I remember reading or hearing, not to long ago, that the FTC was beginning some investigations into the practice of those Expiring Gift Cards and Power Cards or whatever they happen to be called. Some people are calling for them to be regulated, similar to Escrow accounts, which is basically what they are.
You put your money, into a non-interest bearing account for future use. Escrow accounts that are called such, simply do not expire. At least, I haven't heard of any that expire...
One more thing, if you will eventually be running out of ink, you would end up using that second ink cartridge. So, you aren't buying something that will be wasted. Buying something that would be wasted would be if Dell forced you to buy an ink cartridge for a different printer and disallowed you from returning that ink cartridge. Unless you intended to buy that other printer... You would be buying something that you would never use.
First off... Doing it "Fragrantly"? You mean break the law while smelling nice? Okay... just kidding about that. I understood what you were getting at...
I have to say that you might be forgetting the fact that our penal system, in the US, is beginning to move into a commercialized configuration. There is serious money in holding criminals in jail cells whether you are the State or a corporation that is payed by the State.
Now, if you were such a corporation would you rather have hardened killers locked up in your cells, or softie computer geeks? Both could end up giving you the same amount of revenue from the State, only with the geeks there would be a VERY docile population. I don't know a large number of geeks that are able to back up many physical threats.
I never called any Cracker, Script-kiddie or other burglar a hero. I only asked what would happen to those children that break this law?
I keep my network secure. Sure, I have to keep up on it, but that is my job as IT Manager. I am quite certain that if someone made a concerted effort to get into our network, it would happen. However, it is my job to make it more difficult.
Granny can get as thick a steal door as she wants. If she doesn't lock it, then who is really to blame? Big corporate networks are often like that. Sometimes they have decent staff that are on top of security. Most of the time, they simply don't. I prefer to be on top of security concerns. So, I left Big Corporate America and now work in Small Corporate America. Sure, the funds aren't the same, sometimes the challenges can be greater. All in all, it is much more rewarding.
Maybe if we made every crime punishable by life in prison, life would be much easier for us law abiding folk. I mean, those speeding motorists are a risk to the safety of other people. They should be treated exaclty like the terrorists that they are. One false move and they could wipe out the entire economy!
Just because a law like this is created, doesn't mean that there will be an end to that kind of behavior. All it means is that we will have even more people in prison and that the age of those prisoners will be much younger than ever before. What would you think if you little brother, sister, cousin, nephew or child was arrested under this law and put away for life? What if it happened to you because all the evidence pointed at your terminal?
Either way it is looked at, it simply sucks. It sucks for the company/person/government that get's hacked. It sucks for the middle school student that ends up getting life in prison. In the end, the terrorists have won as we are now attacking ourselves more than we are attacking them.
This law STOPS at the US border. The internet stops at the edge of our planets satellite network. Which travels farther? So, who will this affect the most? Foreign terrorists or American Citizens?
I am sure that many of you read about the Honeypot that was hacked into last week and eventually the hacker himself was located.
Does this mean that teenage "hackers" (Very loosely used) will now be tried as adults and put in prison for life?
Many of those people barely know what they are doing, as was shown with the hack attempt on that OpenBSD honeypot.
What I really want to know, is why the heck can a mouse be as dangerous as a bomb? Don't people back up data? That is a terrible generalization. There shouldn't be any reason for a mouse to be as dangerous as a bomb. The systems that could allow such damage to occur should NEVER be accessible by unauthorized individuals. They should be on their own hardened network, seperate from the rest of the net.
Sure, it can be helpful to have an application that connects to the nuclear reactor's control and monitoring station so that a director can view and alter the flow of nuclear material from his internet connected desk computer. Why the heck take the chance that some SOB angry 15 year old or terrorist would be able to access that system?
Personally, I think that this threat is being blown WAY out of proportion and is really designed to protect corporate networks that aren't locked down enough. I say to bad. If they want to have internet connected desktops across their enterprise, then they better be ready for the assault that WILL happen. If they don't like that idea, then they should cut themselves off of the internet, only allowing E-mail to come and go from their network. Sure, a few workstations would need net access, but not EVERY single workstation in the company.
