Doing nothing is a fairly good tactic. If he's the only technical person, they'll be more than likely to call him for normal maintaince stuff anyways. He can always answer "Sorry, you just fired me. If you want me to do this work, either hire me on at double my original salary and a contract under my terms, or pay me a hefty contract rate.
There will always be something they realize they didn't get a few months down the line, like the router passwords. If they hire someone really good on, they can get around any of that, but if they don't, they'll be calling. I've fixed plenty of lost password scenerios, usually from the admin leaving the company on friendly terms, and the bosses losing that Email that has all the passwords in it.
Don't be so destructive, if they hire him back, he can't fix that.
Set an "at" event (Windows cron wannabe) to remove or rename io.sys and msdos.sys the day he's to be expired. It's not enough to be really dangerous, but it'll give the "you fucked with someone you shouldn't have" impression, and still be fairly easy to fix.
Doing the same to the kernels on all the *nix machines would be effective too.
It could have been anyone in the company, especially any one of those disgruntled recently laid off employees.
We'll call it the Netsharc Law, but it will mean that you'll immediately get a visit by a 3 letter agency, and you'll be taken off to Cuba for an extended stay.
It's a $1700 glorified hair dryer. Judging by the last line that says "ironing dummy can be washed in the washing machine", I'd have to guess the whole thing is a fabric on a frame. You put your shirt over the cloth on the frame, and turn it on with a rotary knob (no sensor to detect dry). It takes up to 15 minutes to do one shirt. It doesn't load itself, it doesn't take the now dried and wrinkle free shirt, and fold it. It's simply a blow dryer. Worse yet, a blow dryer that can only do shirts. My girlfriend has dresses, skirts, pants, shirts, etc, etc, that she irons. I have pants and shirts that I'd theoretically iron. Ok, I still do the wash, dry, hang up before they get cold method.:) But, for $1700, it'd better do more than half of my ironing needs.
This thing is far from being a robot. I'd rather call my electric toothbrush a robot. It has just as many functions (on/off).
In Florida, where I know the most about the laws, you can wear it, or at least you could in the early 1980's. I think this may have changed. We were advised in 1994, during law enforcement training, in our uniform, not to carry our weapon in public.
Actually, a link from packing.org for Florida says this:
Open Carry On Person Open carry of a firearm is prohibited except in certain limited situations, such as when hunting, camping, fishing, hiking or target shooting in a lawful location. Open carry in a populated or urban area is NEVER allowed. This prohibition even applies to persons who have a Concealed Weapons License. NOTE: It is legal for a person to openly carry a firearm, regardless of whether or not the person has a license, at his or her home or place of business. "Home" does not include areas outside of your house or apartment, such as yards, parking areas, or common hallways. "Place of business" does not include areas outside of the business premises, such as parking areas, hallways or common areas within malls, shopping centers or office buildings; nor does it include mobile "places of business" such as motor vehicles or other forms of conveyance.
People get nervous when you're standing in line at McDonalds, with a gun on your hip. All it takes is one other person with a gun to get nervous, then you have the makings of an incident.
If you do carry openly, if it's legal in your state, does make for a more dangerous moment. You have a gun, and maybe they'd like to get that from you too. A free gun plus your wallet, and all it takes is one shot to the back of your head when no one is looking. The cheapest gun I own was $350, which is substantially more than I carry in my wallet most days.:)
Carrying my weapon concealed means no one but me knows I have it, unless I'm talking to a police officer, which I will immediately volunteer that I have a concealed carry permit, and where my weapon is. There's no need for them to find out any other way, and have a reason to be concerned. If they want to disarm me and continue our conversation, that's perfectly fine with me.
But, if I have to pull my weapon, if I don't have a damned good reason to do it, I know I'll end up in jail.
And remember, in most states, if someone else gets hurt in an exchange, it's still your fault. That can include the little old man two blocks away having a heart attack from hearing gun shots.
You can only kill someone if you are in direct threat of your life. That is, if they're trying to kill you, you may kill. Even if you *ARE* in direct threat of your life, and do kill, you may still end up in jail if you can't prove that you were actually in danger.
I do have a concealed weapons permit, which is good in 16 states, and if I'm in one of those states, you can be willing to bet I have a hand gun close by, but I have never needed to use it.
In many different firearms training schools, I've been taught, don't pull your weapon unless you're ready to use it. In law enforcement training, it was demonstrated for us that by the time you react to shoot, you'll probably be disarmed. The instructor picked one of the cocky students from the class (not me), and gave him the scenerio. He was told to say "bang", to indicate firing his dummy pistol. The instructor started playing the bad-ass bad guy, standing about 10 feet away, talking shit, and when the student wasn't expecting it, the instructor rushed him. The student was laying on the ground, and the instructor had the weapon by the time he said bang. "Bang what? I have your gun." A civilian without serious training would be even worse at the exercise, and in real life would be dead. You just escalated to deadly force, and the guy who only intended to mug you probably now realizes this, and will kill you.
