since we pretty much know that Oracle will kill PeopleSoft's products
Oracle says they won't do this, but if I were a prospective customer, I wouldn't bet my business on it. The fact is, it costs tons of money to re-wrap your business around a new ERP package, regardless of which of the big guys you buy from, and you definitely don't want to be doing it twice in three years.
What exactly would be the incentive for picking Oracle over SAP?
Absolutely none, unless you already are running Oracle business software. Despite some complaints about the user interface and failed implementation projects -- which were exactly that: failed implementations and not flawed software -- SAP emerges as a much better choice. It runs on a myriad of hardware platforms and operating systems, and also gives you a wide variety of database platforms to choose from, depending on your needs. SAP seems to have worked pretty hard to "play well with others," and recent announcements about working with Microsoft to integrate their EP product better with Microsoft's.NET products indicates that they continue to move in that direction. At the moment, SAP seems to be the best option for avoiding vendor lock-in. I wouldn't touch Oracle with a ten-foot pole for at least a year until we see what their direction is going to be.
Or are today's Ivy League graduates simply so wealthy that they no longer feel the need to find stable, high-paying jobs at big companies?
Or maybe it's the fact that there aren't any stable jobs at large companies anymore. Why spend the big bucks on the school when you'll have to change jobs every three years anyway. The article mentions it, but I can assure you that C-level executive positions usually last less than five years. The same is true for most other positions now, too.
I seriously doubt the man had the intention of taking down an aircraft with his daughter.
Probably not, but something doesn't seem right with his story, either. Could someone explain to me what use a laser would be in pointing out stars to his daughter? That was one of the things he said he was doing with it, but I fail to see what the laser would reflect off of that would make it useful. Also, according to the Wired article, he claimed that his daughter was the one that painted the helicopter. That might have been the lie that he told the FBI, but what kind of idiot would let a young child play with a laser? The first thing most children would do with it is shine it directly into either their eyes or those of someone else.
Try making a trip to Exmouth (right at the mouth of River Exe). You'll hear it used commonly. I once got to be on "snog-watch" at a youth "night club" there. My job was to prevent snogging (and thus other activities) that might prevent parents from letting their children go to the club.
I could cast a vote for A, have the screen verify that I am voting for A, receive a printed receipt that tells me I voted for A, and STILL have that vote count for B within the black box.
The way it is supposed to work is that you see the screen, receive the receipt and put the receipt into a separate box. That way, if a manual recount is demanded, your vote for A will be counted correctly.
What is really needed is publicly-available source code that anyone can view.
This will be helpful, but it doesn't really keep them from letting you view the source code and then putting a slightly altered binary on the voting machine....
Ha! I'll use something nonobvious...like penis length. Oh wait, then they'd cut of....NOOOOO...
That's brilliant. It doesn't work when cut off:)
I could just see the cartoon on this one. The caption would read: "Bill discovers that since the new secretary started, he is no longer able to log in to his account."
You should have seen the CNN host's reaction when one of the analysts briefly commented about left-bias on the air. The host was clearly taken aback and astounded that CNN would be accused of any bias at all. Which is quite amusing to those of us that know that no media source ever in existence was without bias one way or the other.
I am quite certain that doing something like that would cause the manufacturer no end of problems with Microsoft.
Yes, and such a response may cause Microsoft no end of problems with the DoJ. If there was *ever* a time for manufacturers to do something like this, it is now. Although Microsoft only received a "slap on the wrist," they are nevertheless being watched more closely at the moment.
I expect within a couple years that credit card companies will be doing call-back verification - you call them, then they call you back AND send you a confirmation in the mail.
They're already using the email. Why, just the other day, I received a message from Citibank telling me that they needed to re-verify my identity. They even provided a really easy-to-access web site for me to enter my card number and personal information, no sweat. The really cool thing is that I don't even have a Citibank card yet. Talk about proactive!
Evolution doesn't allow such things in they types of numbers we're experiencing.