First off, I am not bitter that there aren't any Fry's in my area. I think that is a great thing. The only thing is, they aren't national.
It would be like if I said "Fretter's Appliances are selling PCs with Linux pre-installed!"
Well... Fretter's is out of business these days, but they were HUGE Michigan 15 or so years ago. Only a handfull of people would say, "Wow! That's the coolest thing!"
True, Wal-Marts has those machines only on their web-site. There is a distinct possibility that they will move those into their stores. The reason they have it obscured, right now, is that they are making a wise business decision and are only testing the waters with those Linux Pre-installed computers.
If I am not mistaken, there were a few local computer stores and electronics retailers that did sell a handfull of boxes with Linux pre-installed in my area. It's just not all that newsworthy since it is only in my area.
Wal-Mart selling Linux on PCs, even if it is hard to locate, is much more newsworthy than some local or regional outfit selling a few models with Linux pre-installed.
That's so cool. Now I can drive something like 2500 miles to pick up a computer pre-installed with Linux! That's so cool! (Not)
Fry's (Some regional electronics firm that I have only heard about on Slashdot.) selling Linux pre-installed computers is just not as "World-changing" as Wal-Mart (A well known INTERNATIONAL corporation that most everyone on the planet HAS heard of.)
There are regional electronics and computer stores that will sell a few Linux installed machines every once in a while. However, it is hardly newsworthy since most people would need to drive well over 200 miles just to buy one.
If Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUS, Sears and the rest of the national big-box and retail chains started selling Linux installed PCs. Then Microsoft would have something to worry about and Slashdot newsworthy stories would be something like, "Jeff's Elctronique Emporium - Amazingly still in business without Linux pre-installed PCs!"
That little jib at marketers was just meant as a tongue in cheek light hearted fun. You also moved WAY off where that particular vein of conversation was.
The discusssion was about how it didn't matter how simple and easy an operating system is. No matter what, there will always be people that have little to no interest in learning anything but the very small number of applications that they need to use to be able to perform their job duties to the best of their abilities.
How does that have anything to do with what you wrote? Please read over what you wrote before you respond.
Send a number of robotic contruction drones to the surface of Mars. Send them with BASIC construction materials and have them get the rest of the materials on the Martian surface. I am certain that some materials (Other than the limestone) could be found on the surface to make a concrete material.
These drones could spend 24 hours a day completing the landing strip. Then send the first team of "colonists" to Mars. They could oversee the construction of a launching platform and fuel refinery systems.
After that, a few more construction crews can be sent to Mars to build more suitable permanent habitats and regular colonists could arrive later. The kind that have scientific knowledge and know-how for making life on Mars work.
After 50 or so years, then regular tourists and corporations can setup offices on Mars. Then another 50 or so years later, we can have that Mars-Terra conflict that is always talked about in science fiction novels.
A good accountant, knows the tax laws and all standard accounting procedures. It can take a tremendous amount of time just to gain that knowledge let alone to keep up with the latest in accounting practices. Like many professions, there is a continuing education requirement, which puts Certified Public Accounts in schools at least every other year. They simply don't have the time, and many don't have the inclination to learn all the whiz-bang features of their computer, the applications they DON'T use and the esoteric features of their Operating System. An excellent accountant practices only accounting. An Average accountant attempts to be something else at the same time.
A very good engineer spends his/her time practicing their engineering discipline. While some may have a hobbie with computers, it doens't make them a better mechanical engineer because they know how to configure a Linux machine for desktop use. What makes them a good engineer is that they know how to use the standard symbols, which have been altered a few times in the past ten years. They also need to know how to operate the application that they primarily use for their engineering discipline. An average engineer will spend time in other pursuits, while a great engineer will spend his/her time living and breating their chosen field. Most of the time that doesn't include how to configure Sendmail.