If I pull my weapon, the next thing I will be doing is firing. No warnings, no "should I shoot", no negotiating now that the weapon is drawn. Any thoughts of "should I be doing this" had better of happened before I made the decision to pull my weapon.
That's why people who think they're safe because they have a gun, get themselves killed, and become part of the "homeowner killed with own weapon" statistic. People go under the mistaken impression that now that they've pulled the weapon, the other guy will back down, and quietly wait for the police to come and arrest them. This is the same guy who quietly wanted to rob you.
Want to play it safe? Get a gun, fire a few thousand rounds with an instructor. Learn hand to hand and firearm combat. More than likely, you then realize that having a gun is probably not the solution to this.
Personally, what I do is never look like I have anything worth taking. I normally wear a T-shirt and jeans. For years my laptop and tools were carried in a ratty satchel that I got at WalMart for $20. At times, I've carried large sums of cash of me for various reasons, but I never look like I have maybe $5 in my pocket and maybe a PB&J sandwitch in the satchel. I've been in rather bad places (white boy don't belong here parts of town) and never had any serious trouble. I've been looked up and down by prospective muggers, they're fairly easy to spot, but I don't look very interesting. Of course, I can hold my own too, so maybe I don't have the "I'm a timid victim" look to me. I'm always looking for escape paths, problems (how many attackers), sizing up the attackers, and potential weapons I or the enemy can use.
The short list of what to do...
1) Don't look worth mugging.
2) Don't be anywhere that makes it easy to be attacked. Staying on main streets with lots of people is usually good.
3) Stay very aware of your environment, but don't look like you're doing it. Like, pay attention to the fact there are two guys following you, and one standing at the end of the street.
4) If you have the smallest suspicion that you may be in trouble, go somewhere safe.
In Vegas once, two common street thugs started following me. They were bigger than me, and I probably wouldn't have been able to take them. It was late, there weren't many people on the street, and there were plenty of places to pull me off out of sight. So I walked into the nearest casino, and started chatting up a guard. I didn't say "Help, I'm being followed", I just started with "how's it going?" The walked right past me, and out another exi
I don't believe Iraq was completely honest, but this is politics and international diplomacy. You can tell when they're lying because their lips are moving.
As for the "head of the weapons program" defecting, well, if you knew the US was about to attack, and wanted to run to somewhere that you'd be safe both from the war and from retaliation, where you'd probably end up getting a sweet deal, the US would seem the place to go. You can be fairly sure the US wouldn't turn him back over to Iraq, and Iraq wasn't in a position to occupy the US.
Since neiter of us were on the UN inspection team, work for the Iraq gov't, or given copies of all the documentation that was floating around on the issue, I'd be willing to bet we're really short on information. I was giving a plausable scenerio, although with a bit of humor mixed in.
But Gore, as Vice President, wasn't part to starting any world wars.
Bush, while not being Vice President, nor starting any wars before getting into office, played (and won) on name value. Well, not really won. More people voted for the other guy
Actual Votes: Bush: 50,456,002(47.87%) Gore: 50,999,897 (48.38%)
Electorial Votes: Bush: 271 Gore: 266
This time around, maybe people will look at the record.
Bush: started two wars, killed lots of people Kerry: didn't start any wars, wasn't responsible for thousands of deaths.
I spoke with one lady, who said "Bush isn't that bad, I'd vote for him again", who a few weeks later told me "I'm not voting for him again", because her son, a Staff Sergeant in the US Army Reserve with 6 years in, due to end his tour in August, is now being sent to Afghanistan in July for at least a year. This isn't abnormal, it's now policy. Just because you're not in the military now, and have no plans for joining doesn't mean much
From what I've read, Hitler wasn't that bad of a guy, til he started his ethnic cleansing campaigns across Europe, and conquering other countries just because they were there. That became fairly well known after a while. Maybe you heard about it? World War II?
> (George Foreman or broiler cleaning is an unpleasant cleaning job)
The BBQ is my favorite. Open the first beer, and turn the grill on high, close the lid, and a few minutes later, knock the ashes of the last meal off with the wire scraper brush.:) Of course, you have to be a firm believer in propane and propane accessories.
Open your second beer, and throw your meats on the bottom rack, your vegetables on the middle rack, and your toastable bread stuffs on the top rack, and shortly you'll have yourself a winner of a meal.