You are assuming that we aren't interfering with the process of natural selection. Allergy medicine and associated medical knowledge directly interferes with this. That having been said, I can't say I'm entirely convinced that the rise in allergic responses among humans is entirely genetic. It is also likely a factor of the body's response to certain elements in the environment that are not really related to the allergens. IE, maybe pollution?
If you hate the state of world affairs, join me in writing the following on the November ballot.
I'll say the same thing I told one of my colleagues here at work... I don't believe any vote is ever wasted, but this year really requires some hard decision making. Kerry and Bush are just about tied in the polls. We can be pretty sure one of them will win. If you choose to vote for someone who is neither Democrat nor Republican, your vote will not be wasted. It will help strengthen whatever party your candidate belongs to, so that they have a greater chance of winning a future election. But you have to balance that desire against how much you care about whether Kerry or Bush wins. If you are truly against either one of them (and it doesn't matter which), you might be better off voting for the lesser of two evils. On the other hand, if you really don't care that much about which of them wins, you should by all means vote for your favorite candidate. The decision would be much easier if there was a clear lead in the race.
And I have to say that after decades of traveling around the world, the only insulting behavior I've witnessed has been from fellow American travelers.
I dunno. I encountered a group of Italian tourists who were every bit as insulting. An I know for a fact that such behavior is not typical of Italians.
Not exactly. Cleartype and OS X font smoothing use subpixel rendering to increase the horizontal resolution. This technique seems to work on the vertical resolution.
"Contrary to existing color display methods that express color pixel by pixel, this new method creates color at the sub-pixel level representing more than two data lines from the same pixel."
Maybe they accomplish this by rotating the orientation of the pixels so that it impacts the vertical rather than horizontal? Or maybe this is just a big hoax? Anybody have more information?
I don't think you are completely aware of what the budgeting process and political playing field are like for IT resources at most companies. It's generally not a question of laziness, but rather that management wants to reduce IT headcount while at the same time getting even more work out of the department. On the other hand, if you are directing your complaints against upper management (not IT), I'm all with you.
This problem is just lazy IT. If they can't take 5 minutes to add an HP scanner then you've got the wrong guys in IT.
Interesting. You attribute following policy to laziness. Since there aren't enough resources to go around installing HP scanners for everyone and supporting the associated software, the department has made the decision to support a single centralized scanning infrastructure. Unfortunately, they made this decision at a time when OCR wasn't an issue. Generally, the $200 HP scanner isn't going to be an isolated case. Once one is deployed, there need to be others. Now the IT department is forced to support several additional devices and new software. Oh, and while they are providing this additional support, the CFO is busy taking three more people out of their headcount. In a situation like this, the proper solution is for the IT department to follow policy and request that the person who has the need escalate through their management. If it's important enough, it will reach the CEO, who will tell IT they need to provide this service. At that point, they can force the CFO and the CEO to sit at the same table and decide whether its more important to provide this piece of hardware or to reduce the IT budget. Now, if IT hadn't locked down the system and employed this practice in the first place, guess what would have happened. The requesting department would go around IT to buy and install the scanner, and IT would have still ended up supporting the thing.
Again bad IT practise... think of an IT department run by intelligent IT guys not lazy management types like you're describing.
Again, you've attributed draconic procedures for gaining web access to laziness. What you are missing is that such decisions rarely come directly from IT, and are instead a direct response to a requirement from the CEO. Just like the previous situation, the issue would have to be escalated. The CEO will either approve, deny, or realize that he needs to change his requirements for IT.
And again, if there's a valid reason to upgrade office and it's showing up multiple times perhaps IT should either distribute a newer image w/ Office 2003 or perhaps OO.o, alternatively they could just have a copy of Acrobat on the IT network so any incoming Word documents can be sent to them for conversion to something that can be read by the current image.
