Aren't you going to make one for IE? How about IE7?
Yes. You can get the plug-in at http://www.ubuntu.com./ Install the software you find at that site and your IE will work with all those great Firefox scripts. Trust in me. Would a stranger on slashdot lie?
The information is collected from various sources rather than a direct feed from the stock exchanges, making it probably less useful for buy & sell decisions.
Yes, but the nature of the data collected and the way in which it is presented (the clear connection between event and price change and other things) makes it quite useful for planning investment strategy for a given company.
As with any such site, more research would have to be done for a given long term investment, but this does make a great starting place for that research. That is the great benefit to being the aggregator rather than the source. They pull together a lot of data from some other great sources and put it together in a way that makes the whole better, in some ways, than the sum of the parts. (C.f., Google News for another example)
At risk of sounding like a GOOG fanboy, they've batted another home run. We get a solid resource for long term investment, and they get access to our portfolios. Everyone wins (excepting the privacy concerns that are a legitimate tangent to nearly every google story).
I am an independent consultant. CBN (Yes, that CBN) is locally-based. They also have some very interesting and cool tech projects going on. Their IT group (a spin off of CBN called Compass) is working with some great stuff. Anyway, I happened to get a lead on an assignment there that I might be able to fill.
In the phone interview, I was gold. "You sound like just what we are looking for."
In the follow up technical phone interview, same thing. "We want you to meet the manager you'll be working with for this project."
The in-person interview is going great too, until I get this question:
"Have you ever worked with XSLT and related technologies?"
To which my dumb ass replied:
"Sure that's what I've based my blog on."
And I immediately saw the stupidity of my answer. Why? Because not a week earlier, I was having a discussion with a friend about Christianity's reputation. The result of that conversation is found in an entry on my blog here:
After I mentioned my blog, every one of the interviewers asked for the address. I gave it to them, knowing that entry was still on the front page at the time. I knew it was over. Sure enough, within 6 hours I get the call from HR telling me they needed someone with more c# experience. Hmmm, my c# experience was discussed in two interviews before the in-person interview and wasn't a problem then. Oh well.
Two things of note about this:
1) I don't censor my blog. If someone doesn't like the content on the blog, we probably wouldn't have gotten along anyway. It's a sort of self-selecting barrier for people without a sense of humor.
2) There are plenty of good IT consulting gigs out there. I'm on one right now. Redoing a.com site for a major company. In C#.
Note that I'm not speaking ill of CBN here. I really don't care one way or the other about them. It must not've been a good fit. No big deal to me. I've heard that that are a great place to do a short-term gig, but it just wasn't the best place for me in the end.
Here's my wishlist for a Wireless AP hardware solution:
1) the ability to easily set up a DMZ. I can firewall off my internal network easy enough, but if we want Joe User to do it, it needs to be easy and obvious to set up a free area that is distinct from the walled off internal network.
2) Bandwidth throttling based on the above mentioned DMZ. If you are in the DMZ, you may use x% of the available bandwidth. If you are on the internal network, regular rules apply.
3) Hot chicks in every box.
4) Mesh network capabilities. Each unit should seek out other units in range and create an ad hoc mesh network. This would be the first step toward taking the Internet back from the corporations currently in control.
5) Real range. I mean like at least 50 yards, but I'd prefer a lot more. When it comes to range, there is no "too much" only "not enough".
That's what I want to see in a next-gen wifi router. I guess I shouldn't hold my breath.:(
I think you've taken the experience you had in grade school and inappropriately projected it into international affairs.
To be clear, I was trying to find an example that resonate with the slashdot crowd. I didn't have problems with 'bullies' in school for a number of reasons I won't go into here. My opinions about international affairs were created in college a few years back by studying the relevant topics...also by vitrue of the fact that the professors who taught such classes were all pretty much in agreement that coercion rules the roost in international affairs.
The ones with the sharpest swords and biggest guns aren't the ones in power, the ones who control the people with the sharpest swords and biggest guns are in power.
Not sure how this really changes my point, but OK. That's a fine enough distinction. Not really making a difference, though. It's the weapons that make the difference in power, not enlightenment or likeability. If you control the biggest weapons, you control the situation. In so far as others get a say it's only in that you are willing to allow it by virtue of not exercising your miitary power. Read "The Irony of American History" for better coverage on the concept of coercion in international affairs.
