My Sims lie dormant awaiting a wine that can breath life into them once again.
If they're in that advanced stage of alcoholism to not even be able to move, they shouldn't be picking and choosing the type of wine. pick any alcoholic beverage and run with it. i guess the sims have a 1 step AA program: step 1 -- just don't run on wine.;)
for the masses, linux is an unknown. Windows is a known.. Dell is a known, IBM, Gateway... all known. VA unknown.
When people think of buying computers they first think of the supplier they know. then they go.. 'ahaa.. the supplier also offers this thing called linux; wonder what that is.' and then they 'discover' linux. once they discover linux they go 'ooohh, this vendor specializes in shipping linux -- it's called VA.' they discover VA.
In other words, I could argue, that MSs' OEM tactics killed VA since people could no longer discover linux by way of popular vendors and in turn could no longer discover VA. but i'm not going to. I will concede VA had to drop out of the hardware business because of various shortcomings of their own.
What I will argue is that I have known plenty of people that tried running a shop selling boxes with windows. none seem to have made it. guess what? they were installing windows on those boxes. going by your arguement that VA couldn't sell boxes with linux because there was no market demand for linux, i would have to conclude that the reason these people failed was because there was no market demand for windows. epiphany!
The reality is that people running these shops don't get the same preferential treatment as Dell and what have you. they have to pay full price for windows. where they try to make any money is on the hardware and service. but can you really undercut a mass-merchant such as Dell on the hardware enough to offset the inflated price of the software? compounded with the fact that the hardware is being sold at a very nominal margin by these OEMs? this leads us to another interesting question. if the OEMs are busy undercutting each other with the hardware and the margin is down to a minimum on the hardware where do they make their money? software of course. now how would a vendor make more money than it's competitors on software they don't produce? they get it at a 'preferential' price.
that hurts me as a consumer because now i can't go to the best hardware maker for the price (software being the same), i have to go to the 'most preferred' OEM to get a decent price. innovation my ass.
sorry i'm ranting. but it sucks that i can't get linux on the hardware i want. ya, ya.. i can install it after. like i did on this toshiba laptop that i'm using right now. but i had to jump thru hoops to get that going -- after paying the MS tax. makes me mad. un-karmafy me all you want. i'm used to paying taxes.
use half my vacation time (starting this weekend) learning Blender. Am I like the inverse of midas? whatever i touch goes out of business... that really really sucks. I was just starting to get a hang of the UI too. and was going to order the 'official blender book' from a local bookstore. any other animation/rendering option for linux out there? hope they GPL that puppy. I guess I still have my downloaded copy of the binary.
...because they're talking about taxing software that's 'created' in seattle/Washington. As we all know, some (if not all) software in windows was written elsewhere (BSD?, CPM, OS/2 etc..) so this tax doesn't apply to them!
This could very well change if they extend the tax to include innovation. oh, I forgot, we're talking about MS.
i could tell them what people are searching for using Netscape without all the fancy tracking... they're searching for where they can download IE from.:P
Netscape sucks. Sorry. Mozilla is marginally better but I think they've gone too far with options... there's an option for every 'action' that you can perform on the internet. otherwise it's pretty decent. I use galeon/knoqueror depending on if i feel like using sawfish or kde for that day. today i couldn't decide so i'm using galeon from KDE. to me, netscape is a non-player now. But thanks for the source code. Otherwise galeon wouldn't have been possible (uses mozilla i believe.)
well partially anyways. Panasonic used to have a whiteboard that would capture whatever you wrote on it and save that to a computer. had a built in 'computer' for standalone operation. you could then make printed copies etc... freeing you from having to take notes. this was back in '95ish... Sorry, no links.. saw it in a brochure.
Although I am against open relays, it does pose and interesting question. As of late, I've been pondering the fate of the internet as I see firewalls and especially proxy servers cropping up all over the place.