Again, somebody has to support this, and most IT budgets are yielding their dollars up to the Marketing budget. Although, I like the idea of a copy of Acrobat because it would then possibly require only one resource within the IT department.
The problem with locked down networks in my experience happens only when the IT guys are too lazy or stupid to make changes.
No, most locked down networks happen when the IT department is afraid to make changes. Usually this is because the CEO or CFO puts very heavy restrictions on them. Remember that 80s and 90s buzzword, empowerment? Well, we all laughed back them because we knew it wasn't true. It's obviously not true today either.
Furthermore, I have performed the experiment: Install Windows on a computer and hook it up to the Internet. Leave it hooked up without downloading one bit of software from anywhere! and the machine will be compromised.
I'm not apologizing for Microsoft's lack of security, but this statement is unfair. The "virgin" system that you are installing does not have security patches installed yet. Please try this "experiment" with the new Installs of Windows XP that include SP2 and see if you get better results. My guess is that you will.
Nevertheless, if Bill is really suggesting that his company is not responsible for the ActiveX infections, I'm just all the happier that I don't use Windows in my home office anymore.
By considerable advantage, I mean it can get to places a lot faster or uses less fuel or something. I can see the use of them, but not on a large scale basis. Flying cars will obviously use consierably more fuel than regular cars and other ground transports.
Well, there's always the Moller M400. Top speed of 350 mph, uses regular gasoline, gets 20 mpg (better than an SUV).
Upon inspection, however, the brakes didn't show any wear...
How long would he have to hold the brakes down before they showed significant wear? At that rate of speed, wouldn't the wheels lock up quickly? (don't know if it has antilock) The article mentioned nothing about checking the tires for flat spots....
While I don't really buy the guy's story, I don't think the article gives sufficient evidence to indicate the investigation is conclusive.
Ok, locks only make locksmiths richer. Why, then, do we lock our houses? Even "minimal" deterrents don't deserve complete negligence because someone can find a way around them.
I think maybe ehack doesn't completely understand that the purpose of a lock isn't to keep everyone out. It is to *deter* theft. If a thief really wants to get into your house (or into your computer), they will find a way. But if you raise the level of difficulty or the chances of getting caught, most thieves will look for an easier target. So, if I'm trying to break into dorm rooms to steal money, I'm going to walk down the hall looking for open doors. If I don't find any, then I resort to lock picking. Most thieves aren't looking for the challenge. They are looking for an easy source of money.
Funny. Just this week, I hit close to 120 mph in the rental car I'm driving: Ford Focus with a tiny little engine full o' gerbils. And the best thing is that it was perfectly legal. (I'm in Germany this week)
This is not targetting the average man on the street, it's an exotic vacation for the very rich.
Oh, but according to Paul Allen, it's his dream to make journeying to space affordable for the average person. Are you calling him out of touch with reality? (note the dripping saracasm here;) )
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Oracle says they won't do this, but if I were a prospective customer, I wouldn't bet my business on it. The fact is, it costs tons of money to re-wrap your business around a new ERP package, regardless of which of the big guys you buy from, and you definitely don't want to be doing it twice in three years.
What exactly would be the incentive for picking Oracle over SAP?
Absolutely none, unless you already are running Oracle business software. Despite some complaints about the user interface and failed implementation projects -- which were exactly that: failed implementations and not flawed software -- SAP emerges as a much better choice. It runs on a myriad of hardware platforms and operating systems, and also gives you a wide variety of database platforms to choose from, depending on your needs. SAP seems to have worked pretty hard to "play well with others," and recent announcements about working with Microsoft to integrate their EP product better with Microsoft's .NET products indicates that they continue to move in that direction. At the moment, SAP seems to be the best option for avoiding vendor lock-in. I wouldn't touch Oracle with a ten-foot pole for at least a year until we see what their direction is going to be.
Or maybe it's the fact that there aren't any stable jobs at large companies anymore. Why spend the big bucks on the school when you'll have to change jobs every three years anyway. The article mentions it, but I can assure you that C-level executive positions usually last less than five years. The same is true for most other positions now, too.