For my vegetable, I like corn on the cob. Wrap it in foil with lots of butter on it, and let it cook while the meat cooks.
Open your third beer, take your food off the grill, and enjoy.
Any man that can't cook on the grill for himself shouldn't consider himself a man.
Man, now I'm hungy. It's a nice sunny Sunday afternoon here in L.A., maybe I'll have to fire up the grill and make some food. The beer's ice cold in the beer fridge. The foods waiting in the food fridge, and the basic instincts of man (fire and food) are waiting to be satisfied.
If I recall, it was a big game of the inspectors looking, and not finding anything and crying "He's hiding them". So Hussein showed them more locations, and again, the inspectors cried "he's hiding them".
Eventually, I'd suspect it appeared to him that the inspectors weren't there to find WMD's, but to gather intelligence on what his forces were, etc, etc.
Now, this would appear more correct than paranoia.
But, exactly how do you go about saying "we want to see the WMD's" and know that you're being taken to the correct places? The spys tell you where they are, of course. Again, breaking the trust.
Inspectors: "Hi, We'd like to inspect this list of locations for WMD's."
Iraq: "Who gave you the list?"
Spys: "Don't say spys. Don't say spys."
Inspectors: "Ummm, we guessed?"
Iraq: "Ok, we'll give you access to those locations"
Inspectors: "We didn't find anything there, you must be hiding them, we want to see what you have at these installations now."
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Now imagine any group of inspectors trying to see what the US has hiding around the world. It isn't going to happen. The US has enough to destroy the world many times over, and in reality that's unchecked. Everyone knows "Area 51", but there are countless other "secret" installations that foreign (read: enemy) inspectors can't just walk into.
The US is powerful enough where any country won't push for inspection, in fear that the US would push back.
Foreign Power: "Let us check all of your 'secret' bases!"
U.S.: "Sure, let us nuke you first."
Foreign Power: "Fair enough, give us a diplomatic tour of Washington D.C., with plenty of liquer and hookers."
Your Borders really has a security section? That's cool! There was one store I used to go to (Borders or Barnes and Nobel, I can't remember) had a decent section, but I live far from it now. The local stores barely have computer sections. Most of the books there fall into four categories.
1) Read it.
2) Own it.
3) Too basic.
4) No interest. (outside of what I do)
Of course, if they fall outside of that, I usually buy 'em.:)
I went to CompUSA in Tampa (On Dale Mabry) a couple weeks ago. In their discount corner they had a bunch of books, including O'Reilly books, for real cheap. I picked up books on proxy servers and load balancing. They weren't exactly what I was looking for, once I got done reading them, but they're good to add to the collection.
It seems even if I buy books that aren't what I needed, someone will go looking through the books in my office and borrow one for a few days.:) I have no problem loaning them out as long as I get them back. I acquired 1/2 dozen Solaris books a while back. They belong to someone in the office, but I added them to my book shelves. They're referenced occasionally, which makes them still useful.
It's the people that know these books inside and out that are the largest potential danger. But that's like saying the person with an advanced degree in nuclear technology is more dangerous than someone who has a basic understanding. I have the basic understand of how nuclear stuff works, but I'm far from being able to build my own reactor or weapon.:) Would the guy designing nuclear plants really be considered a terrorist risk?
You know, I'm a systems administrator, not an English major. But sure, if it makes you feel better, I use too many commas, sometimes. Sometimes I don't.
Virtually everyone buys their parts from someone else.
I really enjoy ripping apart equipment to see who builds the components. For example, Dell's have quite a bit of Intel hardware in them. We had to really dig the people at Dell to find out who makes their PowerConnect switches, but it's yet another vendor. I can't remember the company name off-hand, it wasn't anything memorable. For some reason people that buy from Dell are like a cult. They believe Dell is the best, and manufacture all of their parts. They get really upset when I crack one open, and start naming off the real manufacturers. Motherboard, processor, NIC by Intel. Hard drive by whoever. I still have no idea who makes the cases, but I'm sure it's not at the Dell manufacturing plant.
Even my pretty Alienware laptop that I carry everywhere with me is actually made by "Clevo" based out of Taiwan.
I had an Apple IIe with a whole collection of cards, but can't remember what any of them were now. I do vaugely remember having a CP/M card, but don't remember anything about it.
You know how dangerous the information in 2600 is! (haha) Once in a while I see an interesting article, but I usually get it to leave laying the office to confuse people. My collection of O'Reilly books are more dangerous. But hey, hackers read 2600, programmers read O'Reilly. And everyone else reads "[insert topic] for dummies":)
You should scan it and put it up on the net, but prepare to be/.ed.