I work for a company that provides a web based application to our clients. Increasingly I'm having to answer questions as to why some guys browser has nothing in it when he goes to the url that we provided them to access this web-based app. So far it has been because of their proxy servers restricting them. It looks like even though the internet is all inter-connected there are lots and lots of checkpoints that restricts movement. I'm sure Berlin-wall had roads connecting either sides. Except most people couldn't use those roads. Now our company wants to somehow restrict access to even the general/informational/marketing company web-site based on IP addresses or some such. I found that so against the 'internet' idealogy that I voluenteered (sp?) myself out of that project. I mean, we do have passwords to protect client data and what not but why restrict information that you would otherwise put on a newspaper-ad?
On the flip side, our clients usually have proxy servers and what not and at the beginning of these projects I usually have to talk to their sys-admins and ask them to open-up our web-site to their users. When everyone and their brother installs proxy-servers and firewalls the only thing we'll be sharing is the connection. What will we use that connection for? I mean, large companies already restrict your access to the local lan only + a few other 'approved' sites. So you can't do jack with the connection at work. You come home, and well your ISP thought it would protect you from the monstrosities on the internet too and has now created this little sandbox that you can access.
The internet is going down the drain. It came too quick too soon with no good business model that people could think of. Now everyone is trying to 'restrict' access and hope to make money by doing that since that's the only business model we know of. In the meantime, restricting access is killing the internet. At least the idealogy of sharing information. Pretty soon we're going to have all these nodes refusing access to each other.
don't they have enough people already? do they really need to start cloning humans? (i know, i know, it's just for stem cells.)
On one hand, they employ 'neighborhood-watch' for couples who might want a second child. those couples are then 'socially' pressured into getting an abortion. but on the other hand the gummint wants to clone humans... I guess they're going to require someone to have a license to produce humans... (much like a manufacturing license). But then the country is so good at piracy -- you know where that's going to end up. 'pirated copies' -- literally -- will be found on every chinease street corner. what's new?
I wonder what the dubya has to say about the SSSA or whatever the latest 3/4 letter acronym that essentially stands for "Screw the consumers". innovation over legislation indeed.
watch 'distinguished gentleman' (Eddie Murphy) -- "if you're for, i got money coming in from suger manufacturers. if you're against, i got money coming in from candy manufacturers."... "put me down for 'for'".
I guess any non-software company just isn't a company anymore huh? I work for a company that uses GPLed code to save us time and money. We don't sell software so we couldn't care less about how or if MS makes it's money or not. We make money by selling these 'side' products. Maybe Mr. Mundie needs to be told that software, for the rest of the world, is just a tool. And yes, there is money to be made selling 'ancillary' products. We use whatever is the best value for money to get what we need done. We're not using one over the other for some philosophical stance. (Although, all things being equal, I am a bit partial to GPL and the idea of pooling the basics towards common good.) Fine, I'll buy his software if he sells it to me at a competitive price -- $0 -- with the source. If that's not fesible for him he's the one doing it wrong. Otherwise how could his competitor (linux in this case) provide that to me and remain viable? He needs to realize that OSS/FS has just 'innovated' a production design system much like Ford with the assembly line. It has become part of software design methodology. I'm sure hand-built car companies complained after Ford designed the production line. Some got with the program and those who refused to adapt, went the way of the dodo.
Also, for MS products like Netscape, Lotus-1-2-3 were just tools to 'utilize' their 'product'. They figured in their infinite wisdom that by not licensing the tools, they could sell their product for a better margin. Well, we learn from the best. In order to sell our product for a better margin, we need to lower our licensing. MS - out you go. Did I say we don't sell software for a living?
alternative?? how dare you speak such vile language!
"..Apocalyptic" got that one straight. Apocalyptic for who? Therein lies your answer.
"Increasingly we'll use computers to write just like we write on paper." and I need $3000 equipment to do what a $4 worth of pen and pad will do? When Mr. Gates 'wrote' the 'Vision Ahead' or some such he must have been talking about the rearview mirror.
