Now, I know that Slashdot, despite its "slashdot.org" domain name [1] is a for-profit company, and I know that you need to make money to stay in business... but do you have to resort to trolling to do so?
My subscription is nearly up [2], and if you guys need money that badly, why not just ask?
Regards,
dj
Notes:
[1] Don't you think that it is about time that you reverse the DNS entries, and have slashdot.org point to slashdot.com, instead of the other way around? Let's face it, you're not a ".org", nor have you been, for a LONG time.Why not honor Internet conventions? Or,is this a way of saying that Slashdot is not making a profit?
[2] BTW, somewhere along the line, though I PAID for the privilege, I lost the magic subscriber star that every other subscriber gets, and I've not seen it for years now.
From my Subscriber page:
You have paid for a total of 25000 pages and so far 21550 have been used up (10 today). Thank you for supporting Slashdot! We appreciate your contribution very much.
So, basically, you've taken my money, and somewhere along the line deprived me of the benefits for which I have paid. I emailed once, asking about this, but got no reply. I'll try again, but I doubt it will help.
I have a bicycle, so I laugh at your post-apocalyptic dependence on fossil fuels.
While I admire your attempt at post-apocalyptic transportation independence, *I*, using my psionic abilities, maneuvered my employer to relocating to new, larger facilities, 1.7 miles from my home (previously 3 miles from my home, though I had no sway in that decision, as they were in that location before I worked for them).
So, possessing two functioning legs, I laugh at your reliance on contrived mechanical transportation!
In admiration and respect, I remain, your humble servant -
dj
P.S. While I have not your other qualifications, I am, admittedly self-professed, a gentleman, a scholar and a judge of fine women and wine.. and there's damned few of us left! *grin*
Warning in advance - this is long. This to thwart the attention deficit crowd *grin*
"The more we have, the even more we use".
I've worked with computers in one way or another since 1982. I've been a programmer, a computer technician (bench and field), a network technician (back then, being a technician wasn't a bad thing. Now days, EVERYONE is an "engineer"), a network engineer, service manager, VP of Technical Services, and even owned my own business doing all of the latter, for small/medium businesses. One thing that I've noticed over the years is that, while the quoted statement is true, in a business environment it appears that the uses to which a company's computing resources are put are increasingly non-work related.
I blame multi-tasking, and unfettered Internet access, and here's why:
Back in the "Dark Ages" of business computing with PC's, there was little to no multi-tasking on end-user PC's [1]. Computers ran MS-DOS, and people such as myself set up menus for the users which ran when the computer booted. Want to edit a document? Pick the word processor on the menu, and go. When you were done, exit back to the menu, and select the next task.
People that used multiple applications learned to organize their use of them to minimize the amount of time spent switching between applications.
There was next to no access to games for the average computer user on their computers (sure, there were always some that were computer literate who could exit the menu and install and use whatever they wanted, but those people were few and far between), and, no Internet access (and, in fact, the Internet, as commonly understood today, didn't exist at all). From a business perspective, the computers were tools, used for business purposes, and they really did help efficiency.
Fast forward to today: Multi-tasking graphical interfaces have made it easy to have multiple applications running. Ubiquitous, always on Web access allows people to access their personal email accounts, Facebook, YouTube, Internet games, etc., creating an ever-increasing demand on corporate computing and networking resources, with increasingly less return on the expenditures to upgrade them from a business perspective.
One example: We have a sales office in Manhattan which until recently "only" had a T1 line. Given the fact that the permanent full-time staff at the location was less than five people (most of the sales staff work remotely from their homes), it was more than adequate for corporate email, telephony (Our entire corporate phone system is VOIP), and work-related Web access.
Two years ago, we started to get complaints from the people in that office: Poor voice quality on phone calls, dropped calls, slow email access, slow access to file servers, etc. The sales people were screaming: "I get faster Internet access at home! I can get to my email faster at home! Why can't we just switch to Roadrunner/FiOS/?!?" and other such comments.
So, we started monitoring and analyzing the bandwidth use.
Invariably, when the calls and email messages complaining about voice quality, etc., came in? 80% or more of the bandwidth utilization was non-work related.