Probably not, but something doesn't seem right with his story, either. Could someone explain to me what use a laser would be in pointing out stars to his daughter? That was one of the things he said he was doing with it, but I fail to see what the laser would reflect off of that would make it useful. Also, according to the Wired article, he claimed that his daughter was the one that painted the helicopter. That might have been the lie that he told the FBI, but what kind of idiot would let a young child play with a laser? The first thing most children would do with it is shine it directly into either their eyes or those of someone else.
Try making a trip to Exmouth (right at the mouth of River Exe). You'll hear it used commonly. I once got to be on "snog-watch" at a youth "night club" there. My job was to prevent snogging (and thus other activities) that might prevent parents from letting their children go to the club.
The way it is supposed to work is that you see the screen, receive the receipt and put the receipt into a separate box. That way, if a manual recount is demanded, your vote for A will be counted correctly.
What is really needed is publicly-available source code that anyone can view.
This will be helpful, but it doesn't really keep them from letting you view the source code and then putting a slightly altered binary on the voting machine....
That's brilliant. It doesn't work when cut off :)
I could just see the cartoon on this one. The caption would read: "Bill discovers that since the new secretary started, he is no longer able to log in to his account."
No, it was a woman...can't remember her name. Didn't really care. Just found her reaction amusing.
Not to mention the fact the SS# isn't unique....
You should have seen the CNN host's reaction when one of the analysts briefly commented about left-bias on the air. The host was clearly taken aback and astounded that CNN would be accused of any bias at all. Which is quite amusing to those of us that know that no media source ever in existence was without bias one way or the other.
Yes, and such a response may cause Microsoft no end of problems with the DoJ. If there was *ever* a time for manufacturers to do something like this, it is now. Although Microsoft only received a "slap on the wrist," they are nevertheless being watched more closely at the moment.
They're already using the email. Why, just the other day, I received a message from Citibank telling me that they needed to re-verify my identity. They even provided a really easy-to-access web site for me to enter my card number and personal information, no sweat. The really cool thing is that I don't even have a Citibank card yet. Talk about proactive!
OK, I can buy that.
You are assuming that we aren't interfering with the process of natural selection. Allergy medicine and associated medical knowledge directly interferes with this. That having been said, I can't say I'm entirely convinced that the rise in allergic responses among humans is entirely genetic. It is also likely a factor of the body's response to certain elements in the environment that are not really related to the allergens. IE, maybe pollution?
I'll say the same thing I told one of my colleagues here at work... I don't believe any vote is ever wasted, but this year really requires some hard decision making. Kerry and Bush are just about tied in the polls. We can be pretty sure one of them will win. If you choose to vote for someone who is neither Democrat nor Republican, your vote will not be wasted. It will help strengthen whatever party your candidate belongs to, so that they have a greater chance of winning a future election. But you have to balance that desire against how much you care about whether Kerry or Bush wins. If you are truly against either one of them (and it doesn't matter which), you might be better off voting for the lesser of two evils. On the other hand, if you really don't care that much about which of them wins, you should by all means vote for your favorite candidate. The decision would be much easier if there was a clear lead in the race.
I dunno. I encountered a group of Italian tourists who were every bit as insulting. An I know for a fact that such behavior is not typical of Italians.
Not exactly. Cleartype and OS X font smoothing use subpixel rendering to increase the horizontal resolution. This technique seems to work on the vertical resolution.
Maybe they accomplish this by rotating the orientation of the pixels so that it impacts the vertical rather than horizontal? Or maybe this is just a big hoax? Anybody have more information?Wouldn't a quick Microwave burst aimed directly at the speakers do the trick?
This problem is just lazy IT. If they can't take 5 minutes to add an HP scanner then you've got the wrong guys in IT.