Of course there will be less money for the government. I mean, right now any and all businesses only have to pay the MS tax. And MS is so kind and generous to pay the tax and then pay the 'contribution' tax on behalf of every business. If these businesses had more money by not having to pay the MS tax they would surely NOT pay taxes on that additional 'income'. Talk about a big brother.
I went there; MU of OH. I'm not the least bit surprised that they buddy up with MS. A while back, the CS lab (in kreger -- where i've spent half my life;)) was completely 'donated' by MS -- at least the software i believe. The senior year C++ class was more like 'how to become a VisualStudio monkey'. Had very little to do with C++ and/or algorithms. Unless of course you consider 'point-click-drag' an algorithm. There was only one class that had anything to do with linux/Unix -- the OS class. needless to say, that was the most fun class too. I wonder if they switched to windows for that too; you know, with the Shared-Source and all...
Thank god someone told me about linux my freshman year. Otherwise I would have learnt squat. Well, I take that back. There were some fun classes. VC++101 class is not one of them.
is 'titan' still around? or did they kill that too?
you are correct in saying that we can't fab chips in our garage. but what we do have is the money that the ones who can fab the chips want so badly. sony wanted the openness in the BetaMax players because they wanted in on it. since they couldn't get in, they went on to create their own 'in'. now that they're in the 'in' they want everyone else that's not in to keep out. much like the BetaMax makers in their day to sony. sure, no consumer could assemble a VCR in their garage but this company that was ousted from the BetaMax 'in' wanted your dollar so bad that they found a way to create a new 'in' so that they'd be ousted no more. Similarly, Sony and the gang can create whatever wall they want around them to keep them in the 'in' while keeping everyone else out. That's when some company (much like what sony during BetaMax) will come along and create it's own 'in' and leave Sony and the gang biting the dust.
If you bring your ball to the field, but refuse to let anyone else play don't you think sooner or later someone else is going to get another ball and kick you out along with your ball? As long as people want to play, there will be a ball with which everyone can play.
Time to start scratching your noggin for ideas. That company could be you.
The way I see it, this (the bill being passed) is actually a good thing. This seems like the only way big mega-corps can be shackled -- and the irony is that they do it themselves by creating that wall around them. (You build a fort with no doors for the sake of security, how do you expect to reach the masses that are outside?) History shows that smaller companies find an opportunity somewhere in there. Too bad they grow big and this whole process repeats itself.
Anyhow, IMO, it's just a cyclic evolution in the corporate world. nothing new.
if a website (say xyz.com) requires an email address for me to register, i usually put in sales@xyz.com. Spam me all you like. if enough people put that in hopefully that will clog their email servers. some websites seem to have caught on (as i'm sure i'm not the first to think of this) and check for the host part of the email entry and complain if it matches their own. at that point, i usually put in another spammers email (sales@anotherSpammer.com). let them duke it out.
Does your "we" include the half million native Africans slated to die prematurely from some miserable bug
Yes, my "we" includes them too. in fact, there's no us and them. it's all just 'us'.
Before you go all biological on my uneducated-third-world-ass, I want to bring your attention to 'the glutton bowl'. (Don't bother correcting my spelling either. English is my second language.) It was on fox a few days ago. While people here have plenty of money and food to have it wasted on already overweight fat-asses, that same 'half-million native africans' you speak of are dying from hunger. if they had the food to provide some nutrition don't you think they would have a better chance of fighting off some of the diseases? You just want to feel fancy about being able to produce mutent flies and using Africa as a bio-dome to conduct some experiment on introducing artificially altered mutants into their ecosystem. Use that half-million on some sick experiment about your advanced tech. Had you really wanted to do anything for them, you would stop hoarding food, stop buying diamonds (read up on DeBears' history and the 'labor' that's used to mine diamonds) and start treating people like people. But then that's not exactly news-worthy advancement in science and tech and the western civilization in general is it?