Myself, I've had probably 1/2 dozen "FBI background checks" run me. There have also been a couple people considering me an evil hacker that have contacted the FBI and InterPol about me.
All in all, I probably have a couple hundred records in the FBI's database for various things, none really accounting for anything, and no charges (and obviously no convictions). But what happens one day, when an evil hacker seems to be operating in the town I live in?
I've openly discussed viruses, electronic design, etc, etc.. Oh, and I've bought several copies of 2600 magazine with my credit card.:)
I'm an editor for http://freeinternetpress.com , which I'm sure counts for several points in the "possibly subversive" column of their score card.
I've also bought plenty of potentially hazardous equipment. I have a full set of electronic and mechanical equipment, where I can work on cars and computers. With the same tools, I could be building a thermonuclear device in my basement. Well, not really, I don't have a big enough basement, nor the real urge to do it.:) That, and the little matter of having fissionable material, but hey, I email people all over the world on a regular basis, and some may have indirect ties to back market.
It hasn't happened yet, but one day I expect agents will show up to my house or work for a "friendly" discussion. If Bush gets re-elected, I expect this will happen sooner, rather than later.
You can *ask* for your FBI file. Actually getting it is another matter. But yes, asking for it will more than likely get them interested in going through your file a bit more carefully.
And I'm the complete opposite. I give out my cell number as my business and home numbers. It makes it a lot easier for people to reach me, rather than calling two or three numbers, just to find that I'm not at either one at the time.
A typical daytime scenerio would be, someone calls my home to find me. "I think he's at work."
They call my work, "I think he's at the colo"
They call the colo, "He's not here. Maybe he's at another location."
They call work again, "Oh, he's in x city working, try the office there"
They call the office in x city "Try the colo in thic city, the number is..."
and then they finally get me.
Or they just ring my cell. If I'm not answering, I'm inside a colo with bad reception (some are good, some aren't). I call back when I get the message.
I end up using about 3000 minutes/mo, but incoming is free with my Nextel plan, and that's the majority of my calls.
I can be sitting in a park eating lunch, in a distant city, and still be responsible to my work and family.
Or in the case of last week, sitting in the Denver airport waiting for my connecting flight, answering questions for people.
Before my current girlfriend moved in, with her daughter, I had disconnected my home phone because I never used it. Nextel give free incoming calls, and I usually wasn't home, so there was no need for the extra bill. Every account I have is listed with my cell number. None of my accounts have problems with my cell number being listed.
To activate new cards (like when they expire and issue new cards), I have to call from my cell.
Aparently there is some index that they use which indicate if a number is a cell number or not, which Nextel aparently doesn't list themselves in. When I call somewhere, callerid only shows my number with no name. I've seen other cell phone calls show the cell company name, or just "wireless caller", which would be a dead giveaway to them.
I can believe they wouldn't want to issue credit cards to people using pre-paid phones as their primary number. Maybe because the majority of Nextel's users are business accounts, they get different treatement.
You're one of those people that brings your cell phone to work with the ringer volume cranked all the way up, and then leaves your phone on your desk while you go to lunch, aren't you?
I use Vonage at a colo where there's no cell service (underground, surrounded by metal, isn't good for reception), but I use my cell everywhere else.
I'm reachable 24/7, which means it goes near my bed at night, and on my hip or on my desk the rest of the time. The only time it gets shut off is when I'm on airplanes, and even then it's in my laptop bag at my feet.
The only place I may not carry it, and definately won't talk on it, is in the bathroom.
Pain in the ass? Not really. It's near by, like my wallet (and beer after work).1
We bought a Vonage phone to put in one of our colo's, because we didn't want to wait for the local telco provider to hook us up.
A friend of mine bought one for home, and now doesn't have a traditional wired phone at all.
Another guy who has space in one of the colo's we're in also has a Vonage phone, and has the additional service to let him use his laptop as a phone, with a little headset plugged into his mic and headphone jacks. He's very satisfied also.
So, out of 3 people I know that have it, all of us like it.
The only part I don't really like is that the Motorola router/adapter box takes a long time to boot (up to 5 minutes). But since I don't move it very often, that's not really a problem.
With all the things that are sins, and all the stuff I've done over the years, and the people I've done them with, I'll have a good collection of friends there when they day comes.:)
Well, that is unless thoughts really are just a simply side effect of electrical impulses shooting across some wierd cells, and when the electrical impulses stop, so do we.
Obviously divine control over the universe has failed to sort us so far, so why should I think that it would do any better at the next level?
Why's there a thunderstorm forming over my house, and {{{ ZAP }}}
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Doing nothing is a fairly good tactic. If he's the only technical person, they'll be more than likely to call him for normal maintaince stuff anyways. He can always answer "Sorry, you just fired me. If you want me to do this work, either hire me on at double my original salary and a contract under my terms, or pay me a hefty contract rate.