So, we gathered up the logs, charts, etc., and passed them along to the powers that be, with our recommendations, first of which was to encourage the users in that office to use the company's resources for company-related activities before spending money on more bandwidth.[2]
On a semi-related note: This, of course, is one reason why everyone hates MIS/IT: From their perspective, we're interfering with their use of "their" computers, when the truth is that we have to cost-justify all requests for increased bandwidth (and everything else) with hard numbers.
Another example: We have an office in Upstate NY, which is primarily dedicated to software engineering/development staff and our technical assistance center (TAC). Again, this is about two years ago now. The office was experiencing the sa
Google moves ever closer to gaining complete access to our personal information, and more.
Imagine a full Google OS, no monetary cost, offered under their current licenses. It's slick, clean, multi-platform, perhaps always in beta, but backed by a company with some of the best software engineering resources the planet has to offer, creating a near-perfect end user experience, all the while farming information from its users by default.
Sorry, but I'm not having any.
Paranoid? You're damned right I'm paranoid. Google scares me now more than any other company in the world. They've created a paradigm that seduces people into using their products in return for their personal information, in ever-increasing detail, all while promising that they're not evil so as to reassure them.
I don't know - maybe they'll prove themselves to be so. But if history is any indication, it's not likely, and I can't help but think that a company that exists only to gather and sell information about people will eventually abuse that in order to make money.
Right, because if you're not posting as AC, it automatically means you're telling the truth.
You're an idiot, and here's why: If you actually read the posts, the fundamental point wasn't about whether or not the poster was AC or not, it was about the fact that the AC poster stated that his sister settled with the RIAA. One sentence, nothing more. No evidence, nothing.
I took offense at the fact that it was modded to +5 Informative, despite the fact that it was one sentence, by an AC, and had nothing to support it.
And, since I have an IQ of 320, you must know that I'm telling the truth about that.
I don't think that there's any danger, based on your posting history, of anyone, much less myself, thinking that such could be the case:)
The fact that the comment was anonymous has no bearing on its relevance
Huh? The fact that it was AC has EVERY bearing, especially considering that it was stated as a bald fact, without ANY evidence to support it. It was one sentence. I could just as easily have said "My 200 year old grandma got sued by the RIAA and she settled with them, and died the same day".
With regards to a plain statement that she settled, as the AC states? There would be court documents that attest to such, and references to the same: These would be public record, and the AC could refer to them.
It's *you* who devolved into crude sexual comments about AC's sister. All you are is some crude and disgusting idiot with an obviously strong bias for attention-seeking who goes by the pseudonymous handle "djlowe" and keeps posting repeatedly about the same thing. I'll trust the veracity of an AC's statement over anything you say any day of the week. That's the W behind your WTF. Happy to have helped.
Well, in the first place: A claim by an AC, about a sister, has no veracity: I can just as easily state this: My sister is a fucking slut. This, despite the fact that I have no sister. See how that works?
In addition, despite the fact that I have a pseudonymous handle "djlowe"? I've been here for a VERY long time, under that handle: I'd tend to think that that has more weight than all of you AC's:)
It's *you* who devolved into crude sexual comments about AC's sister
That was intentional - to point out the fact that there's NO way for any of us to know whether or not the AC's sister even exists. Can you prove that she does? Can you disprove that she didn't give me the clap? Or that she was a bad lay?
I'll trust the veracity of an AC's statement over anything you say any day of the week
Says the next AC *grin* Why doesn't that surprise me?
Tell you what - when you grow a pair, you come and post non-AC.
I got sued by the RIAA and lost my house, my car, my eternal salvation and the bastards took my cat, too! [1]
Regards,
dj
Notes:
[1] Honesty compels me to admit that the RIAA didn't actually get my cat: They tried, sending in a squad of of elite stormtroopers. My cat promptly ripped them to shreds, and the screams of the dying were terrifying to hear *grin*
If you can fully actualize the cloud paradigm, you're hired!
You don't have to fully actualize, all you need to do is acknowledge the realization of past technological synergies and then extrapolate them into a new vision, nebulous, but enticing, which promises to leverage both the old and the new into something revolutionary.
Well, it's an awful lot of meat... I'd imagine that there'd be a LOT of people willing to pay a premium for a nice mammoth steak, perhaps served with a nice reduction of merlot and portabello mushrooms.. not to mention the fact that you could use the other parts too: Ice Age Oysters, anyone?
You could make a rug out of it's pelt. Then there's the tusks... and you could powder the bones and sell it as an aphrodisiac.