Oh btw, if you could even make half as legible a comment in my language, maybe i'd have an interest in spell-checking my comments in your language. I know what you're gonna say next. The internet is in english so if you want to participate, get with the program right? Hope you got decent chinease skillz.
..then they fuck you for being fucked.. then they fuck you for being fucked 'cause you've been fucked... and it goes on and on.
what i mean is.. you pay taxes on the car you buy so that you can use the damn car. to use it, to go anywhere you gotta buy gas.. so you pay taxes again to use that same damn car. then there's toll on the roads if you're thinking about using up the gas (which you paid taxes for to use your car which also, you've paid taxes for). in essence, you pay 'taxes' to use the road to use the gas on which you've again paid taxes for to drive the car on which you've paid taxes. i won't be surprized if they put a GPS up your ass to tax you every time you enter your own damn car. welcome to tax-slavery.
Why do we fight to protect pandas from extinction but are hell bent eradicating these flies? Why is one species more elligible for our protection than others? If it's because pandas don't harm people, what about tigers? Maneating tigers have become quite common in various parts in India and Nepal. Yet we still protect them. Is the eligibility for protection-from-extinction based on how pretty they are? Are scientists being too shallow? If it's protecting a species is what we're concerned about, shouldn't flies weigh in just as much as tigers,pandas,rhinos etc..? Seems to me we are trying to touch-up the natural picture by taking out ugly pesky things and hilighting the pretty looking ones. I'd say we're playing 'artist' (as opposed to playing god...) and not being scientific at all about this.
respect is the name of the game -- for me at least
on
Do You Like Your Job?
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· Score: 1
My manager, also the owner of the company, is a guy who doesn't even know the first thing about a computer. He is so far removed from the software development process that it's almost insane. Luckly, my immediate manager is also a programmer. He understands the underlying complexities of programming. However, his skills are in some pretty ancient tech that we no longer use. I am very happy at my job and my employers are pretty happy with me too. [I wouldn't know that if they hadn't given my a nice company car last year;] Although my immediate manager is/was a programmer, it was pretty rough in the beginning with the other manager. We used to have pretty heated rounds of almost-arguements to decide on features and timelines and customization of software for individual clients etc. In the process we established mutual respect. He respects the fact that I know what I'm doing and I, in turn, respect the fact that if I were in his shoes I wouldn't have a damn clue. When someone says ex-programmers make the best managers it's only because these so called managers know your (the programmer) side of the story.
In my case our company has been searching for a strategy for the last three years. We have been struggling at times and have been doing pretty decent at times too. But I'm far from saying that my manager lacks vision. In fact I respect him for this very reason. He isn't afraid to make mistakes, admit that he made them and try some new idea. Just like we -- the programmers -- weren't born with the source code for each and every program that we ever write in the course of our lives, managers also weren't born with every 'vision' from the get-go. It's a work in progress. We expect end-users to tolerate beta type software just because we've declared that it's the first revision but we don't seem to have any patience with new ideas in management. I guess I've been luckier than most in the sense that my manager respects my opinions when he considers new ideas. But I think you get that kind of respect only when you give it too.
On second thoughts, I hope he doesn't can me in the next round of the 'cutting-expenses' vision;)
the prez and his posse are considering PR campaign abroad -- some of which may even be disinformation. (i call that propoganda but that's just me.) you can read all about that here. his primary concern is that the disinformation intended for abroad might actually make it to the US. so i'm wondering, if by letting the media to consolidate, is the gummint lining up to create fewer 'points of failure'? ie. if there are hundreds of news/media agencies, you can't really get all of them on your side. with just a handful of agencies, it might be easier to actually 'control' what passes thru. not questioning press ethics but when you make an offer along the lines of '.. in the interest of national security..." you know what i mean..
WTF? sounds like the girl submitted the conversation to the police (smart girl.). + the pedafile solicited sex with a police officer posing as a 15 year old. what wiretap? don't tell me soliciting sex with a 15 year old is free speech either.