There will always be something they realize they didn't get a few months down the line, like the router passwords. If they hire someone really good on, they can get around any of that, but if they don't, they'll be calling. I've fixed plenty of lost password scenerios, usually from the admin leaving the company on friendly terms, and the bosses losing that Email that has all the passwords in it.
Don't be so destructive, if they hire him back, he can't fix that.
Set an "at" event (Windows cron wannabe) to remove or rename io.sys and msdos.sys the day he's to be expired. It's not enough to be really dangerous, but it'll give the "you fucked with someone you shouldn't have" impression, and still be fairly easy to fix.
Doing the same to the kernels on all the *nix machines would be effective too.
It could have been anyone in the company, especially any one of those disgruntled recently laid off employees.
We'll call it the Netsharc Law, but it will mean that you'll immediately get a visit by a 3 letter agency, and you'll be taken off to Cuba for an extended stay.
Read the article again, no creases at all. :(
:) But, for $1700, it'd better do more than half of my ironing needs.
It's a $1700 glorified hair dryer. Judging by the last line that says "ironing dummy can be washed in the washing machine", I'd have to guess the whole thing is a fabric on a frame. You put your shirt over the cloth on the frame, and turn it on with a rotary knob (no sensor to detect dry). It takes up to 15 minutes to do one shirt. It doesn't load itself, it doesn't take the now dried and wrinkle free shirt, and fold it. It's simply a blow dryer. Worse yet, a blow dryer that can only do shirts. My girlfriend has dresses, skirts, pants, shirts, etc, etc, that she irons. I have pants and shirts that I'd theoretically iron. Ok, I still do the wash, dry, hang up before they get cold method.
This thing is far from being a robot. I'd rather call my electric toothbrush a robot. It has just as many functions (on/off).
Yup.
:)
Two workstations and a laptop myself, on Slack 9.1 , myself.
Judging by the packages available at linuxpackages.net, there are more too.
In Florida, where I know the most about the laws, you can wear it, or at least you could in the early 1980's. I think this may have changed. We were advised in 1994, during law enforcement training, in our uniform, not to carry our weapon in public.
Actually, a link from packing.org for Florida says this:
People get nervous when you're standing in line at McDonalds, with a gun on your hip. All it takes is one other person with a gun to get nervous, then you have the makings of an incident.
If you do carry openly, if it's legal in your state, does make for a more dangerous moment. You have a gun, and maybe they'd like to get that from you too. A free gun plus your wallet, and all it takes is one shot to the back of your head when no one is looking. The cheapest gun I own was $350, which is substantially more than I carry in my wallet most days.
Carrying my weapon concealed means no one but me knows I have it, unless I'm talking to a police officer, which I will immediately volunteer that I have a concealed carry permit, and where my weapon is. There's no need for them to find out any other way, and have a reason to be concerned. If they want to disarm me and continue our conversation, that's perfectly fine with me.
But, if I have to pull my weapon, if I don't have a damned good reason to do it, I know I'll end up in jail.
And remember, in most states, if someone else gets hurt in an exchange, it's still your fault. That can include the little old man two blocks away having a heart attack from hearing gun shots.
You can only kill someone if you are in direct threat of your life. That is, if they're trying to kill you, you may kill. Even if you *ARE* in direct threat of your life, and do kill, you may still end up in jail if you can't prove that you were actually in danger.
I do have a concealed weapons permit, which is good in 16 states, and if I'm in one of those states, you can be willing to bet I have a hand gun close by, but I have never needed to use it.
In many different firearms training schools, I've been taught, don't pull your weapon unless you're ready to use it. In law enforcement training, it was demonstrated for us that by the time you react to shoot, you'll probably be disarmed. The instructor picked one of the cocky students from the class (not me), and gave him the scenerio. He was told to say "bang", to indicate firing his dummy pistol. The instructor started playing the bad-ass bad guy, standing about 10 feet away, talking shit, and when the student wasn't expecting it, the instructor rushed him. The student was laying on the ground, and the instructor had the weapon by the time he said bang. "Bang what? I have your gun." A civilian without serious training would be even worse at the exercise, and in real life would be dead. You just escalated to deadly force, and the guy who only intended to mug you probably now realizes this, and will kill you.
If I pull my weapon, the next thing I will be doing is firing. No warnings, no "should I shoot", no negotiating now that the weapon is drawn. Any thoughts of "should I be doing this" had better of happened before I made the decision to pull my weapon.