When there was finally a confrontation China was absolutely crushed.
And that teaches us that military poweer is paramount, which is what I've been saying.
Most reasonable, intelligent people knew how a land war in Iraq was going to go (I recall the word "quagmire" being used extensively in our conversations); but we, as a country, went anyway. Blind to the ineffectiveness of our might.
Most intelligent people then and now know that the war in Iraq is going poorly because we aren't their the destroy them but to colonize them. Very different objectives. If we were there to destroy them, it would have been a 2 week war with nearly zero casualities on our side. To convert them to democracy and make them our friends? That was a wasteful use of our military. If we'd wanted them to change their way of life, that's what we have propaganda and hidden insurgencies for. I'm not advocating either of those things, but pointing out the odd mistake made. Indeed, there's some evidence to suggest it wasnt' a mistake (in that we seem to be making all the "mistakes" necessary to see Iraq and the Middle East hang itself...I won't get into how that suits our needs in a machivellian sense, it's just too messed up to think about right now).
We are a powerful country, but *only* when dealing with countries. Against nationless groups we are not only hindered, we are almost absolutely powerless. Our leaders thought that by attacking the countries that these groups were in, we would create an hostile environment that would drive them out or crush them from within. Instead we walked into the nest of vipers and started recklessly stepping on them.
You are taking a lot on face value regarding our motives in those countries. I'll leave it at that.
Now you say that we as a people are safe from outside attack due to our military might. I agree that we are safe, but it's because of our geographic location rather than our military.
Til now, I disagreed with you, but saw the logic of your point. This one, though, is a bit out there. Seriously. We are secure because we have a military that is so far beyind what anyone else has as to be nearly fantastical. Our geographic benefits gave us the freedom to create that military unmolested, but isn't even close to the our most important asset militarily. If I had to give up our miltary might or our geographic position, the geography would go in a heartbeat. Really, you'd trade our ICBMs and F18s for essentially a large moat? Hell no. Canada is in the same geographic position and the fact is, they are stuck depending on us and England to offer protection. If, during the 60s, the USSR had wanted Canada, they'd have had it except for our
I really do want an answer and I'm especially interested in a comparison to western European countries.
As the nation that holds the uncontested top position of military might on this planet, we enjoy certain benefits that come with it.
Specifically, we are not now and not likely in my lifetime going to need to fear enemy combatants (which is one of the reasons I see this "Do out of fear of terrorists" thing as a sham and a crock!). We simply will not ever see a Red Dawn scenario in this country. Given our current lead and the rate at which we are improving our lead, there isn't a nation on this planet that can challenge us.
Now how does this bring tangible benefits to us as citizens? I think that part of the problem here is that when I say "benefits" I get the impression you are hearing "rights" when what I mean is "priviledge". Let me explain.
Our scientific and technology lead isn't going anywhere. I explain this in more detail elsewhere. Moreover, much of our technology and science is spent on increasing our military might. Now, while I agree with the original poster that I'd like to see more spent on social issue than is currently spent, I don't think that our military spending is without benefit to me.
To put it in the basest terms, only people who haven't lost don't see the benefit of always winning. In scholl were you the biggest, toughest kid? I wasn't. What does that mean? It means negotiating from a position of subordination in all things. It means not having the power to say "fuck it" and take what you need. This is a power that the biggest, toughest kid in school had. It's the power we have in the US. That's not to say it isn't stupid, unfair, and wrong (it's all those things and more) but it's true. We have the ability to negotiate from the postion of power in every situation. In so far as we court the world's opinion it's just to make ourselves feel better about our final decision. Don't beleive me? Look at Iraq. We didn't need to ask anyone. We asked, and when they all said no, we said too bad. In that case, our power was abused without benefit to us (sadly without much penalty either in the bigger picture...which kinda sucks, I think). But our position of absolute authority is used to our advantage daily all over the world. We get better trade deals, better treatment, better everything than everyone else. Sure Britain and Germany aren't hurting, but they also know that they aren't the biggest kids in school. Any negotion they enter into with us is done from a position of weakness. Given that the majority of Brits disagreed with th eWar in Iraq, why do you think the Blair agreed to join us? It incurred our favor. The fucked up reality is that Britian sucked up the the school bully and in the real world the bully gets his way and you can either join him or always fear that he'll turn on you. Note that this is also why, for all their "The war is wrong" rhetoric, it's now coming out that behind the scenes the Germans fed us intelligence to help our ground troops. Worlkd leaders, especially those of developed nations like in Western Europe, are ultimately pragmatists not idealists. When you hear them making an idealists' stance, know that you are being lied to. Sorry. Germany wanted to side with us without pissing off their own citizenry so that's how they played it. It won't be the ladt such story we hear coming out about the so-called objectors. I'm an objector too, but I understand why they helped us, even if privately. They don't want to piss off the school bully, because you never know when he'll turn on you.