The scientists found it frozen nearby, and after taking samples, dismembered it and made stew. One scientist, on sabbatical from an unnamed US university, was heard to exclaim: "That's good eatin'!"
Others weren't as enthusiastic, however, stating that they found it tough and overly gamy, and criticized the accompanying wine as being of a particularly poor vintage, one not nearly suited to the momentous occasion.
Jurassic park with prehistoric squirrels? Sounds like another George Lucas movie to me...
I was thinking more of a sequel to Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "Far more terrifying than the Rabbit of Caerbannog, it stalks its prey as it has since the dawn of time..."
Fabricating all (most) of the stuff we make from oil now from plant matter will be a much less efficient operation and require much much more energy inserted during the production/refining process - which will of course make it much more expensive and inefficient to do.
While I don't have the background to refute this, it makes sense to me, but only when you consider the fuel production side of the equation.
It seems to me that there are other factors that might make up, in part or whole, for the lessened efficiency: Can the waste product(s) of using plant matter used to create biofuels be reclaimed and used elsewhere? To make paper, or perhaps clothing? Fertilizer? Feed?
Were that the case, it seems to me that overall efficiency would be improved for other industries, simply by using "waste" from one process as raw materials for another, and another.. and another, so far as possible/efficient/practical.
If there's anyone on Slashdot that has more knowledge than I about this, I'd love to read more about it from an expert point of view.
The concept of unalienable rights is a product of the 18th century
Which doesn't make the concept itself wrong due to age, nor any less desirable as a goal for society.
and inextricably linked to religious belief: rights are inalienable because they are endowed by a Creator
While that was certainly thought to be true when conceived, it needn't be irrevocable: My suspicion now is that the concept of unalienable rights in the 21st century, at least in the US, has long since moved beyond religion to become an inextricable part of its fabric, its foundation, and most US citizens think that such is right and proper, regardless of historical or religious origin.
Speaking only for myself, I believe that we as humans have inalienable, inherent rights, regardless of whether there is a Creator (whose existence I will neither confirm nor deny, as it isn't relevant to this discussion, and is, for me, a deeply personal, individual matter).
now follows some variant of utilitarianism where rights are a convenient and mutable legal fiction to ensure general quality of life.
I apologize in advance if I am incorrect, but you seem to state that as though it's a bad thing, while I think that it cannot be such. For those that believe that unalienable rights are given by a Creator, they can continue to do so. Those that believe that they come from simply being human can do so as well. So long as all of us fight for them, seek to preserve them, we all benefit, no?
Until we face this reality, and force Muslims to accept people saying this everywhere on this world, this won't end.
Ain't gonna happen, especially not with regards to Saudi Arabia. The US Federal Government *loves* Saudi Arabia, because its rulers are pretty much amenable to whatever they want, as it benefits them as well.
The Feds love the fact that they don't have to deal with that pesky "Constitution thing", when pursuing imperialism overseas. They can just say "It wasn't us! It was them!" if anything should come back to haunt them... but it doesn't, usually, because they aren't directly involved in implementing Saudi domestic policy.
After all, Saudi Arabia is a sovereign nation, right? God forbid that the US Federal Government should interfere with that!
Am I the only one whose first thought after reading the summary was - "man, that's a ton of greenhouse gas emissions and wasted fossil fuel for a joyride"?
Well, speaking only for myself, my first thought was "Wow, I wish I could drop $100K on a whim."
email was almost exclusively a Unix thing and a little on the mainframe.
That's simply not true. I built hundreds of LANs using NetWare back in the day, and it came with MHS, which was a very nice corporate email solution for its time, and had great third-party support. The companies that I worked for used Infinite Technologies' Connect2 product line. Their base product, Connect2, did internal mail routing and point-to-point email delivery between networks via analog modem. Later enhancements, such as SMTP gateways, gateways to other proprietary email systems (CC:Mail, Lotus Notes for example), pager gateways and fax gateways, not to mention custom-written gateways, extended the reach and usefulness of the mail system. CompuServe had an MHS mail hub.You could even get gateways to minicomputers such as the AS/400.
Remote access to the corporate mail system was done via dial-up to the corporate mail hub: Transfer the mail to/from and then hang up.
