Manitoba's liquor stores rock, too. On New Year's Eve, in one of the larger mall outlets, there were two huge lines of people all the way to the back of the store. I was out of there in ten minutes flat. The clerks at the till (four of them, I think) were unfailingly polite and upbeat in the face of this liquor-crazed horde that had descended upon them.
And I really like the idea that there's quality control.
So what, exactly, makes a private liquor outlet superior to a publicly-owned one?
Could this account for the success of the open source model vs. big, flashy proprietary projects?
Think of each contributor as a subcontractor who has the authority to actually do something. Lots of well-trained eyes look at every support beam and make sure the nuts and bolts are all there.
And no one has to spend aeons in contract negotiations in order to fix an obvious flaw... Just stroll down to the hardware store for a device driver, or machine a custom widget yourself.
Margaret Atwood has an excellent record so far as a prophet. Ever read The Handmaid's Tale? (shudders)
In addition to the tragic loss of life, the loss of any large area of this planet results in the loss of an ecological or economic center. If one area grows 90% of the oranges, or 75% of the rice, or in fact is the primary supplier of *anything*, we will feel the impact sooner rather than later.
Diversity aids survival. Specialization and concentration of power is a recipe for disaster.
Sad to say, it's already happening on the Xian message boards.
For every genuinely concerned individual who is praying for the welfare of the survivors, there's some idiot going "Wow, what a great opportunity to spread our message!" and some other sociopath going "Woohoo, Rapture coming!"
1. 2% "unauthorized" (but Legal in Canada) files. These fall under the "What do you think of this song?" category, and if I like it I do buy it. If I don't like it, it disappears from my hard drive immediately.
2. 0% from iTunes and other online services.
3. 3% from shareable sources, including my own compositions and downloads from artists' own websites.
4. 10% are compilation-type rips of my own CDs, vinyl and cassettes (Approximately 500 albums). I also have a few MP3s of items I once owned but lost to scratches, tape-eating cassette players and stuff-disappearing ex-spouses.
85% of my collection is on legit CD's. But I actively avoid buying *new* CDs on principle: I despise DRM and I don't want to put money in the pockets of RIAA and CRIA.
When I was working at a university computer lab, one day I had to do some fairly major RAM upgrades to a dozen computers.
I brought an anti-static mat from my office and set it up on the instructor's desk, then went to connect the grounding wire.
Normally I unscrew the center screw on the nearest AC outlet; insert the pronged connector for the wire; and tighten everything back up again.
This time, I fumbled the metal cover plate as I was removing it. There were two extension cords leading to the front rows of computers, and the top cord was not plugged in all the way. The metal plate dropped right onto the hot and neutral prongs of the top extension cord.
Sparks! Loud bang! Smoke! Two cord-sized slots burned in cover plate! (Scared computer tech cowering under desk wondering how to explain this to boss)
The maintenance man came in and replaced the outlet and the plate. I plugged in the cords again, and, lo and behold, the 24-port Ethernet hub and the front row of computers worked flawlessly.
And I kept the burnt plate as a reminder to Never Do Something That Stupid Again.
Yes, Blind Guardian, James Ehnes, Kurt Elling, The Who, Joe Satriani, Moody Blues, Prokofiev, Alison Moyet, Doors, Steely Dan, Queen, Strawbs, Police, Beatles, Peter Gabriel, Joe Jackson, Saga, Cream, Animal Logic, Enya, REM, Led Zeppelin, Rush, Midnight Oil, the Move, Genesis, ELO, ELP, Buffalo Springfield, Def Leppard, Black Sabbath, Bach (both J.S. and P.D.Q.), Debussy, The Marmalade, The Pursuit of Happiness...
Disclaimer: I am a security-conscious, penguin-hugging DBA with Microsoft certs and management training.
I work part-time IT (25 hours a week) in Winnipeg. With this and other income I have about $1900 CDN to work with every month.
On this I manage to support three humans, nine cats, a car and a three-storey house. House only cost $45K CDN and is already half paid-off. So it can be done.
IT-wise, Winnipeg is a very, very closed shop... All the entry-level jobs are Tier 1 help desk. There was major IT overtraining here from '96-'00, much of it sponsored by government retraining programs.