Think I'm being too bleak and pessimistic about how the world works? Just remember that from the dawn of time it has been the guys with the sharpest swords and the biggest barrels that decided what was done and when. We've moved into a world were we are that guy, and the link I included above explains why it won't be easy to put us out
What are these benefits that only we Americans get, exactly?
I started answering this question as though you wanted one, then decided you probably don't. If you don't see the tangible benefits of being American then you are either too young to be able to understand or too far lost to the ideological left to want to understand. Sufficed to say, you should ask yourself why people are killing themselves every day for a chance to get into this country. They aren't stupid. They see something you seem unwilling to admit.
I think I missed that day in civics.
Don't be trite. I was trying to make a legitimate point. No one needs your sarcasm.
And for the record, Civics isn't the class in which you'd learn about the benefits to American citizens of our unsurpassed defense department. You'd learn that in an American Foreign Policy class.
Civics is where you'd learn the benefits of the Police and Fire Department to American citizens.
For Microsoft "More Ubiquitous" == "Better". Just as with a hundred other technologies they've unfairly leveraged their existing OS monopoly to spread, they will integrate their search engine fully into Vista (probably with some sort of "It's part of the OS, we can't remove it" claim) and they will be more relevent to the US marketplace at that point. That is unless the government steps in and smacks them down for re-committing the same crime they've already been convicted of...
...Yeah, I couldn't write that last sentence without laughing either. They'll get away with it. They always do.
I don't want lower taxes, better public transportation, or *gasp* national health care. No, I want to connect to sharks with VNC.
I get your point, and I don't entirely disagree, but it's worth pointing out that you gain a HUGE personal benefit from our country's predilection for defense spending. To be blunt, whether you are a peacenik or a warhawk, the fact that you live in the hands-down most powerful country on the planet has amazing advantages. I'm not saying I'm proud of what we do all the time (*cough*Iraq*cough*) but I'm not going to dismiss the direct personal benefits of being a citizen of the/only/ global superpower.
For good or bad, We have a lead that isn't going anywhere anytime soon...regardless of what you may have heard speculated elsewhere.
America is a good place to be if you are a scientist, regardless of what you may have heard to the contrary. So, if you want to major in CS or any other science, I say go for it!
As I've said in the past, the gap in US engineers and scientists is not actual, and studies suggesting otherwise are often biasesd and based on shady statistics.
Between Microsoft and all the Linux distros combined, only one company or group has been found guilty in a court of law of IP violations. That's right, Microsoft...repeatedly.
This is a red herring. Microsoft wants us to beleive that they are "going the extra mile" to protect us from something that is really unlikely, but in truth, if you are using Microsoft products, you are already using work that has taken IP-protected material from other sources without permission or right. And several courts have already said so. But Microsoft doesn't want you to hear that.
If you are using Linux, Microsoft/says/ you are using legally dubious software, and yet neither Red Hat, nor Novell, nor Canonical, nor Mandriva, nor any major Linux distributor has been proved to violate any IP-rights in any court anywhere. The closest they came to such a thing was the SCO issue, which has been universally panned as a bogus suit that will come to no good end for SCO.
So, between Microsoft and Linux, who/should/ be providing you with legal indemnity? The answer is easy.