As for a marketer... True, they are mostly evil. However, to be a good marketer one needs to know the human mind, psychology and how to handle the media. They may need to know how to create a Powerpoint Presentation, generate a few documents. They have no need to know how to configure the Apache web server. That is what the guys in IT are for. They have need to learn how to program PHP, CGI or any other language that is used in Web-page design. They might come up with a layout, but that is for some IT guy to put together.
Tell me why the above professions need to have knowledge that is similar to what most IT people have? How will that make them better in their fields? How will they find the extra time to keep up with all of the endless data that comes out of IT, when they have to do the same thing for their field?
You are wrong. An application is something that someone needs to learn in order to do their job. They have no need to learn how the computer works.
An accountant doesn't need to know how to network a computer system. They only need to know how to use their accounting software, some E-mail, perhaps a word processor, spreadsheet and where to save their data.
An Engineer only needs to know how to use the CAD/CAM system that they work with. Perhaps also E-mail, word processor and a few other side apps.
In what way to both of those jobs demand a serious knowledge of the Operating System and how to configure optimize or really navigate the system? They really don't. All they need are a few icons that get them into the application that they have to use.
Everything else is the realm of the people in the IT Department. If everyone knew how to do everything with their computer, then IT people would be pretty useless since they would be so limited as to only knowing IT things.
I work as the IT Manager of a small corporation. Throughout my day, I am asked a number of relatively simple questions, such as how do I find out when this file was last created or altered.
My users, which is synonomous with most users, have to be walked through that process practically every single time. Sure, a few of them know how to use the search feature to locate a document and a few even know how to do a few slightly more complicated tasks. However, for the most part they are quite limited in what they know regarding the use of the computer system.
It is far from their job to know how to do anything. From what I have seen. I could set them up with a fully configured KDE3 desktop with all their applications right in front of them and they would still have the same problems.
Making things easier on a computer does help, but there will always be new features and options that negate that ease of use. More options = more difficulty. Lowering that difficulty allows more features to be added.
A modern Operating System is really no more easy or difficult to use then an Operating System that was in use nearly ten years ago.
Bruce Campbell and the Rocketguy both live wild on the outside. People like that tend to be a little dry on the inside.
On the other hand, a kernel hacker tends to live a pretty dry outside life, but is filled with all sorts of insanity on the inside. (I mean who else would want to kernal hack?) [Just kidding!]
Doesn't mean that they are the best minds in the world. For example, there is a small organization called Mensa that has members from all walks of life. People that work professionally as doctors, computer programmers, GARBAGE MEN, TRUCK DRIVERS, Waiters and waitresses, not to mention janitors and a variety of other professions.
I can only imagine that you have run into people through your life that have a job or position that should belong to someone that appears to have more inteligence than a wart covered toad. However, even people with marginal inteligence are able to get jobs well above where they "should" be.
Plus, this is sort of the "Many-Eyes" concept that is commonly used in Open-Source Software, which has so far created a very stable, scalable Operating System, several beautiful and functional desktop environments and a variety of other software.
Just curious as I am under the impression that not all of the debris is composed of ferrous material that could be affected by a large magnet. Some of the debris is little more then chips of paint that fell off of satellites, shuttles and other space craft.
I believe that this was covered on Slashdot a few months back. You see Ambrosia is a smaller applications/game developer for the Mac platform. They sell most of their really cool apps and games for a very low price. Something less then 30 bucks, I believe.
Anyway, they got into this activation-like scheme because they would put up a piece of software for sale and would have something like 100 people buy it. Then they would have 1000's of people request technical support for the product. After having this happen a few times, they started putting the thumbscrews in place.
What else could you do? You spend all your PAYED time developing a great application or game. Sell it inexpensively hoping that many people will buy it. Then only a handfull of people do, but they give it away to everyone that they know and also don't know. Then all those punks start calling you up and asking for support.
Up, Up, Down, Down, A, B, B, A, Select, Start...Especially since video games turn off the beta-waves in the frontal lobe causing one to lose creativity and of course concen--
Hmm... Donuts... *drool*..and in retrospect, the end of the 19th century lead to the belief system that...