One of my classmates described himself as an "MCSE Janitor." And my former employer, an IT training centre, crashed and burned.
It's virtually impossible to get a sysadmin position here. I found one, but I had four years work experience and some database programming and really strong hardware skills and a teaching background and 20 years of office experience. And even then, the odds against me were 150:1.
The advertised positions generally ask for everything *including* the kitchen sink: "Well, we'd like to see an MCSE, CNE, some Java, two years of project management... And while you're at it can you help us port all our old COBOL from the IBM/360 to that Linux box over there?"
And we have a saying here: "If you don't like the weather, wait a minute." Went from +23C to four inches of snow in two days.
(Oh, yes... We Canadians will also confuse the hell out of you by shifting from Imperial to Metric at the drop of a tuque.)
I had to quit working full-time IT because of stress-related health issues.
Now I go home at noon most days, have a quick nap to recharge, and go off and do something artistic.
Usually involving computers, ironically... Rolling my own MP3s and teaching myself how to use The Gimp. So my net computer use is actually *up* but I'm not as tired and my mind is a lot clearer.
But I should have changed the job parameters a few months earlier, when the first warning signs appeared. Stoicism, combined with a badly misplaced sense of duty, led me to wage-slavedrive myself to that breaking point.
Take care of your health at all costs, folks. Once it's gone, it is soooo gone.
No, no, no! Get SOCAN first. Can't allow them the slightest hope of a successful appeal on the MP3 decision. I'm amazed they haven't gone after the second-hand CD stores yet.
I work 8:30 to 4:30. That's it. I don't deliberately take work home with me (although my brain keeps crunching IT data 24/7 as a low-priority background task).
Wonder what all the PHB's would do if the entire geek community woke up one morning and decided to do a John Galt?
I *am* unionized IT. It doesn't help... Management finds other ways of sabotaging us, like sending us on completely useless training and denying us access to software and technology that would make our lives easier.
I've already started to document my day-to-day operations, because this isn't where I want to spend the rest of my work life. If I run away to join the circus or get kidnapped by aliens, no reason the end users should suffer.
Sitting up here in Canada, I read threads like this and my heart just aches. How can you mount an effective defense of any of your freedoms when an entire population is being scared silly and herded back and forth to the point of exhaustion?
You're being set up for a stampede, lynch mob or lemming rush, folks. Take care of yourselves and your families. The future will need you alive and well and sane.
A.K. Odinsdottir (Nodding sagely as she pets her fluffy white Evil Genius cat)
I've been in and out and around IT since 1968, when my dad brought home some coding sheets and helped me write my first program in FORTRAN. Did the computer club thing in high school. Helped run a BBS on an Imsai Z-80 with lots of blinking lights and 8" floppy drives. Tied paper-tape infinite loops to the bumpers of instructors' cars. Assembled hardware with the help of the other geeks in my D&D group.
Fought tooth and nail to get into an MCSE training program. Actually got a paid gig in the industry.
Now, seven years later, I'm languishing in the basement of an aging school, staring at broken floppy disks and Win98 install screens, and grinding my teeth as I read another asinine memo from the director of IT.
It's only money that keeps me from walking away and never coming back. The thrill is gone.
Slashdot Mirror
What if I produce a movie and don't want people to distribute it in edited form?
Ah! At last, a use for that "disk will self-destruct in five seconds" technology that was being touted a while back.
I think The Fountainhead would be a good choice for a proof-of-concept here.
I'm sure Mr. Gorman is quite familiar with Boswell's Life of Johnson.
It's on paper, and it's centuries old, but a blog is a blog is a blog.
Manitoba's liquor stores rock, too. On New Year's Eve, in one of the larger mall outlets, there were two huge lines of people all the way to the back of the store. I was out of there in ten minutes flat. The clerks at the till (four of them, I think) were unfailingly polite and upbeat in the face of this liquor-crazed horde that had descended upon them.
And I really like the idea that there's quality control.
So what, exactly, makes a private liquor outlet superior to a publicly-owned one?