No, seriously, while it doesn't fix all the problems slashdotters list, it does handle many of them. I get a legit list of new positions in my inbox every day of the jobs that actually meet my criteria, it handles my requirments as a small independant contractor well, and it's easy to navigate and use.
If it would just include a way to electro-zap the nutsack of any recriuter that asks me about positions that are clearly out of the scope of what I list as my requirements, then I'd be in heaven.:)
it's a little something called freedom. As much as all us hate spam, child porno, junk mail, ads, laywers, etc, we must live them. It's something most people call "society".
In which "society" do you live? lol!
OK, I get the "freedom arguement for spam (you are free to be a spamming jackass, but I hate you), junk mail (you are free to send me junk mail, but I hate you), ads (you are free to be an ad exec, but everyone hates you), and lawyers (you are free to be a laywer, but you must obviously hate yourself), but child porn?!?!?
In which society is child porn a freedom? I'd like to know, because I think we'll have just found the one place I won't mind us doing some above ground nuclear testing!:)
You certainly don't need a 64bit Athlon CPU or 2GB RAM, since everything is done by the graphics card anyway.
Anyone who plans on recording and watching actual HDTV will need a substantial CPU. The graphics card will not be enough. Especially if you intend to record and watch HDTV at the same time.
This idea that the Chinese government is entirely pro-censorship is a bit untrue. There are those within China---even some who are high up the political food chain---who see this as a bad idea.
Who wants to manage a wine installation to run Picasa. Anyone? Do any of you really want this?
We all joke about it a lot, but you really should rtfa before complaining.
You needn't manage a wine installation to run this ported app in linux. The install is just gonna be a matter of installing Picasa by itself. The needed parts of wine will be statically linked and not something you need to touch or fret at all. It will not use your existing wine install. One of the goals listed is that they intend to make this as easy to install in linux as it is in windows.
That said, I'm no more excited than you, but that's most because I prefer native apps to apps that use widgets from other toolkits, especially windows widgets in linux. It tends to look like ass in my experience. I only do this when absolutely necessary (i.e., I tolerate it for Quicken under Crossover Office, but that's it!).
The big one is of course salary, I know a lot of people who are really secretive about this one. Why?
I know it was a rhetorical question, but you did ask, so here's your answer:
Becuase employers profit from your silence. That's why it's often a company policy. If employees were the source of its taboo status, there would be no need to mandate it from above. There is, becuase to share salary information is to collaborate and speculate on fair salary points. Companies save billions nationwide right now because most people don't know what they are worth.
This is why Unions are profitable and (dare I say it?) useful. They open the floor for discussion of salary norms in an industry.
The problem is that the companies have done such a good job drumming into us that sharing salary info is somehow wrong in an abstract, not clearly understood sense, that people often act as though it is their own taboo and not one invented by their employer looking to profit from their ignorance.
DISCLAIMER: I am an employer. I regularly reminding employees that I have no problem with them discussing their respective employment packages, because I pay people what they are worth and I'm open about how I derive the numbers. Not surprisingly, the loyalty of the people who do work for me is strong.
Surely Betty only has to pay what she thought was the cost of a new roof though? How is she supposed to know if she was never presented with and sign a contract?
That's the penalty for not speaking up right away. If she tells the roofer he's made a mistake as soon as she was able, she isn't liable for costs, otherwise she is, according to the doctrine of Estoppel by Silence, liable for costs as if she signed the contract. She pays what the roofer says she pays if she doesn't speak up.
Slashdot Mirror
...Did you mean Apple Computers or Apple Corp. I get them confused all the time.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com
P.S. Yes, it's a joke. Laugh now.
Aren't you going to make one for IE? How about IE7?
Yes. You can get the plug-in at http://www.ubuntu.com./ Install the software you find at that site and your IE will work with all those great Firefox scripts. Trust in me. Would a stranger on slashdot lie?
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com
The only way that war becomes "fair" is if both sides incur the same 'cost' of the war
"The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his."
- General George Patton
I was gonna make a comment about the goal of making war fair, but Patton said it better than I would have.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com
The information is collected from various sources rather than a direct feed from the stock exchanges, making it probably less useful for buy & sell decisions.
Yes, but the nature of the data collected and the way in which it is presented (the clear connection between event and price change and other things) makes it quite useful for planning investment strategy for a given company.