What was I talking about?
Oh yeah, Konami Rocked! With that uh... Iran Contra thing, darnit Ollie...
-.-
Some geeks actually have jobs...
on
Klez: a closer look
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· Score: 2, Insightful
...that require semi-regular contact with many people. Personally, I am the IT Manager and Corporate Buyer for the company that I work for.
Small company, so I wear a few hats. Anyway, I have a fairly decent sized Address book that contains virtually all of the vendors that I have to deal with, business contacts at both client sites as well as my geek contacts that let me bounce ideas off of them.
Sure, if you are a "house-geek" or a college geek, you probably only have a small number of people to E-mail. (Mostly your 3733t friends and such.) However, once you hit the "real" world you find that your boundless memory actually has a few boundries.
The PHB is holding a meeting about how they only planned on having 26 or so injuries the year before. In retrospect, it turned out to be to high a number as they had to injure a number of employees just to reach that goal...
...on a FAT32 partition. Simply mount up your Windows partition, which you probably have had to do anyway to be able to copy the Windows Install...
Now, simply symlink those files from the Windows partition to the Linux partition. The only problem I forsee is that the "fix" file could "corrupt" your Windows version of NWN.
It is worth a go...
Anyway, I used to use that process for QuakeIII Maps, Skins and some mods. It worked great and saved me an additional GIG of hard drive space, I am into collecting maps, skins and mods...
I know, I should turn in my Geek-Card right now... But seriously, how would we know if that is the truth or not. The Bush Administration recently admitted that we are indeed destroying the planet with our use of fossil-fuels, but they won't be doing anything about it because it would hurt the economy.
Which doesn't make much sense to me. I mean if you are doing something that is going to WIPE OUT ALL LIFE on the planet, you would think that you would have the common sense to say, "Hey, I think we might want to change what we are doing..."
Sure, this is slightly off topic, but I feel it needs to be said...
Let's say that we go to Mars and spend some time moving about the surface and we discover that there was once an advanced civilization on the planet. At first everyone will believe that they must have wiped themselves out with some form of super weapon. In time, it could very well be determined that they simply destroyed themselves through the use of fossil-fuels and other environmentally unfriendly activities.
Being advanced, they knew of a planet not far away that held the promise of their continued existence. They packed up what they could, built a huge "ark" if you will... and traveled the short distance to where we are today.
On this planet, they discovered that there was a primitive race of proto-humans. So, they began to enslave these beings, ignored them, or simply worked together with them.
What happened to all their advanced technology? Well, a few things could have happened. Perhaps they felt that since their technology destroyed them that it should be abandoned. Perhaps the unforseen diseases wiped out many of the populace, through this time they lost their brilliant minds and descended into a near barbaric state of existence.
Maybe it was determined that by mating with the Proto-humans, which were remarkably biologically very similiar, they could ensure their races continued existence.
This could explain quite a few things that we are simply unable to explain about our own "pre-history" like where is this missing link that everyone is just unable to find? This could give credence to the story of Noah's ark. Which could make the bible more of a historic document then I would personally like to admit.
Of course, until this can be proven or disproven, it is simply a crack-pot theory, although entirely possible.
There are of course a number of other scenarios as to why an advanced race would travel to Earth from Mars and lose their advanced technologies. A meteor could have stricken the planet, wiping out all life over the course of 10 to 100 years. Perhaps they(we) were simply investigating this planet when that event occurred. All of these are unanswerable questions.
Wow! You are just full of compassion for your fellow man.
Of course they do deserve to be punished, but instead of fining them 170k and taking them to Federal Court. It would be better to simply drop them disallow them having cable service ever again.
Slashdot Mirror
I remember reading or hearing, not to long ago, that the FTC was beginning some investigations into the practice of those Expiring Gift Cards and Power Cards or whatever they happen to be called. Some people are calling for them to be regulated, similar to Escrow accounts, which is basically what they are.