They had a product called Connect2Library, which we used inhouse: Send a mail message from a customer site to our library address, provide the password(s), specify a file, or request a list of files, and the mail system would email them to you - we used it for patches, fixes, drivers and technotes, and it was enormously useful to our field engineers: Rather than having to carry diskettes (!) full of such and have to maintain them, we could centralize them and keep them current. And even though most of the connections between networks was via analog modem, the files were small, and the availability far outweighed the small amount of time that it took to transfer them through the mail systems.
Later, there was an MHS to Exchange gateway product, and I installed many such along with MHS to SMTP setups to allow companies to preserve their investments in what were solid, reliable and robust mail systems.
One of the coolest things I ever did was to set up MHS to voicemail gateways: You'd call the company's voicemail number, enter your PIN, and the gateway computer/MHS mail hub would perform text to voice translation on your messages and then read your email to you. You could record replies, which would be attached to the reply mail messages as WAV files that the recipients could play. All of the common email options were available too: Skip message(s), delete, create new ones. Neat stuff, and all done with PC-class hardware and voicemodems.
You may not have used it, but email was in widespread use on PC's and corporate LANs in the late 80's and early 90's, long before Internet access became widely available, and many companies used it as an effective communications tool.
Regards,
dj
P.S.
On a similar note, I used to leverage the MHS mail gateways for remote access. They ran DOS, and I'd send a "magic email message" to the customer's site. Once received, the gateway computer would replace the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files with ones that would load Carbon Copy or PC Anywhere and reboot. I'd then call in, log in, and do whatever work needed to be done. Once done, I'd run a batch file that replaced the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files with the ones that ran the mail hub software and reboot the computer... and it would then go back to servicing email.
These setups saved me a LOT of travel time over the years, and our customers appreciated them because we could respond very quickly to problems and didn't need to drive what was sometimes hours to get to their sites.
In many ways, such solutions were far more secure than today's always on Internet access: The networks were isolated to the customer site(s), and remote access was limited.
Yeah, yeah, I know - "You damn kids get off my lawn!", but there's a lot to be said for the solutions I and others created back then.
It is if you use it in your stews (de-glaze the pan you use to partially cook the stew beef), BBQ sauce (just a smidgin while you're cooking it)... and, of course, reserve "some" for taste testing, to ensure product quality *grin*
It is one thing to force the uneducated into censorship. But those of us who use the internet have at least a basic education, and we don't like the government meddling in any of our affairs.
You're quite a bigot. Do you cross the street to avoid the unclean, too?
Slashdot Mirror
I'd think that some sort of thermal conversion would be more in order. After all, Congress generates a LOT of hot air ...
Regards,
dj
OK, you fixed it. Good for you!
Now, I know that Slashdot, despite its "slashdot.org" domain name [1] is a for-profit company, and I know that you need to make money to stay in business... but do you have to resort to trolling to do so?
My subscription is nearly up [2], and if you guys need money that badly, why not just ask?
Regards,
dj
Notes:
[1] Don't you think that it is about time that you reverse the DNS entries, and have slashdot.org point to slashdot.com, instead of the other way around? Let's face it, you're not a ".org", nor have you been, for a LONG time.Why not honor Internet conventions? Or,is this a way of saying that Slashdot is not making a profit?
[2] BTW, somewhere along the line, though I PAID for the privilege, I lost the magic subscriber star that every other subscriber gets, and I've not seen it for years now.
From my Subscriber page:
You have paid for a total of 25000 pages and so far 21550 have been used up (10 today). Thank you for supporting Slashdot! We appreciate your contribution very much.
So, basically, you've taken my money, and somewhere along the line deprived me of the benefits for which I have paid. I emailed once, asking about this, but got no reply. I'll try again, but I doubt it will help.
While I admire your attempt at post-apocalyptic transportation independence, *I*, using my psionic abilities, maneuvered my employer to relocating to new, larger facilities, 1.7 miles from my home (previously 3 miles from my home, though I had no sway in that decision, as they were in that location before I worked for them).
So, possessing two functioning legs, I laugh at your reliance on contrived mechanical transportation!
In admiration and respect, I remain, your humble servant -
dj
P.S. While I have not your other qualifications, I am, admittedly self-professed, a gentleman, a scholar and a judge of fine women and wine.. and there's damned few of us left! *grin*
Hi,
Warning in advance - this is long. This to thwart the attention deficit crowd *grin*
"The more we have, the even more we use".