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now i can say 'olive juice' to my wife and still earn major points. OTOH, everyone in Italy is gonna think that the entire US population is gay!
If they're in that advanced stage of alcoholism to not even be able to move, they shouldn't be picking and choosing the type of wine. pick any alcoholic beverage and run with it. i guess the sims have a 1 step AA program: step 1 -- just don't run on wine. ;)
When people think of buying computers they first think of the supplier they know. then they go.. 'ahaa.. the supplier also offers this thing called linux; wonder what that is.' and then they 'discover' linux. once they discover linux they go 'ooohh, this vendor specializes in shipping linux -- it's called VA.' they discover VA.
In other words, I could argue, that MSs' OEM tactics killed VA since people could no longer discover linux by way of popular vendors and in turn could no longer discover VA. but i'm not going to. I will concede VA had to drop out of the hardware business because of various shortcomings of their own.
What I will argue is that I have known plenty of people that tried running a shop selling boxes with windows. none seem to have made it. guess what? they were installing windows on those boxes. going by your arguement that VA couldn't sell boxes with linux because there was no market demand for linux, i would have to conclude that the reason these people failed was because there was no market demand for windows. epiphany!
The reality is that people running these shops don't get the same preferential treatment as Dell and what have you. they have to pay full price for windows. where they try to make any money is on the hardware and service. but can you really undercut a mass-merchant such as Dell on the hardware enough to offset the inflated price of the software? compounded with the fact that the hardware is being sold at a very nominal margin by these OEMs? this leads us to another interesting question. if the OEMs are busy undercutting each other with the hardware and the margin is down to a minimum on the hardware where do they make their money? software of course. now how would a vendor make more money than it's competitors on software they don't produce? they get it at a 'preferential' price.
that hurts me as a consumer because now i can't go to the best hardware maker for the price (software being the same), i have to go to the 'most preferred' OEM to get a decent price. innovation my ass.
sorry i'm ranting. but it sucks that i can't get linux on the hardware i want. ya, ya.. i can install it after. like i did on this toshiba laptop that i'm using right now. but i had to jump thru hoops to get that going -- after paying the MS tax. makes me mad. un-karmafy me all you want. i'm used to paying taxes.
use half my vacation time (starting this weekend) learning Blender. Am I like the inverse of midas? whatever i touch goes out of business... that really really sucks. I was just starting to get a hang of the UI too. and was going to order the 'official blender book' from a local bookstore. any other animation/rendering option for linux out there? hope they GPL that puppy. I guess I still have my downloaded copy of the binary.
But it'll be copywrited by the RIAA/MPAA.
This could very well change if they extend the tax to include innovation. oh, I forgot, we're talking about MS.
now i may actually want to do something with those cd's that keep coming in my mailbox instead of using them as coasters.
Netscape sucks. Sorry. Mozilla is marginally better but I think they've gone too far with options... there's an option for every 'action' that you can perform on the internet. otherwise it's pretty decent. I use galeon/knoqueror depending on if i feel like using sawfish or kde for that day. today i couldn't decide so i'm using galeon from KDE. to me, netscape is a non-player now. But thanks for the source code. Otherwise galeon wouldn't have been possible (uses mozilla i believe.)
well partially anyways. Panasonic used to have a whiteboard that would capture whatever you wrote on it and save that to a computer. had a built in 'computer' for standalone operation. you could then make printed copies etc... freeing you from having to take notes. this was back in '95ish... Sorry, no links.. saw it in a brochure.
I work for a company that provides a web based application to our clients. Increasingly I'm having to answer questions as to why some guys browser has nothing in it when he goes to the url that we provided them to access this web-based app. So far it has been because of their proxy servers restricting them. It looks like even though the internet is all inter-connected there are lots and lots of checkpoints that restricts movement. I'm sure Berlin-wall had roads connecting either sides. Except most people couldn't use those roads. Now our company wants to somehow restrict access to even the general/informational/marketing company web-site based on IP addresses or some such. I found that so against the 'internet' idealogy that I voluenteered (sp?) myself out of that project. I mean, we do have passwords to protect client data and what not but why restrict information that you would otherwise put on a newspaper-ad?