You put your money, into a non-interest bearing account for future use. Escrow accounts that are called such, simply do not expire. At least, I haven't heard of any that expire...
One more thing, if you will eventually be running out of ink, you would end up using that second ink cartridge. So, you aren't buying something that will be wasted. Buying something that would be wasted would be if Dell forced you to buy an ink cartridge for a different printer and disallowed you from returning that ink cartridge. Unless you intended to buy that other printer... You would be buying something that you would never use.
-.-
First off... Doing it "Fragrantly"? You mean break the law while smelling nice? Okay... just kidding about that. I understood what you were getting at...
I have to say that you might be forgetting the fact that our penal system, in the US, is beginning to move into a commercialized configuration. There is serious money in holding criminals in jail cells whether you are the State or a corporation that is payed by the State.
Now, if you were such a corporation would you rather have hardened killers locked up in your cells, or softie computer geeks? Both could end up giving you the same amount of revenue from the State, only with the geeks there would be a VERY docile population. I don't know a large number of geeks that are able to back up many physical threats.
-.-
They would have gotten away with it, if it weren't for those kids and that dog!
-.-
I never called any Cracker, Script-kiddie or other burglar a hero. I only asked what would happen to those children that break this law?
I keep my network secure. Sure, I have to keep up on it, but that is my job as IT Manager. I am quite certain that if someone made a concerted effort to get into our network, it would happen. However, it is my job to make it more difficult.
Granny can get as thick a steal door as she wants. If she doesn't lock it, then who is really to blame? Big corporate networks are often like that. Sometimes they have decent staff that are on top of security. Most of the time, they simply don't. I prefer to be on top of security concerns. So, I left Big Corporate America and now work in Small Corporate America. Sure, the funds aren't the same, sometimes the challenges can be greater. All in all, it is much more rewarding.
Maybe if we made every crime punishable by life in prison, life would be much easier for us law abiding folk. I mean, those speeding motorists are a risk to the safety of other people. They should be treated exaclty like the terrorists that they are. One false move and they could wipe out the entire economy!
Just because a law like this is created, doesn't mean that there will be an end to that kind of behavior. All it means is that we will have even more people in prison and that the age of those prisoners will be much younger than ever before. What would you think if you little brother, sister, cousin, nephew or child was arrested under this law and put away for life? What if it happened to you because all the evidence pointed at your terminal?
Either way it is looked at, it simply sucks. It sucks for the company/person/government that get's hacked. It sucks for the middle school student that ends up getting life in prison. In the end, the terrorists have won as we are now attacking ourselves more than we are attacking them.
This law STOPS at the US border. The internet stops at the edge of our planets satellite network. Which travels farther? So, who will this affect the most? Foreign terrorists or American Citizens?
-.-
I am sure that many of you read about the Honeypot that was hacked into last week and eventually the hacker himself was located.
Does this mean that teenage "hackers" (Very loosely used) will now be tried as adults and put in prison for life?
Many of those people barely know what they are doing, as was shown with the hack attempt on that OpenBSD honeypot.
What I really want to know, is why the heck can a mouse be as dangerous as a bomb? Don't people back up data? That is a terrible generalization. There shouldn't be any reason for a mouse to be as dangerous as a bomb. The systems that could allow such damage to occur should NEVER be accessible by unauthorized individuals. They should be on their own hardened network, seperate from the rest of the net.
Sure, it can be helpful to have an application that connects to the nuclear reactor's control and monitoring station so that a director can view and alter the flow of nuclear material from his internet connected desk computer. Why the heck take the chance that some SOB angry 15 year old or terrorist would be able to access that system?
Personally, I think that this threat is being blown WAY out of proportion and is really designed to protect corporate networks that aren't locked down enough. I say to bad. If they want to have internet connected desktops across their enterprise, then they better be ready for the assault that WILL happen. If they don't like that idea, then they should cut themselves off of the internet, only allowing E-mail to come and go from their network. Sure, a few workstations would need net access, but not EVERY single workstation in the company.