As with any such site, more research would have to be done for a given long term investment, but this does make a great starting place for that research. That is the great benefit to being the aggregator rather than the source. They pull together a lot of data from some other great sources and put it together in a way that makes the whole better, in some ways, than the sum of the parts. (C.f., Google News for another example)
At risk of sounding like a GOOG fanboy, they've batted another home run. We get a solid resource for long term investment, and they get access to our portfolios. Everyone wins (excepting the privacy concerns that are a legitimate tangent to nearly every google story).
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
True story:
t ml
.com site for a major company. In C#.
I am an independent consultant. CBN (Yes, that CBN) is locally-based. They also have some very interesting and cool tech projects going on. Their IT group (a spin off of CBN called Compass) is working with some great stuff. Anyway, I happened to get a lead on an assignment there that I might be able to fill.
In the phone interview, I was gold. "You sound like just what we are looking for."
In the follow up technical phone interview, same thing. "We want you to meet the manager you'll be working with for this project."
The in-person interview is going great too, until I get this question:
"Have you ever worked with XSLT and related technologies?"
To which my dumb ass replied:
"Sure that's what I've based my blog on."
And I immediately saw the stupidity of my answer. Why? Because not a week earlier, I was having a discussion with a friend about Christianity's reputation. The result of that conversation is found in an entry on my blog here:
http://tom.digitalelite.com/2005_08_23_08_01_00.h
After I mentioned my blog, every one of the interviewers asked for the address. I gave it to them, knowing that entry was still on the front page at the time. I knew it was over. Sure enough, within 6 hours I get the call from HR telling me they needed someone with more c# experience. Hmmm, my c# experience was discussed in two interviews before the in-person interview and wasn't a problem then. Oh well.
Two things of note about this:
1) I don't censor my blog. If someone doesn't like the content on the blog, we probably wouldn't have gotten along anyway. It's a sort of self-selecting barrier for people without a sense of humor.
2) There are plenty of good IT consulting gigs out there. I'm on one right now. Redoing a
Note that I'm not speaking ill of CBN here. I really don't care one way or the other about them. It must not've been a good fit. No big deal to me. I've heard that that are a great place to do a short-term gig, but it just wasn't the best place for me in the end.
The 90's called. They want their joke back. ;-)
And just to head the smart replies off at the pass...
The Jerk factory called. It wants me back. I'm outtie.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com
Here's my wishlist for a Wireless AP hardware solution:
:(
1) the ability to easily set up a DMZ. I can firewall off my internal network easy enough, but if we want Joe User to do it, it needs to be easy and obvious to set up a free area that is distinct from the walled off internal network.
2) Bandwidth throttling based on the above mentioned DMZ. If you are in the DMZ, you may use x% of the available bandwidth. If you are on the internal network, regular rules apply.
3) Hot chicks in every box.
4) Mesh network capabilities. Each unit should seek out other units in range and create an ad hoc mesh network. This would be the first step toward taking the Internet back from the corporations currently in control.
5) Real range. I mean like at least 50 yards, but I'd prefer a lot more. When it comes to range, there is no "too much" only "not enough".
That's what I want to see in a next-gen wifi router. I guess I shouldn't hold my breath.
- Tom Caudron
- http://tom.digitalelite.com
I think you've taken the experience you had in grade school and inappropriately projected it into international affairs.
To be clear, I was trying to find an example that resonate with the slashdot crowd. I didn't have problems with 'bullies' in school for a number of reasons I won't go into here. My opinions about international affairs were created in college a few years back by studying the relevant topics...also by vitrue of the fact that the professors who taught such classes were all pretty much in agreement that coercion rules the roost in international affairs.
The ones with the sharpest swords and biggest guns aren't the ones in power, the ones who control the people with the sharpest swords and biggest guns are in power.
Not sure how this really changes my point, but OK. That's a fine enough distinction. Not really making a difference, though. It's the weapons that make the difference in power, not enlightenment or likeability. If you control the biggest weapons, you control the situation. In so far as others get a say it's only in that you are willing to allow it by virtue of not exercising your miitary power. Read "The Irony of American History" for better coverage on the concept of coercion in international affairs.