In further news, all ten rodents were subsequently nuked by a player who mistook them for lemmings and didn't like the way the game was going.
I believe that discoveries from chaos mathematics and quantum physics will eventually extinguish that old "free will vs. determinism" debate.
There's something very refreshing about living in a universe that honestly doesn't know what it's going to do next.
Could this account for the success of the open source model vs. big, flashy proprietary projects?
Think of each contributor as a subcontractor who has the authority to actually do something. Lots of well-trained eyes look at every support beam and make sure the nuts and bolts are all there.
And no one has to spend aeons in contract negotiations in order to fix an obvious flaw... Just stroll down to the hardware store for a device driver, or machine a custom widget yourself.
That explains the SCO PIPE deal.
"My God, I've heard about this... Penguin juggling! How much do you want, Padre Darl?"
"Meet the new hoss... Same as the old hoss." ...or perhaps "Baa-Baa O'Riley."
The DMCA forbids any exchange of this information?
Including this discussion?
*eep* They're coming for the Slashdotters next! (hides under bed)
Margaret Atwood has an excellent record so far as a prophet. Ever read The Handmaid's Tale? (shudders)
In addition to the tragic loss of life, the loss of any large area of this planet results in the loss of an ecological or economic center. If one area grows 90% of the oranges, or 75% of the rice, or in fact is the primary supplier of *anything*, we will feel the impact sooner rather than later.
Diversity aids survival. Specialization and concentration of power is a recipe for disaster.
Sad to say, it's already happening on the Xian message boards.
For every genuinely concerned individual who is praying for the welfare of the survivors, there's some idiot going "Wow, what a great opportunity to spread our message!" and some other sociopath going "Woohoo, Rapture coming!"
Best Christmas presents I ever got, circa 1966:
- A Secret Sam Spy Kit (periscope, camera and missile-launching pistol, all fitting into a plastic briefcase), and
- A chemistry set! (I made blue ink from the sodium ferrocyanide, fingerprint dust from the carbon powder, and sparklers from the iron filings.)
Ah, to be an eight-year-old girl again... *sigh*
1. 2% "unauthorized" (but Legal in Canada) files. These fall under the "What do you think of this song?" category, and if I like it I do buy it. If I don't like it, it disappears from my hard drive immediately.
2. 0% from iTunes and other online services.
3. 3% from shareable sources, including my own compositions and downloads from artists' own websites.
4. 10% are compilation-type rips of my own CDs, vinyl and cassettes (Approximately 500 albums). I also have a few MP3s of items I once owned but lost to scratches, tape-eating cassette players and stuff-disappearing ex-spouses.
85% of my collection is on legit CD's. But I actively avoid buying *new* CDs on principle: I despise DRM and I don't want to put money in the pockets of RIAA and CRIA.
When I was working at a university computer lab, one day I had to do some fairly major RAM upgrades to a dozen computers.
I brought an anti-static mat from my office and set it up on the instructor's desk, then went to connect the grounding wire.
Normally I unscrew the center screw on the nearest AC outlet; insert the pronged connector for the wire; and tighten everything back up again.
This time, I fumbled the metal cover plate as I was removing it. There were two extension cords leading to the front rows of computers, and the top cord was not plugged in all the way. The metal plate dropped right onto the hot and neutral prongs of the top extension cord.
Sparks! Loud bang! Smoke! Two cord-sized slots burned in cover plate! (Scared computer tech cowering under desk wondering how to explain this to boss)
The maintenance man came in and replaced the outlet and the plate. I plugged in the cords again, and, lo and behold, the 24-port Ethernet hub and the front row of computers worked flawlessly.
And I kept the burnt plate as a reminder to Never Do Something That Stupid Again.
They'll probably find it on New Year's Day.
Yes, Blind Guardian, James Ehnes, Kurt Elling, The Who, Joe Satriani, Moody Blues, Prokofiev, Alison Moyet, Doors, Steely Dan, Queen, Strawbs, Police, Beatles, Peter Gabriel, Joe Jackson, Saga, Cream, Animal Logic, Enya, REM, Led Zeppelin, Rush, Midnight Oil, the Move, Genesis, ELO, ELP, Buffalo Springfield, Def Leppard, Black Sabbath, Bach (both J.S. and P.D.Q.), Debussy, The Marmalade, The Pursuit of Happiness...