First off, I am not bitter that there aren't any Fry's in my area. I think that is a great thing. The only thing is, they aren't national.
It would be like if I said "Fretter's Appliances are selling PCs with Linux pre-installed!"
Well... Fretter's is out of business these days, but they were HUGE Michigan 15 or so years ago. Only a handfull of people would say, "Wow! That's the coolest thing!"
True, Wal-Marts has those machines only on their web-site. There is a distinct possibility that they will move those into their stores. The reason they have it obscured, right now, is that they are making a wise business decision and are only testing the waters with those Linux Pre-installed computers.
If I am not mistaken, there were a few local computer stores and electronics retailers that did sell a handfull of boxes with Linux pre-installed in my area. It's just not all that newsworthy since it is only in my area.
Wal-Mart selling Linux on PCs, even if it is hard to locate, is much more newsworthy than some local or regional outfit selling a few models with Linux pre-installed.
-.-
That's so cool. Now I can drive something like 2500 miles to pick up a computer pre-installed with Linux! That's so cool! (Not)
Fry's (Some regional electronics firm that I have only heard about on Slashdot.) selling Linux pre-installed computers is just not as "World-changing" as Wal-Mart (A well known INTERNATIONAL corporation that most everyone on the planet HAS heard of.)
There are regional electronics and computer stores that will sell a few Linux installed machines every once in a while. However, it is hardly newsworthy since most people would need to drive well over 200 miles just to buy one.
If Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUS, Sears and the rest of the national big-box and retail chains started selling Linux installed PCs. Then Microsoft would have something to worry about and Slashdot newsworthy stories would be something like, "Jeff's Elctronique Emporium - Amazingly still in business without Linux pre-installed PCs!"
-.-
That little jib at marketers was just meant as a tongue in cheek light hearted fun. You also moved WAY off where that particular vein of conversation was.
The discusssion was about how it didn't matter how simple and easy an operating system is. No matter what, there will always be people that have little to no interest in learning anything but the very small number of applications that they need to use to be able to perform their job duties to the best of their abilities.
How does that have anything to do with what you wrote? Please read over what you wrote before you respond.
Send a number of robotic contruction drones to the surface of Mars. Send them with BASIC construction materials and have them get the rest of the materials on the Martian surface. I am certain that some materials (Other than the limestone) could be found on the surface to make a concrete material.
These drones could spend 24 hours a day completing the landing strip. Then send the first team of "colonists" to Mars. They could oversee the construction of a launching platform and fuel refinery systems.
After that, a few more construction crews can be sent to Mars to build more suitable permanent habitats and regular colonists could arrive later. The kind that have scientific knowledge and know-how for making life on Mars work.
After 50 or so years, then regular tourists and corporations can setup offices on Mars. Then another 50 or so years later, we can have that Mars-Terra conflict that is always talked about in science fiction novels.
That would be fun...
-.-
A good accountant, knows the tax laws and all standard accounting procedures. It can take a tremendous amount of time just to gain that knowledge let alone to keep up with the latest in accounting practices. Like many professions, there is a continuing education requirement, which puts Certified Public Accounts in schools at least every other year. They simply don't have the time, and many don't have the inclination to learn all the whiz-bang features of their computer, the applications they DON'T use and the esoteric features of their Operating System. An excellent accountant practices only accounting. An Average accountant attempts to be something else at the same time.
A very good engineer spends his/her time practicing their engineering discipline. While some may have a hobbie with computers, it doens't make them a better mechanical engineer because they know how to configure a Linux machine for desktop use. What makes them a good engineer is that they know how to use the standard symbols, which have been altered a few times in the past ten years. They also need to know how to operate the application that they primarily use for their engineering discipline. An average engineer will spend time in other pursuits, while a great engineer will spend his/her time living and breating their chosen field. Most of the time that doesn't include how to configure Sendmail.