That's why people who think they're safe because they have a gun, get themselves killed, and become part of the "homeowner killed with own weapon" statistic. People go under the mistaken impression that now that they've pulled the weapon, the other guy will back down, and quietly wait for the police to come and arrest them. This is the same guy who quietly wanted to rob you.
Want to play it safe? Get a gun, fire a few thousand rounds with an instructor. Learn hand to hand and firearm combat. More than likely, you then realize that having a gun is probably not the solution to this.
Personally, what I do is never look like I have anything worth taking. I normally wear a T-shirt and jeans. For years my laptop and tools were carried in a ratty satchel that I got at WalMart for $20. At times, I've carried large sums of cash of me for various reasons, but I never look like I have maybe $5 in my pocket and maybe a PB&J sandwitch in the satchel. I've been in rather bad places (white boy don't belong here parts of town) and never had any serious trouble. I've been looked up and down by prospective muggers, they're fairly easy to spot, but I don't look very interesting. Of course, I can hold my own too, so maybe I don't have the "I'm a timid victim" look to me. I'm always looking for escape paths, problems (how many attackers), sizing up the attackers, and potential weapons I or the enemy can use.
The short list of what to do...
1) Don't look worth mugging.
2) Don't be anywhere that makes it easy to be attacked. Staying on main streets with lots of people is usually good.
3) Stay very aware of your environment, but don't look like you're doing it. Like, pay attention to the fact there are two guys following you, and one standing at the end of the street.
4) If you have the smallest suspicion that you may be in trouble, go somewhere safe.
In Vegas once, two common street thugs started following me. They were bigger than me, and I probably wouldn't have been able to take them. It was late, there weren't many people on the street, and there were plenty of places to pull me off out of sight. So I walked into the nearest casino, and started chatting up a guard. I didn't say "Help, I'm being followed", I just started with "how's it going?" The walked right past me, and out another exi
I don't believe Iraq was completely honest, but this is politics and international diplomacy. You can tell when they're lying because their lips are moving.
As for the "head of the weapons program" defecting, well, if you knew the US was about to attack, and wanted to run to somewhere that you'd be safe both from the war and from retaliation, where you'd probably end up getting a sweet deal, the US would seem the place to go. You can be fairly sure the US wouldn't turn him back over to Iraq, and Iraq wasn't in a position to occupy the US.
Since neiter of us were on the UN inspection team, work for the Iraq gov't, or given copies of all the documentation that was floating around on the issue, I'd be willing to bet we're really short on information. I was giving a plausable scenerio, although with a bit of humor mixed in.
But Gore, as Vice President, wasn't part to starting any world wars.
Bush, while not being Vice President, nor starting any wars before getting into office, played (and won) on name value. Well, not really won. More people voted for the other guy
Actual Votes:
Bush: 50,456,002(47.87%)
Gore: 50,999,897 (48.38%)
Electorial Votes:
Bush: 271
Gore: 266
This time around, maybe people will look at the record.
Bush: started two wars, killed lots of people
Kerry: didn't start any wars, wasn't responsible for thousands of deaths.
I spoke with one lady, who said "Bush isn't that bad, I'd vote for him again", who a few weeks later told me "I'm not voting for him again", because her son, a Staff Sergeant in the US Army Reserve with 6 years in, due to end his tour in August, is now being sent to Afghanistan in July for at least a year. This isn't abnormal, it's now policy. Just because you're not in the military now, and have no plans for joining doesn't mean much
From what I've read, Hitler wasn't that bad of a guy, til he started his ethnic cleansing campaigns across Europe, and conquering other countries just because they were there. That became fairly well known after a while. Maybe you heard about it? World War II?
> (George Foreman or broiler cleaning is an unpleasant cleaning job)
:) Of course, you have to be a firm believer in propane and propane accessories.
The BBQ is my favorite. Open the first beer, and turn the grill on high, close the lid, and a few minutes later, knock the ashes of the last meal off with the wire scraper brush.
Open your second beer, and throw your meats on the bottom rack, your vegetables on the middle rack, and your toastable bread stuffs on the top rack, and shortly you'll have yourself a winner of a meal.
For my vegetable, I like corn on the cob. Wrap it in foil with lots of butter on it, and let it cook while the meat cooks.
Open your third beer, take your food off the grill, and enjoy.
Any man that can't cook on the grill for himself shouldn't consider himself a man.
Man, now I'm hungy. It's a nice sunny Sunday afternoon here in L.A., maybe I'll have to fire up the grill and make some food. The beer's ice cold in the beer fridge. The foods waiting in the food fridge, and the basic instincts of man (fire and food) are waiting to be satisfied.
If I recall, it was a big game of the inspectors looking, and not finding anything and crying "He's hiding them". So Hussein showed them more locations, and again, the inspectors cried "he's hiding them".