I've worked with computers in one way or another since 1982. I've been a programmer, a computer technician (bench and field), a network technician (back then, being a technician wasn't a bad thing. Now days, EVERYONE is an "engineer"), a network engineer, service manager, VP of Technical Services, and even owned my own business doing all of the latter, for small/medium businesses. One thing that I've noticed over the years is that, while the quoted statement is true, in a business environment it appears that the uses to which a company's computing resources are put are increasingly non-work related.
I blame multi-tasking, and unfettered Internet access, and here's why:
Back in the "Dark Ages" of business computing with PC's, there was little to no multi-tasking on end-user PC's [1]. Computers ran MS-DOS, and people such as myself set up menus for the users which ran when the computer booted. Want to edit a document? Pick the word processor on the menu, and go. When you were done, exit back to the menu, and select the next task.
People that used multiple applications learned to organize their use of them to minimize the amount of time spent switching between applications.
There was next to no access to games for the average computer user on their computers (sure, there were always some that were computer literate who could exit the menu and install and use whatever they wanted, but those people were few and far between), and, no Internet access (and, in fact, the Internet, as commonly understood today, didn't exist at all). From a business perspective, the computers were tools, used for business purposes, and they really did help efficiency.
Fast forward to today: Multi-tasking graphical interfaces have made it easy to have multiple applications running. Ubiquitous, always on Web access allows people to access their personal email accounts, Facebook, YouTube, Internet games, etc., creating an ever-increasing demand on corporate computing and networking resources, with increasingly less return on the expenditures to upgrade them from a business perspective.
One example: We have a sales office in Manhattan which until recently "only" had a T1 line. Given the fact that the permanent full-time staff at the location was less than five people (most of the sales staff work remotely from their homes), it was more than adequate for corporate email, telephony (Our entire corporate phone system is VOIP), and work-related Web access.
Two years ago, we started to get complaints from the people in that office: Poor voice quality on phone calls, dropped calls, slow email access, slow access to file servers, etc. The sales people were screaming: "I get faster Internet access at home! I can get to my email faster at home! Why can't we just switch to Roadrunner/FiOS/?!?" and other such comments.
So, we started monitoring and analyzing the bandwidth use.
Invariably, when the calls and email messages complaining about voice quality, etc., came in? 80% or more of the bandwidth utilization was non-work related.
So, we gathered up the logs, charts, etc., and passed them along to the powers that be, with our recommendations, first of which was to encourage the users in that office to use the company's resources for company-related activities before spending money on more bandwidth.[2]
On a semi-related note: This, of course, is one reason why everyone hates MIS/IT: From their perspective, we're interfering with their use of "their" computers, when the truth is that we have to cost-justify all requests for increased bandwidth (and everything else) with hard numbers.
Another example: We have an office in Upstate NY, which is primarily dedicated to software engineering/development staff and our technical assistance center (TAC). Again, this is about two years ago now. The office was experiencing the sa
Google moves ever closer to gaining complete access to our personal information, and more.
Imagine a full Google OS, no monetary cost, offered under their current licenses. It's slick, clean, multi-platform, perhaps always in beta, but backed by a company with some of the best software engineering resources the planet has to offer, creating a near-perfect end user experience, all the while farming information from its users by default.
Sorry, but I'm not having any.
Paranoid? You're damned right I'm paranoid. Google scares me now more than any other company in the world. They've created a paradigm that seduces people into using their products in return for their personal information, in ever-increasing detail, all while promising that they're not evil so as to reassure them.
I don't know - maybe they'll prove themselves to be so. But if history is any indication, it's not likely, and I can't help but think that a company that exists only to gather and sell information about people will eventually abuse that in order to make money.
Cynically,
dj
You're an idiot, and here's why: If you actually read the posts, the fundamental point wasn't about whether or not the poster was AC or not, it was about the fact that the AC poster stated that his sister settled with the RIAA. One sentence, nothing more. No evidence, nothing.
I took offense at the fact that it was modded to +5 Informative, despite the fact that it was one sentence, by an AC, and had nothing to support it.
I don't think that there's any danger, based on your posting history, of anyone, much less myself, thinking that such could be the case :)
Regards,
dj
Huh? The fact that it was AC has EVERY bearing, especially considering that it was stated as a bald fact, without ANY evidence to support it. It was one sentence. I could just as easily have said "My 200 year old grandma got sued by the RIAA and she settled with them, and died the same day".