When there was finally a confrontation China was absolutely crushed.
And that teaches us that military poweer is paramount, which is what I've been saying.
Most reasonable, intelligent people knew how a land war in Iraq was going to go (I recall the word "quagmire" being used extensively in our conversations); but we, as a country, went anyway. Blind to the ineffectiveness of our might.
Most intelligent people then and now know that the war in Iraq is going poorly because we aren't their the destroy them but to colonize them. Very different objectives. If we were there to destroy them, it would have been a 2 week war with nearly zero casualities on our side. To convert them to democracy and make them our friends? That was a wasteful use of our military. If we'd wanted them to change their way of life, that's what we have propaganda and hidden insurgencies for. I'm not advocating either of those things, but pointing out the odd mistake made. Indeed, there's some evidence to suggest it wasnt' a mistake (in that we seem to be making all the "mistakes" necessary to see Iraq and the Middle East hang itself...I won't get into how that suits our needs in a machivellian sense, it's just too messed up to think about right now).
We are a powerful country, but *only* when dealing with countries. Against nationless groups we are not only hindered, we are almost absolutely powerless. Our leaders thought that by attacking the countries that these groups were in, we would create an hostile environment that would drive them out or crush them from within. Instead we walked into the nest of vipers and started recklessly stepping on them.
You are taking a lot on face value regarding our motives in those countries. I'll leave it at that.
Now you say that we as a people are safe from outside attack due to our military might. I agree that we are safe, but it's because of our geographic location rather than our military.
Til now, I disagreed with you, but saw the logic of your point. This one, though, is a bit out there. Seriously. We are secure because we have a military that is so far beyind what anyone else has as to be nearly fantastical. Our geographic benefits gave us the freedom to create that military unmolested, but isn't even close to the our most important asset militarily. If I had to give up our miltary might or our geographic position, the geography would go in a heartbeat. Really, you'd trade our ICBMs and F18s for essentially a large moat? Hell no. Canada is in the same geographic position and the fact is, they are stuck depending on us and England to offer protection. If, during the 60s, the USSR had wanted Canada, they'd have had it except for our
Hot on the heels of Slashdot's coverage of a controversial model [...]
;-)
Slashdot covers news like David Spade's jacket covers Chris Farley's back.
US companies suck at malware detection. I've found the eastern European companies to be among the best.
Sure, the author is always gonna best know how to uninstall his app.
I really do want an answer and I'm especially interested in a comparison to western European countries.
As the nation that holds the uncontested top position of military might on this planet, we enjoy certain benefits that come with it.
Specifically, we are not now and not likely in my lifetime going to need to fear enemy combatants (which is one of the reasons I see this "Do out of fear of terrorists" thing as a sham and a crock!). We simply will not ever see a Red Dawn scenario in this country. Given our current lead and the rate at which we are improving our lead, there isn't a nation on this planet that can challenge us.
Now how does this bring tangible benefits to us as citizens? I think that part of the problem here is that when I say "benefits" I get the impression you are hearing "rights" when what I mean is "priviledge". Let me explain.
Our scientific and technology lead isn't going anywhere. I explain this in more detail elsewhere. Moreover, much of our technology and science is spent on increasing our military might. Now, while I agree with the original poster that I'd like to see more spent on social issue than is currently spent, I don't think that our military spending is without benefit to me.