On the flip side, our clients usually have proxy servers and what not and at the beginning of these projects I usually have to talk to their sys-admins and ask them to open-up our web-site to their users. When everyone and their brother installs proxy-servers and firewalls the only thing we'll be sharing is the connection. What will we use that connection for? I mean, large companies already restrict your access to the local lan only + a few other 'approved' sites. So you can't do jack with the connection at work. You come home, and well your ISP thought it would protect you from the monstrosities on the internet too and has now created this little sandbox that you can access.
The internet is going down the drain. It came too quick too soon with no good business model that people could think of. Now everyone is trying to 'restrict' access and hope to make money by doing that since that's the only business model we know of. In the meantime, restricting access is killing the internet. At least the idealogy of sharing information. Pretty soon we're going to have all these nodes refusing access to each other.
On one hand, they employ 'neighborhood-watch' for couples who might want a second child. those couples are then 'socially' pressured into getting an abortion. but on the other hand the gummint wants to clone humans... I guess they're going to require someone to have a license to produce humans... (much like a manufacturing license). But then the country is so good at piracy -- you know where that's going to end up. 'pirated copies' -- literally -- will be found on every chinease street corner. what's new?
watch 'distinguished gentleman' (Eddie Murphy) -- "if you're for, i got money coming in from suger manufacturers. if you're against, i got money coming in from candy manufacturers." ... "put me down for 'for'".
Also, for MS products like Netscape, Lotus-1-2-3 were just tools to 'utilize' their 'product'. They figured in their infinite wisdom that by not licensing the tools, they could sell their product for a better margin. Well, we learn from the best. In order to sell our product for a better margin, we need to lower our licensing. MS - out you go. Did I say we don't sell software for a living?
"..Apocalyptic" got that one straight. Apocalyptic for who? Therein lies your answer.
"Increasingly we'll use computers to write just like we write on paper." and I need $3000 equipment to do what a $4 worth of pen and pad will do? When Mr. Gates 'wrote' the 'Vision Ahead' or some such he must have been talking about the rearview mirror.
Of course there will be less money for the government. I mean, right now any and all businesses only have to pay the MS tax. And MS is so kind and generous to pay the tax and then pay the 'contribution' tax on behalf of every business. If these businesses had more money by not having to pay the MS tax they would surely NOT pay taxes on that additional 'income'. Talk about a big brother.
Thank god someone told me about linux my freshman year. Otherwise I would have learnt squat. Well, I take that back. There were some fun classes. VC++101 class is not one of them.
is 'titan' still around? or did they kill that too?
Is that who the Ass Master reports to?
If you bring your ball to the field, but refuse to let anyone else play don't you think sooner or later someone else is going to get another ball and kick you out along with your ball? As long as people want to play, there will be a ball with which everyone can play.
Time to start scratching your noggin for ideas. That company could be you.
The way I see it, this (the bill being passed) is actually a good thing. This seems like the only way big mega-corps can be shackled -- and the irony is that they do it themselves by creating that wall around them. (You build a fort with no doors for the sake of security, how do you expect to reach the masses that are outside?) History shows that smaller companies find an opportunity somewhere in there. Too bad they grow big and this whole process repeats itself.
Anyhow, IMO, it's just a cyclic evolution in the corporate world. nothing new.
if a website (say xyz.com) requires an email address for me to register, i usually put in sales@xyz.com. Spam me all you like. if enough people put that in hopefully that will clog their email servers. some websites seem to have caught on (as i'm sure i'm not the first to think of this) and check for the host part of the email entry and complain if it matches their own. at that point, i usually put in another spammers email (sales@anotherSpammer.com). let them duke it out.
Yes, my "we" includes them too. in fact, there's no us and them. it's all just 'us'.