As for a marketer... True, they are mostly evil. However, to be a good marketer one needs to know the human mind, psychology and how to handle the media. They may need to know how to create a Powerpoint Presentation, generate a few documents. They have no need to know how to configure the Apache web server. That is what the guys in IT are for. They have need to learn how to program PHP, CGI or any other language that is used in Web-page design. They might come up with a layout, but that is for some IT guy to put together.
Tell me why the above professions need to have knowledge that is similar to what most IT people have? How will that make them better in their fields? How will they find the extra time to keep up with all of the endless data that comes out of IT, when they have to do the same thing for their field?
-.-
You are wrong. An application is something that someone needs to learn in order to do their job. They have no need to learn how the computer works.
An accountant doesn't need to know how to network a computer system. They only need to know how to use their accounting software, some E-mail, perhaps a word processor, spreadsheet and where to save their data.
An Engineer only needs to know how to use the CAD/CAM system that they work with. Perhaps also E-mail, word processor and a few other side apps.
In what way to both of those jobs demand a serious knowledge of the Operating System and how to configure optimize or really navigate the system? They really don't. All they need are a few icons that get them into the application that they have to use.
Everything else is the realm of the people in the IT Department. If everyone knew how to do everything with their computer, then IT people would be pretty useless since they would be so limited as to only knowing IT things.
-.-
I work as the IT Manager of a small corporation. Throughout my day, I am asked a number of relatively simple questions, such as how do I find out when this file was last created or altered.
My users, which is synonomous with most users, have to be walked through that process practically every single time. Sure, a few of them know how to use the search feature to locate a document and a few even know how to do a few slightly more complicated tasks. However, for the most part they are quite limited in what they know regarding the use of the computer system.
It is far from their job to know how to do anything. From what I have seen. I could set them up with a fully configured KDE3 desktop with all their applications right in front of them and they would still have the same problems.
Making things easier on a computer does help, but there will always be new features and options that negate that ease of use. More options = more difficulty. Lowering that difficulty allows more features to be added.
A modern Operating System is really no more easy or difficult to use then an Operating System that was in use nearly ten years ago.
-.-
Bruce Campbell and the Rocketguy both live wild on the outside. People like that tend to be a little dry on the inside.
On the other hand, a kernel hacker tends to live a pretty dry outside life, but is filled with all sorts of insanity on the inside. (I mean who else would want to kernal hack?) [Just kidding!]
-.-
They didn't have any high-level aerospace engineering degrees, did they? Oh yeah, those didn't exist back then...
-/-
Doesn't mean that they are the best minds in the world. For example, there is a small organization called Mensa that has members from all walks of life. People that work professionally as doctors, computer programmers, GARBAGE MEN, TRUCK DRIVERS, Waiters and waitresses, not to mention janitors and a variety of other professions.
I can only imagine that you have run into people through your life that have a job or position that should belong to someone that appears to have more inteligence than a wart covered toad. However, even people with marginal inteligence are able to get jobs well above where they "should" be.
Plus, this is sort of the "Many-Eyes" concept that is commonly used in Open-Source Software, which has so far created a very stable, scalable Operating System, several beautiful and functional desktop environments and a variety of other software.
-.-
Just curious as I am under the impression that not all of the debris is composed of ferrous material that could be affected by a large magnet. Some of the debris is little more then chips of paint that fell off of satellites, shuttles and other space craft.
I believe that this was covered on Slashdot a few months back. You see Ambrosia is a smaller applications/game developer for the Mac platform. They sell most of their really cool apps and games for a very low price. Something less then 30 bucks, I believe.
Anyway, they got into this activation-like scheme because they would put up a piece of software for sale and would have something like 100 people buy it. Then they would have 1000's of people request technical support for the product. After having this happen a few times, they started putting the thumbscrews in place.
What else could you do? You spend all your PAYED time developing a great application or game. Sell it inexpensively hoping that many people will buy it. Then only a handfull of people do, but they give it away to everyone that they know and also don't know. Then all those punks start calling you up and asking for support.
That's not right, no matter how you look at it.
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Jeeze... I can't believe I remember this...