To put it in the basest terms, only people who haven't lost don't see the benefit of always winning. In scholl were you the biggest, toughest kid? I wasn't. What does that mean? It means negotiating from a position of subordination in all things. It means not having the power to say "fuck it" and take what you need. This is a power that the biggest, toughest kid in school had. It's the power we have in the US. That's not to say it isn't stupid, unfair, and wrong (it's all those things and more) but it's true. We have the ability to negotiate from the postion of power in every situation. In so far as we court the world's opinion it's just to make ourselves feel better about our final decision. Don't beleive me? Look at Iraq. We didn't need to ask anyone. We asked, and when they all said no, we said too bad. In that case, our power was abused without benefit to us (sadly without much penalty either in the bigger picture...which kinda sucks, I think). But our position of absolute authority is used to our advantage daily all over the world. We get better trade deals, better treatment, better everything than everyone else. Sure Britain and Germany aren't hurting, but they also know that they aren't the biggest kids in school. Any negotion they enter into with us is done from a position of weakness. Given that the majority of Brits disagreed with th eWar in Iraq, why do you think the Blair agreed to join us? It incurred our favor. The fucked up reality is that Britian sucked up the the school bully and in the real world the bully gets his way and you can either join him or always fear that he'll turn on you. Note that this is also why, for all their "The war is wrong" rhetoric, it's now coming out that behind the scenes the Germans fed us intelligence to help our ground troops. Worlkd leaders, especially those of developed nations like in Western Europe, are ultimately pragmatists not idealists. When you hear them making an idealists' stance, know that you are being lied to. Sorry. Germany wanted to side with us without pissing off their own citizenry so that's how they played it. It won't be the ladt such story we hear coming out about the so-called objectors. I'm an objector too, but I understand why they helped us, even if privately. They don't want to piss off the school bully, because you never know when he'll turn on you.
Think I'm being too bleak and pessimistic about how the world works? Just remember that from the dawn of time it has been the guys with the sharpest swords and the biggest barrels that decided what was done and when. We've moved into a world were we are that guy, and the link I included above explains why it won't be easy to put us out
What are these benefits that only we Americans get, exactly?
I started answering this question as though you wanted one, then decided you probably don't. If you don't see the tangible benefits of being American then you are either too young to be able to understand or too far lost to the ideological left to want to understand. Sufficed to say, you should ask yourself why people are killing themselves every day for a chance to get into this country. They aren't stupid. They see something you seem unwilling to admit.
I think I missed that day in civics.
Don't be trite. I was trying to make a legitimate point. No one needs your sarcasm.
And for the record, Civics isn't the class in which you'd learn about the benefits to American citizens of our unsurpassed defense department. You'd learn that in an American Foreign Policy class.
Civics is where you'd learn the benefits of the Police and Fire Department to American citizens.
For Microsoft "More Ubiquitous" == "Better". Just as with a hundred other technologies they've unfairly leveraged their existing OS monopoly to spread, they will integrate their search engine fully into Vista (probably with some sort of "It's part of the OS, we can't remove it" claim) and they will be more relevent to the US marketplace at that point. That is unless the government steps in and smacks them down for re-committing the same crime they've already been convicted of...
...Yeah, I couldn't write that last sentence without laughing either. They'll get away with it. They always do.
I don't want lower taxes, better public transportation, or *gasp* national health care. No, I want to connect to sharks with VNC.
/only/ global superpower.
I get your point, and I don't entirely disagree, but it's worth pointing out that you gain a HUGE personal benefit from our country's predilection for defense spending. To be blunt, whether you are a peacenik or a warhawk, the fact that you live in the hands-down most powerful country on the planet has amazing advantages. I'm not saying I'm proud of what we do all the time (*cough*Iraq*cough*) but I'm not going to dismiss the direct personal benefits of being a citizen of the
For good or bad, We have a lead that isn't going anywhere anytime soon...regardless of what you may have heard speculated elsewhere.
if you ask should I major in CS or whatever for good job opportunities, the answer is still no.
So, your solution to the perceived problem of us losing the edge on highly skilled tech workers is to concede that front entirely?
Well, I could disagree all day about that point, but I'd rather point out that we are not losing the batle on the high tech worker front. I've linked to theis in the past, but I'll continue to until people get it. We are still the science and technology leaders by a HUGE margin and right now it doesn't look like we are going to lose that edge in the foreseable future.
America is a good place to be if you are a scientist, regardless of what you may have heard to the contrary. So, if you want to major in CS or any other science, I say go for it!
As I've said in the past, the gap in US engineers and scientists is not actual, and studies suggesting otherwise are often biasesd and based on shady statistics.
Well, technically he keeps them in his wife's purse, but she keeps her purse under the couch.
Between Microsoft and all the Linux distros combined, only one company or group has been found guilty in a court of law of IP violations. That's right, Microsoft...repeatedly.