Disclaimer: I am a security-conscious, penguin-hugging DBA with Microsoft certs and management training.
I work part-time IT (25 hours a week) in Winnipeg. With this and other income I have about $1900 CDN to work with every month.
On this I manage to support three humans, nine cats, a car and a three-storey house. House only cost $45K CDN and is already half paid-off. So it can be done.
I once reverse-engineered the "What do you get when you multiply... " equation in HHGTTG.
Try it in Base 13.
Fin du Monde! Great beer. (sigh)
IT-wise, Winnipeg is a very, very closed shop... All the entry-level jobs are Tier 1 help desk. There was major IT overtraining here from '96-'00, much of it sponsored by government retraining programs.
One of my classmates described himself as an "MCSE Janitor." And my former employer, an IT training centre, crashed and burned.
It's virtually impossible to get a sysadmin position here. I found one, but I had four years work experience and some database programming and really strong hardware skills and a teaching background and 20 years of office experience. And even then, the odds against me were 150:1.
The advertised positions generally ask for everything *including* the kitchen sink: "Well, we'd like to see an MCSE, CNE, some Java, two years of project management... And while you're at it can you help us port all our old COBOL from the IBM/360 to that Linux box over there?"
And we have a saying here: "If you don't like the weather, wait a minute." Went from +23C to four inches of snow in two days.
(Oh, yes... We Canadians will also confuse the hell out of you by shifting from Imperial to Metric at the drop of a tuque.)
I had to quit working full-time IT because of stress-related health issues.
Now I go home at noon most days, have a quick nap to recharge, and go off and do something artistic.
Usually involving computers, ironically... Rolling my own MP3s and teaching myself how to use The Gimp. So my net computer use is actually *up* but I'm not as tired and my mind is a lot clearer.
But I should have changed the job parameters a few months earlier, when the first warning signs appeared. Stoicism, combined with a badly misplaced sense of duty, led me to wage-slavedrive myself to that breaking point.
Take care of your health at all costs, folks. Once it's gone, it is soooo gone.
No, no, no! Get SOCAN first. Can't allow them the slightest hope of a successful appeal on the MP3 decision. I'm amazed they haven't gone after the second-hand CD stores yet.
I work 8:30 to 4:30. That's it. I don't deliberately take work home with me (although my brain keeps crunching IT data 24/7 as a low-priority background task).
Wonder what all the PHB's would do if the entire geek community woke up one morning and decided to do a John Galt?
I *am* unionized IT. It doesn't help... Management finds other ways of sabotaging us, like sending us on completely useless training and denying us access to software and technology that would make our lives easier.
I've already started to document my day-to-day operations, because this isn't where I want to spend the rest of my work life. If I run away to join the circus or get kidnapped by aliens, no reason the end users should suffer.
You know, Bigberk, that might actually work...
Sitting up here in Canada, I read threads like this and my heart just aches. How can you mount an effective defense of any of your freedoms when an entire population is being scared silly and herded back and forth to the point of exhaustion?
You're being set up for a stampede, lynch mob or lemming rush, folks. Take care of yourselves and your families. The future will need you alive and well and sane.
A.K. Odinsdottir
(Nodding sagely as she pets her fluffy white Evil Genius cat)
I've been in and out and around IT since 1968, when my dad brought home some coding sheets and helped me write my first program in FORTRAN. Did the computer club thing in high school. Helped run a BBS on an Imsai Z-80 with lots of blinking lights and 8" floppy drives. Tied paper-tape infinite loops to the bumpers of instructors' cars. Assembled hardware with the help of the other geeks in my D&D group.
Fought tooth and nail to get into an MCSE training program. Actually got a paid gig in the industry.
Now, seven years later, I'm languishing in the basement of an aging school, staring at broken floppy disks and Win98 install screens, and grinding my teeth as I read another asinine memo from the director of IT.
It's only money that keeps me from walking away and never coming back. The thrill is gone.