Oh,and it's true! Now, prove me wrong.
Regards,
dj
With regards to a plain statement that she settled, as the AC states? There would be court documents that attest to such, and references to the same: These would be public record, and the AC could refer to them.
Regards,
dj
Well, in the first place: A claim by an AC, about a sister, has no veracity: I can just as easily state this: My sister is a fucking slut. This, despite the fact that I have no sister. See how that works?
:)
In addition, despite the fact that I have a pseudonymous handle "djlowe"? I've been here for a VERY long time, under that handle: I'd tend to think that that has more weight than all of you AC's
That was intentional - to point out the fact that there's NO way for any of us to know whether or not the AC's sister even exists. Can you prove that she does? Can you disprove that she didn't give me the clap? Or that she was a bad lay?
Says the next AC *grin* Why doesn't that surprise me?
Tell you what - when you grow a pair, you come and post non-AC.
Regards,
dj
Is this really what Slashdot has devolved to? An AC posts such a statement, without any proof of veracity, and gets modded up to +5 Informative?
My attempts at sarcasm, to point out how ridiculous that is, are being modded down... WTF?
Regards
dj
Wow, somebody's abusing their mod points!
Wait, let me redeem myself!
I got sued by the RIAA and lost my house, my car, my eternal salvation and the bastards took my cat, too! [1]
Regards,
dj
Notes:
[1] Honesty compels me to admit that the RIAA didn't actually get my cat: They tried, sending in a squad of of elite stormtroopers. My cat promptly ripped them to shreds, and the screams of the dying were terrifying to hear *grin*
I sued your sister for giving me the clap, and she settled with me, too.
Oh, and, she wasn't that great a lay, either, though I couldn't get any money for that.
So, do I get modded up as Informative, too?
Regards,
dj
You don't have to fully actualize, all you need to do is acknowledge the realization of past technological synergies and then extrapolate them into a new vision, nebulous, but enticing, which promises to leverage both the old and the new into something revolutionary.
Or so I've been told.
Regards,
dj
So, care to back that up with anything resembling facts? Or were you just being snarky?
I don't use IE myself, but I really dislike prejudice stated as fact.
Regards,
dj
Well, it's an awful lot of meat... I'd imagine that there'd be a LOT of people willing to pay a premium for a nice mammoth steak, perhaps served with a nice reduction of merlot and portabello mushrooms.. not to mention the fact that you could use the other parts too: Ice Age Oysters, anyone?
You could make a rug out of it's pelt. Then there's the tusks... and you could powder the bones and sell it as an aphrodisiac.
Why, the possibilities are endless!
Regards,
dj
The scientists found it frozen nearby, and after taking samples, dismembered it and made stew. One scientist, on sabbatical from an unnamed US university, was heard to exclaim: "That's good eatin'!"
Others weren't as enthusiastic, however, stating that they found it tough and overly gamy, and criticized the accompanying wine as being of a particularly poor vintage, one not nearly suited to the momentous occasion.
Irreverently yours,
dj
I was thinking more of a sequel to Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "Far more terrifying than the Rabbit of Caerbannog, it stalks its prey as it has since the dawn of time..."
While I don't have the background to refute this, it makes sense to me, but only when you consider the fuel production side of the equation.
It seems to me that there are other factors that might make up, in part or whole, for the lessened efficiency: Can the waste product(s) of using plant matter used to create biofuels be reclaimed and used elsewhere? To make paper, or perhaps clothing? Fertilizer? Feed?
Were that the case, it seems to me that overall efficiency would be improved for other industries, simply by using "waste" from one process as raw materials for another, and another.. and another, so far as possible/efficient/practical.
If there's anyone on Slashdot that has more knowledge than I about this, I'd love to read more about it from an expert point of view.
Regards,
dj
Which doesn't make the concept itself wrong due to age, nor any less desirable as a goal for society.
While that was certainly thought to be true when conceived, it needn't be irrevocable: My suspicion now is that the concept of unalienable rights in the 21st century, at least in the US, has long since moved beyond religion to become an inextricable part of its fabric, its foundation, and most US citizens think that such is right and proper, regardless of historical or religious origin.