Before you go all biological on my uneducated-third-world-ass, I want to bring your attention to 'the glutton bowl'. (Don't bother correcting my spelling either. English is my second language.) It was on fox a few days ago. While people here have plenty of money and food to have it wasted on already overweight fat-asses, that same 'half-million native africans' you speak of are dying from hunger. if they had the food to provide some nutrition don't you think they would have a better chance of fighting off some of the diseases? You just want to feel fancy about being able to produce mutent flies and using Africa as a bio-dome to conduct some experiment on introducing artificially altered mutants into their ecosystem. Use that half-million on some sick experiment about your advanced tech. Had you really wanted to do anything for them, you would stop hoarding food, stop buying diamonds (read up on DeBears' history and the 'labor' that's used to mine diamonds) and start treating people like people. But then that's not exactly news-worthy advancement in science and tech and the western civilization in general is it?
Oh btw, if you could even make half as legible a comment in my language, maybe i'd have an interest in spell-checking my comments in your language. I know what you're gonna say next. The internet is in english so if you want to participate, get with the program right? Hope you got decent chinease skillz.
what i mean is.. you pay taxes on the car you buy so that you can use the damn car. to use it, to go anywhere you gotta buy gas.. so you pay taxes again to use that same damn car. then there's toll on the roads if you're thinking about using up the gas (which you paid taxes for to use your car which also, you've paid taxes for). in essence, you pay 'taxes' to use the road to use the gas on which you've again paid taxes for to drive the car on which you've paid taxes. i won't be surprized if they put a GPS up your ass to tax you every time you enter your own damn car. welcome to tax-slavery.
Why do we fight to protect pandas from extinction but are hell bent eradicating these flies? Why is one species more elligible for our protection than others? If it's because pandas don't harm people, what about tigers? Maneating tigers have become quite common in various parts in India and Nepal. Yet we still protect them. Is the eligibility for protection-from-extinction based on how pretty they are? Are scientists being too shallow? If it's protecting a species is what we're concerned about, shouldn't flies weigh in just as much as tigers,pandas,rhinos etc..? Seems to me we are trying to touch-up the natural picture by taking out ugly pesky things and hilighting the pretty looking ones. I'd say we're playing 'artist' (as opposed to playing god...) and not being scientific at all about this.
In my case our company has been searching for a strategy for the last three years. We have been struggling at times and have been doing pretty decent at times too. But I'm far from saying that my manager lacks vision. In fact I respect him for this very reason. He isn't afraid to make mistakes, admit that he made them and try some new idea. Just like we -- the programmers -- weren't born with the source code for each and every program that we ever write in the course of our lives, managers also weren't born with every 'vision' from the get-go. It's a work in progress. We expect end-users to tolerate beta type software just because we've declared that it's the first revision but we don't seem to have any patience with new ideas in management. I guess I've been luckier than most in the sense that my manager respects my opinions when he considers new ideas. But I think you get that kind of respect only when you give it too.
On second thoughts, I hope he doesn't can me in the next round of the 'cutting-expenses' vision ;)
the prez and his posse are considering PR campaign abroad -- some of which may even be disinformation. (i call that propoganda but that's just me.) you can read all about that here. his primary concern is that the disinformation intended for abroad might actually make it to the US. so i'm wondering, if by letting the media to consolidate, is the gummint lining up to create fewer 'points of failure'? ie. if there are hundreds of news/media agencies, you can't really get all of them on your side. with just a handful of agencies, it might be easier to actually 'control' what passes thru. not questioning press ethics but when you make an offer along the lines of '.. in the interest of national security..." you know what i mean..
WTF? sounds like the girl submitted the conversation to the police (smart girl.). + the pedafile solicited sex with a police officer posing as a 15 year old. what wiretap? don't tell me soliciting sex with a 15 year old is free speech either.
to Be, or not to Be? that was never even the question. it was Me (as in the ME of the windows CE-ME-NT). who woulda thunk?