Eventually, I'd suspect it appeared to him that the inspectors weren't there to find WMD's, but to gather intelligence on what his forces were, etc, etc.
Now, this would appear more correct than paranoia.
But, exactly how do you go about saying "we want to see the WMD's" and know that you're being taken to the correct places? The spys tell you where they are, of course. Again, breaking the trust.
Inspectors: "Hi, We'd like to inspect this list of locations for WMD's."
Iraq: "Who gave you the list?"
Spys: "Don't say spys. Don't say spys."
Inspectors: "Ummm, we guessed?"
Iraq: "Ok, we'll give you access to those locations"
Inspectors: "We didn't find anything there, you must be hiding them, we want to see what you have at these installations now."
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Now imagine any group of inspectors trying to see what the US has hiding around the world. It isn't going to happen. The US has enough to destroy the world many times over, and in reality that's unchecked. Everyone knows "Area 51", but there are countless other "secret" installations that foreign (read: enemy) inspectors can't just walk into.
The US is powerful enough where any country won't push for inspection, in fear that the US would push back.
Foreign Power: "Let us check all of your 'secret' bases!"
U.S.: "Sure, let us nuke you first."
Foreign Power: "Fair enough, give us a diplomatic tour of Washington D.C., with plenty of liquer and hookers."
U.S.: "I see we understand each other."
Your Borders really has a security section? That's cool! There was one store I used to go to (Borders or Barnes and Nobel, I can't remember) had a decent section, but I live far from it now. The local stores barely have computer sections. Most of the books there fall into four categories.
:)
:) I have no problem loaning them out as long as I get them back. I acquired 1/2 dozen Solaris books a while back. They belong to someone in the office, but I added them to my book shelves. They're referenced occasionally, which makes them still useful.
:) Would the guy designing nuclear plants really be considered a terrorist risk?
1) Read it.
2) Own it.
3) Too basic.
4) No interest. (outside of what I do)
Of course, if they fall outside of that, I usually buy 'em.
I went to CompUSA in Tampa (On Dale Mabry) a couple weeks ago. In their discount corner they had a bunch of books, including O'Reilly books, for real cheap. I picked up books on proxy servers and load balancing. They weren't exactly what I was looking for, once I got done reading them, but they're good to add to the collection.
It seems even if I buy books that aren't what I needed, someone will go looking through the books in my office and borrow one for a few days.
It's the people that know these books inside and out that are the largest potential danger. But that's like saying the person with an advanced degree in nuclear technology is more dangerous than someone who has a basic understanding. I have the basic understand of how nuclear stuff works, but I'm far from being able to build my own reactor or weapon.
You know, I'm a systems administrator, not an English major. But sure, if it makes you feel better, I use too many commas, sometimes. Sometimes I don't.
Ok, I'll be happy to..
Virtually everyone buys their parts from someone else.
I really enjoy ripping apart equipment to see who builds the components. For example, Dell's have quite a bit of Intel hardware in them. We had to really dig the people at Dell to find out who makes their PowerConnect switches, but it's yet another vendor. I can't remember the company name off-hand, it wasn't anything memorable. For some reason people that buy from Dell are like a cult. They believe Dell is the best, and manufacture all of their parts. They get really upset when I crack one open, and start naming off the real manufacturers. Motherboard, processor, NIC by Intel. Hard drive by whoever. I still have no idea who makes the cases, but I'm sure it's not at the Dell manufacturing plant.
Even my pretty Alienware laptop that I carry everywhere with me is actually made by "Clevo" based out of Taiwan.
I had an Apple IIe with a whole collection of cards, but can't remember what any of them were now. I do vaugely remember having a CP/M card, but don't remember anything about it.
Oh you evil, evil hacker..
You know how dangerous the information in 2600 is! (haha) Once in a while I see an interesting article, but I usually get it to leave laying the office to confuse people. My collection of O'Reilly books are more dangerous. But hey, hackers read 2600, programmers read O'Reilly. And everyone else reads "[insert topic] for dummies"
You should scan it and put it up on the net, but prepare to be
Myself, I've had probably 1/2 dozen "FBI background checks" run me. There have also been a couple people considering me an evil hacker that have contacted the FBI and InterPol about me.
:)
:) That, and the little matter of having fissionable material, but hey, I email people all over the world on a regular basis, and some may have indirect ties to back market.
All in all, I probably have a couple hundred records in the FBI's database for various things, none really accounting for anything, and no charges (and obviously no convictions). But what happens one day, when an evil hacker seems to be operating in the town I live in?