Speaking only for myself, I believe that we as humans have inalienable, inherent rights, regardless of whether there is a Creator (whose existence I will neither confirm nor deny, as it isn't relevant to this discussion, and is, for me, a deeply personal, individual matter).
I apologize in advance if I am incorrect, but you seem to state that as though it's a bad thing, while I think that it cannot be such. For those that believe that unalienable rights are given by a Creator, they can continue to do so. Those that believe that they come from simply being human can do so as well. So long as all of us fight for them, seek to preserve them, we all benefit, no?
Regards,
dj
Ain't gonna happen, especially not with regards to Saudi Arabia. The US Federal Government *loves* Saudi Arabia, because its rulers are pretty much amenable to whatever they want, as it benefits them as well.
The Feds love the fact that they don't have to deal with that pesky "Constitution thing", when pursuing imperialism overseas. They can just say "It wasn't us! It was them!" if anything should come back to haunt them... but it doesn't, usually, because they aren't directly involved in implementing Saudi domestic policy.
After all, Saudi Arabia is a sovereign nation, right? God forbid that the US Federal Government should interfere with that!
Sarcastically/cynically,
dj
Well, speaking only for myself, my first thought was "Wow, I wish I could drop $100K on a whim."
Regards,
dj
That's simply not true. I built hundreds of LANs using NetWare back in the day, and it came with MHS, which was a very nice corporate email solution for its time, and had great third-party support. The companies that I worked for used Infinite Technologies' Connect2 product line. Their base product, Connect2, did internal mail routing and point-to-point email delivery between networks via analog modem. Later enhancements, such as SMTP gateways, gateways to other proprietary email systems (CC:Mail, Lotus Notes for example), pager gateways and fax gateways, not to mention custom-written gateways, extended the reach and usefulness of the mail system. CompuServe had an MHS mail hub.You could even get gateways to minicomputers such as the AS/400.
Remote access to the corporate mail system was done via dial-up to the corporate mail hub: Transfer the mail to/from and then hang up.
They had a product called Connect2Library, which we used inhouse: Send a mail message from a customer site to our library address, provide the password(s), specify a file, or request a list of files, and the mail system would email them to you - we used it for patches, fixes, drivers and technotes, and it was enormously useful to our field engineers: Rather than having to carry diskettes (!) full of such and have to maintain them, we could centralize them and keep them current. And even though most of the connections between networks was via analog modem, the files were small, and the availability far outweighed the small amount of time that it took to transfer them through the mail systems.
Later, there was an MHS to Exchange gateway product, and I installed many such along with MHS to SMTP setups to allow companies to preserve their investments in what were solid, reliable and robust mail systems.
One of the coolest things I ever did was to set up MHS to voicemail gateways: You'd call the company's voicemail number, enter your PIN, and the gateway computer/MHS mail hub would perform text to voice translation on your messages and then read your email to you. You could record replies, which would be attached to the reply mail messages as WAV files that the recipients could play. All of the common email options were available too: Skip message(s), delete, create new ones. Neat stuff, and all done with PC-class hardware and voicemodems.
You may not have used it, but email was in widespread use on PC's and corporate LANs in the late 80's and early 90's, long before Internet access became widely available, and many companies used it as an effective communications tool.
Regards,
dj
P.S.
On a similar note, I used to leverage the MHS mail gateways for remote access. They ran DOS, and I'd send a "magic email message" to the customer's site. Once received, the gateway computer would replace the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files with ones that would load Carbon Copy or PC Anywhere and reboot. I'd then call in, log in, and do whatever work needed to be done. Once done, I'd run a batch file that replaced the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files with the ones that ran the mail hub software and reboot the computer... and it would then go back to servicing email.
These setups saved me a LOT of travel time over the years, and our customers appreciated them because we could respond very quickly to problems and didn't need to drive what was sometimes hours to get to their sites.
In many ways, such solutions were far more secure than today's always on Internet access: The networks were isolated to the customer site(s), and remote access was limited.
Yeah, yeah, I know - "You damn kids get off my lawn!", but there's a lot to be said for the solutions I and others created back then.
Regards,
dj
It is if you use it in your stews (de-glaze the pan you use to partially cook the stew beef), BBQ sauce (just a smidgin while you're cooking it)... and, of course, reserve "some" for taste testing, to ensure product quality *grin*
You're quite a bigot. Do you cross the street to avoid the unclean, too?