumstances* do you ever put all of your money into a single stock. Or even a single industry. Doing any of these is roulette, not speculative investment.
My personal opinion is that it's better to go with a stock market index fund and invest for the long term than it is to day trade. If long term investment is good enough for Warren Buffett, it's good enough for me. I don't have his savvy; hence an index fund.