/says/ you are using legally dubious software, and yet neither Red Hat, nor Novell, nor Canonical, nor Mandriva, nor any major Linux distributor has been proved to violate any IP-rights in any court anywhere. The closest they came to such a thing was the SCO issue, which has been universally panned as a bogus suit that will come to no good end for SCO.
/should/ be providing you with legal indemnity? The answer is easy.
This is a red herring. Microsoft wants us to beleive that they are "going the extra mile" to protect us from something that is really unlikely, but in truth, if you are using Microsoft products, you are already using work that has taken IP-protected material from other sources without permission or right. And several courts have already said so. But Microsoft doesn't want you to hear that.
If you are using Linux, Microsoft
So, between Microsoft and Linux, who
I want Dice.com.
:)
No, seriously, while it doesn't fix all the problems slashdotters list, it does handle many of them. I get a legit list of new positions in my inbox every day of the jobs that actually meet my criteria, it handles my requirments as a small independant contractor well, and it's easy to navigate and use.
If it would just include a way to electro-zap the nutsack of any recriuter that asks me about positions that are clearly out of the scope of what I list as my requirements, then I'd be in heaven.
it's a little something called freedom. As much as all us hate spam, child porno, junk mail, ads, laywers, etc, we must live them. It's something most people call "society".
:)
In which "society" do you live? lol!
OK, I get the "freedom arguement for spam (you are free to be a spamming jackass, but I hate you), junk mail (you are free to send me junk mail, but I hate you), ads (you are free to be an ad exec, but everyone hates you), and lawyers (you are free to be a laywer, but you must obviously hate yourself), but child porn?!?!?
In which society is child porn a freedom? I'd like to know, because I think we'll have just found the one place I won't mind us doing some above ground nuclear testing!
You certainly don't need a 64bit Athlon CPU or 2GB RAM, since everything is done by the graphics card anyway.
Anyone who plans on recording and watching actual HDTV will need a substantial CPU. The graphics card will not be enough. Especially if you intend to record and watch HDTV at the same time.
Senior Party Leaders Join Battle Against Chinese Censorship.
This idea that the Chinese government is entirely pro-censorship is a bit untrue. There are those within China---even some who are high up the political food chain---who see this as a bad idea.
I wonder how it'll all turn out?
Who wants to manage a wine installation to run Picasa. Anyone? Do any of you really want this?
We all joke about it a lot, but you really should rtfa before complaining.
You needn't manage a wine installation to run this ported app in linux. The install is just gonna be a matter of installing Picasa by itself. The needed parts of wine will be statically linked and not something you need to touch or fret at all. It will not use your existing wine install. One of the goals listed is that they intend to make this as easy to install in linux as it is in windows.
That said, I'm no more excited than you, but that's most because I prefer native apps to apps that use widgets from other toolkits, especially windows widgets in linux. It tends to look like ass in my experience. I only do this when absolutely necessary (i.e., I tolerate it for Quicken under Crossover Office, but that's it!).
The big one is of course salary, I know a lot of people who are really secretive about this one. Why?
I know it was a rhetorical question, but you did ask, so here's your answer:
Becuase employers profit from your silence. That's why it's often a company policy. If employees were the source of its taboo status, there would be no need to mandate it from above. There is, becuase to share salary information is to collaborate and speculate on fair salary points. Companies save billions nationwide right now because most people don't know what they are worth.
This is why Unions are profitable and (dare I say it?) useful. They open the floor for discussion of salary norms in an industry.
The problem is that the companies have done such a good job drumming into us that sharing salary info is somehow wrong in an abstract, not clearly understood sense, that people often act as though it is their own taboo and not one invented by their employer looking to profit from their ignorance.
DISCLAIMER: I am an employer. I regularly reminding employees that I have no problem with them discussing their respective employment packages, because I pay people what they are worth and I'm open about how I derive the numbers. Not surprisingly, the loyalty of the people who do work for me is strong.
Surely Betty only has to pay what she thought was the cost of a new roof though? How is she supposed to know if she was never presented with and sign a contract?
That's the penalty for not speaking up right away. If she tells the roofer he's made a mistake as soon as she was able, she isn't liable for costs, otherwise she is, according to the doctrine of Estoppel by Silence, liable for costs as if she signed the contract. She pays what the roofer says she pays if she doesn't speak up.