...Especially since video games turn off the beta-waves in the frontal lobe causing one to lose creativity and of course concen--
..and in retrospect, the end of the 19th century lead to the belief system that...
Up, Up, Down, Down, A, B, B, A, Select, Start
Hmm... Donuts... *drool*
What was I talking about?
Oh yeah, Konami Rocked! With that uh... Iran Contra thing, darnit Ollie...
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...that require semi-regular contact with many people. Personally, I am the IT Manager and Corporate Buyer for the company that I work for.
Small company, so I wear a few hats. Anyway, I have a fairly decent sized Address book that contains virtually all of the vendors that I have to deal with, business contacts at both client sites as well as my geek contacts that let me bounce ideas off of them.
Sure, if you are a "house-geek" or a college geek, you probably only have a small number of people to E-mail. (Mostly your 3733t friends and such.) However, once you hit the "real" world you find that your boundless memory actually has a few boundries.
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That reminds me of a Dilbert comic...
The PHB is holding a meeting about how they only planned on having 26 or so injuries the year before. In retrospect, it turned out to be to high a number as they had to injure a number of employees just to reach that goal...
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...on a FAT32 partition. Simply mount up your Windows partition, which you probably have had to do anyway to be able to copy the Windows Install...
Now, simply symlink those files from the Windows partition to the Linux partition. The only problem I forsee is that the "fix" file could "corrupt" your Windows version of NWN.
It is worth a go...
Anyway, I used to use that process for QuakeIII Maps, Skins and some mods. It worked great and saved me an additional GIG of hard drive space, I am into collecting maps, skins and mods...
Hope that helps...
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I know, I should turn in my Geek-Card right now... But seriously, how would we know if that is the truth or not. The Bush Administration recently admitted that we are indeed destroying the planet with our use of fossil-fuels, but they won't be doing anything about it because it would hurt the economy.
Which doesn't make much sense to me. I mean if you are doing something that is going to WIPE OUT ALL LIFE on the planet, you would think that you would have the common sense to say, "Hey, I think we might want to change what we are doing..."
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Sure, this is slightly off topic, but I feel it needs to be said...
Let's say that we go to Mars and spend some time moving about the surface and we discover that there was once an advanced civilization on the planet. At first everyone will believe that they must have wiped themselves out with some form of super weapon. In time, it could very well be determined that they simply destroyed themselves through the use of fossil-fuels and other environmentally unfriendly activities.
Being advanced, they knew of a planet not far away that held the promise of their continued existence. They packed up what they could, built a huge "ark" if you will... and traveled the short distance to where we are today.
On this planet, they discovered that there was a primitive race of proto-humans. So, they began to enslave these beings, ignored them, or simply worked together with them.
What happened to all their advanced technology?
Well, a few things could have happened. Perhaps they felt that since their technology destroyed them that it should be abandoned. Perhaps the unforseen diseases wiped out many of the populace, through this time they lost their brilliant minds and descended into a near barbaric state of existence.
Maybe it was determined that by mating with the Proto-humans, which were remarkably biologically very similiar, they could ensure their races continued existence.
This could explain quite a few things that we are simply unable to explain about our own "pre-history" like where is this missing link that everyone is just unable to find? This could give credence to the story of Noah's ark. Which could make the bible more of a historic document then I would personally like to admit.
Of course, until this can be proven or disproven, it is simply a crack-pot theory, although entirely possible.
There are of course a number of other scenarios as to why an advanced race would travel to Earth from Mars and lose their advanced technologies. A meteor could have stricken the planet, wiping out all life over the course of 10 to 100 years. Perhaps they(we) were simply investigating this planet when that event occurred. All of these are unanswerable questions.
Simply a hypothesis.
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He used to work with me... Nice guy, except he had this funny way of saying "out and about"
Wow! You are just full of compassion for your fellow man.
Of course they do deserve to be punished, but instead of fining them 170k and taking them to Federal Court. It would be better to simply drop them disallow them having cable service ever again.
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