Interesting. You attribute following policy to laziness. Since there aren't enough resources to go around installing HP scanners for everyone and supporting the associated software, the department has made the decision to support a single centralized scanning infrastructure. Unfortunately, they made this decision at a time when OCR wasn't an issue. Generally, the $200 HP scanner isn't going to be an isolated case. Once one is deployed, there need to be others. Now the IT department is forced to support several additional devices and new software. Oh, and while they are providing this additional support, the CFO is busy taking three more people out of their headcount. In a situation like this, the proper solution is for the IT department to follow policy and request that the person who has the need escalate through their management. If it's important enough, it will reach the CEO, who will tell IT they need to provide this service. At that point, they can force the CFO and the CEO to sit at the same table and decide whether its more important to provide this piece of hardware or to reduce the IT budget. Now, if IT hadn't locked down the system and employed this practice in the first place, guess what would have happened. The requesting department would go around IT to buy and install the scanner, and IT would have still ended up supporting the thing.
Again bad IT practise ... think of an IT department run by intelligent IT guys not lazy management types like you're describing.
Again, you've attributed draconic procedures for gaining web access to laziness. What you are missing is that such decisions rarely come directly from IT, and are instead a direct response to a requirement from the CEO. Just like the previous situation, the issue would have to be escalated. The CEO will either approve, deny, or realize that he needs to change his requirements for IT.
And again, if there's a valid reason to upgrade office and it's showing up multiple times perhaps IT should either distribute a newer image w/ Office 2003 or perhaps OO.o, alternatively they could just have a copy of Acrobat on the IT network so any incoming Word documents can be sent to them for conversion to something that can be read by the current image.
Again, somebody has to support this, and most IT budgets are yielding their dollars up to the Marketing budget. Although, I like the idea of a copy of Acrobat because it would then possibly require only one resource within the IT department.
The problem with locked down networks in my experience happens only when the IT guys are too lazy or stupid to make changes.
No, most locked down networks happen when the IT department is afraid to make changes. Usually this is because the CEO or CFO puts very heavy restrictions on them. Remember that 80s and 90s buzzword, empowerment? Well, we all laughed back them because we knew it wasn't true. It's obviously not true today either.
I'm not apologizing for Microsoft's lack of security, but this statement is unfair. The "virgin" system that you are installing does not have security patches installed yet. Please try this "experiment" with the new Installs of Windows XP that include SP2 and see if you get better results. My guess is that you will.
Nevertheless, if Bill is really suggesting that his company is not responsible for the ActiveX infections, I'm just all the happier that I don't use Windows in my home office anymore.
Erm, it *does* have wings. They fold up and down. I don't know whether the wings alone are enough for lift, though.
Well, there's always the Moller M400. Top speed of 350 mph, uses regular gasoline, gets 20 mpg (better than an SUV).
How long would he have to hold the brakes down before they showed significant wear? At that rate of speed, wouldn't the wheels lock up quickly? (don't know if it has antilock) The article mentioned nothing about checking the tires for flat spots....
While I don't really buy the guy's story, I don't think the article gives sufficient evidence to indicate the investigation is conclusive.
I think maybe ehack doesn't completely understand that the purpose of a lock isn't to keep everyone out. It is to *deter* theft. If a thief really wants to get into your house (or into your computer), they will find a way. But if you raise the level of difficulty or the chances of getting caught, most thieves will look for an easier target. So, if I'm trying to break into dorm rooms to steal money, I'm going to walk down the hall looking for open doors. If I don't find any, then I resort to lock picking. Most thieves aren't looking for the challenge. They are looking for an easy source of money.
Funny. Just this week, I hit close to 120 mph in the rental car I'm driving: Ford Focus with a tiny little engine full o' gerbils. And the best thing is that it was perfectly legal. (I'm in Germany this week)
Oh, but according to Paul Allen, it's his dream to make journeying to space affordable for the average person. Are you calling him out of touch with reality? (note the dripping saracasm here ;) )