I've openly discussed viruses, electronic design, etc, etc.. Oh, and I've bought several copies of 2600 magazine with my credit card.
I'm an editor for http://freeinternetpress.com , which I'm sure counts for several points in the "possibly subversive" column of their score card.
I've also bought plenty of potentially hazardous equipment. I have a full set of electronic and mechanical equipment, where I can work on cars and computers. With the same tools, I could be building a thermonuclear device in my basement. Well, not really, I don't have a big enough basement, nor the real urge to do it.
It hasn't happened yet, but one day I expect agents will show up to my house or work for a "friendly" discussion. If Bush gets re-elected, I expect this will happen sooner, rather than later.
You can *ask* for your FBI file. Actually getting it is another matter. But yes, asking for it will more than likely get them interested in going through your file a bit more carefully.
Microsoft co-branded hardware has always been top notch.
:)
Make sure you get your statements right.
They've licensed good equipment to put the microsoft name on. They haven't manufactured anything good themselves.
If I had a company with the budget to sell in major retail outlets, I could co-brand almost anything out there and call it my own too.
And I'm the complete opposite. I give out my cell number as my business and home numbers. It makes it a lot easier for people to reach me, rather than calling two or three numbers, just to find that I'm not at either one at the time.
..."
A typical daytime scenerio would be, someone calls my home to find me. "I think he's at work."
They call my work, "I think he's at the colo"
They call the colo, "He's not here. Maybe he's at another location."
They call work again, "Oh, he's in x city working, try the office there"
They call the office in x city "Try the colo in thic city, the number is
and then they finally get me.
Or they just ring my cell. If I'm not answering, I'm inside a colo with bad reception (some are good, some aren't). I call back when I get the message.
I end up using about 3000 minutes/mo, but incoming is free with my Nextel plan, and that's the majority of my calls.
I can be sitting in a park eating lunch, in a distant city, and still be responsible to my work and family.
Or in the case of last week, sitting in the Denver airport waiting for my connecting flight, answering questions for people.
Before my current girlfriend moved in, with her daughter, I had disconnected my home phone because I never used it. Nextel give free incoming calls, and I usually wasn't home, so there was no need for the extra bill. Every account I have is listed with my cell number. None of my accounts have problems with my cell number being listed.
To activate new cards (like when they expire and issue new cards), I have to call from my cell.
Aparently there is some index that they use which indicate if a number is a cell number or not, which Nextel aparently doesn't list themselves in. When I call somewhere, callerid only shows my number with no name. I've seen other cell phone calls show the cell company name, or just "wireless caller", which would be a dead giveaway to them.
I can believe they wouldn't want to issue credit cards to people using pre-paid phones as their primary number. Maybe because the majority of Nextel's users are business accounts, they get different treatement.
> they are only as good and as reliable as your
:)
> existing internet connection
Good point. It does make it a bit harder to call for support on your Internet service, if your phone works over it too.
You're one of those people that brings your cell phone to work with the ringer volume cranked all the way up, and then leaves your phone on your desk while you go to lunch, aren't you?
I use Vonage at a colo where there's no cell service (underground, surrounded by metal, isn't good for reception), but I use my cell everywhere else.
I'm reachable 24/7, which means it goes near my bed at night, and on my hip or on my desk the rest of the time. The only time it gets shut off is when I'm on airplanes, and even then it's in my laptop bag at my feet.
The only place I may not carry it, and definately won't talk on it, is in the bathroom.
Pain in the ass? Not really. It's near by, like my wallet (and beer after work).1
We bought a Vonage phone to put in one of our colo's, because we didn't want to wait for the local telco provider to hook us up.
A friend of mine bought one for home, and now doesn't have a traditional wired phone at all.
Another guy who has space in one of the colo's we're in also has a Vonage phone, and has the additional service to let him use his laptop as a phone, with a little headset plugged into his mic and headphone jacks. He's very satisfied also.
So, out of 3 people I know that have it, all of us like it.
The only part I don't really like is that the Motorola router/adapter box takes a long time to boot (up to 5 minutes). But since I don't move it very often, that's not really a problem.
Tricky. :)
:)
But, it looks like a Lot of people are into this contest.
I'm now at 285 of the 582 listed on my site, which is queried from the target search engine. You're currently at 372.
Good luck.
With all the things that are sins, and all the stuff I've done over the years, and the people I've done them with, I'll have a good collection of friends there when they day comes. :)
Well, that is unless thoughts really are just a simply side effect of electrical impulses shooting across some wierd cells, and when the electrical impulses stop, so do we.
Obviously divine control over the universe has failed to sort us so far, so why should I think that it would do any better at the next level?
Why's there a thunderstorm forming over my house, and {{{ ZAP }}}