Spherical airships running on Volkswagen engines for the transmission of spam and pr0n.
Hmmmmm...I've had ideas like this before. Usually after several bong hits....
Bean counters killed Xmas bonuses. Their domain is the spreadsheet, and an Xmas bonus is a negative entry along with overtime, moving expenses, paid holidays and vacation.
Business lives and dies by numbers these days. Face it, all workers are are numbers too - usually negative numbers. We are liabilities instead of assets. I know of one company that fired their IT person because: "They didn't need an IT person, everything's working great!" This is a perfect example of how short-sighted top managers have become. They think that people are interchangeable. I had a friend who started an IT admin's job and asked if he could call on the old admin. (who had left on good terms and also was available as a consultant if necessary).
The manager asked: "Why do you need to do that? A computer is a computer!".
We have people making decisions these days who are clueless but don't think they are. This is the most dangerous kind of boss: the kind that think they know more then they really do. Finally, the best story ever told me was by a Chief Engineer friend in the radio business: His station's tower took a direct lightening hit, which caught the 'doghouse' building under the tower on fire, destroying it. The General Manager wanted from him within one week: 1: How many thunderstorms there were going to be in the next year and 2: How much damage each one was going to cost the radio station in dollars.
How's that for clueless?
OS/2 is/was a kickass OS that 1000 books about bad marketing could be written about. It was at least as stable as DOS, if not more so. Seiko paging used OS/2 as the operating system for all their watch paging terminals They ran on IBM 486DX2/66 computers. The paging system used the SCA subcarrier of FM stations. Satellites were used to receiev the signal and then it went through this paging terminal and out the FM transmiter from there. I was Chief Engineer for two of these FM stations for two years until Seiko went out of business and during that time the number of reboots to those computers numbered ZERO! Show me an OS other then pure UNIX today that can make that boast! I also remember
that these computers were being used under fairly heavy load 24/7, because each one had to process the data from the entire transponder (Which included every Seiko page made in the U.S.), and send out only the ones desired for the area it transmitted to.
There's so much dark fiber running all over the U.S.! Vyvx, a petroleum company ran hundreds of thousands of miles of fiber through old oil pipelines. Along most every railroad right of way, you're likely to find lots of dark fiber. There may be upwards of a half a million miles of the stuff unused. The only saving grace is that eventually some part of it will probably end up getting lit. I had a friend who owned a medium sized ISP back east. Around 1996 he asked me how to grow his company (he had about 15k subscribers at that point, virtually all dialup). I told him that it was time to take the plunge and either become a major coast to coast player or else get bought out by one. He got bought out by Winstar who put millions into his IP, only to declare bankruptcy and sell back to him at pennies on what they paid him in the first place. He was a lucky one. I wonder what would have happened if he had decided to become a major player. He'd probably be broke. Instead he has some decent $$ in the bank and he's gone back to his smallre roots.
I think that Cantenna is a registered trademark of The Heath Company, a former maker of electronic kits. The Cantenna was (is) a 50 ohm resistor in a black colored 1 gallon paint can that you filled with mineral oil. It then became a 1 kW load that you could test your ham radio into. I'm sure that many ham radio operators remember it.
Linux servers for the masses for 89 bucks!
on
Largo Loving Linux
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· Score: 2
Okay..I've found the Linux nirvana.n a word: Wirex.
Their Immunix server appliance software is the easiest server to set up I've ever seen. Yes I know that you geeks out there will look upon it with disdain, but the bottom line is that Joe Sixpack can figure how to configure this one!
And yes, I know this is a shameless plug (and no, I have nothing to do with Wirex) but when you find something this good, you just gotta share it.
The cable Industry hates just about everyone, which is why so many people hate them (back)!
First off:, they hate the consumer. They think that the consumer should be married to them and pay whatever they want to charge. The fact is that basic cable now costs close to 40 bucks a month these days, almost three times what it did five years ago. Why? because of consolidation in the industry where these clowns now pay close to $4000 bucks PER subscriber when they buy a cable system.
Second: They hate the satellite industry because they give the consumer an alternative choice, usually at a better price. When my friend cancelled his cable for DirecTv the cable rep groused: WE have to charge more because we have to pay a franchise fee to the town. My friend said: Ask me if I care? In reality, the franchise fees average about 5% of their net revenue.
Third: They hate DTV, because they have to provide all this extra channel space to it.
Fourth: They hate the antenna industry because they help the satellite industry break their lock on local TV carriage. Besides, these days a person with a half decent outdoor antenna might well find that he picks up more over the air stations then his cable system carries.
Fifth: The hate Congress for giving parity to the satellite industry.
Sixth: They hate the DSL industry, the RBOC's, the ISP's and everyone else connected with it, because they provide a viable alternative to their (now) overpriced, capped, unreliable Internet service.
I'm sure that I could come up with another dozen examples upon a few minutes reflection.
Hmm..maybe they should change theitr name to the
MIKEY industry? After all they do seem to hate everything!
...and they still can't come up with a successful model that will allow them to make a buck from downloadable music. They're a bunch of F**K- ups, what can I say? There's truly no other way to describe these morons.
For the TEN MILLIONTH TIME let me try to explain it to these pure idiots:
The consumer is willing to pay for downloadable music under the following conditions:
First: It must be reasonably priced. The guys who think I'm going to pay a buck a cut for a 128k quality MP3 are nuts! 35-50 cents is more like it. A monthly flat rate for stuff over a year old makes even more sense. Second: I want to be able to play MY songs (emphasis on MY) on my computer, in my car, on my boombox, on my portable player, and anywhere else I see fit. Third:I want a GOOD SELECTION OF SONGS! I HATE the crap coming out on CD these days. Also, I NEED A SOURCE TO HEAR all kinds of music! I half give you credit for this one: at least you got half a clue and stopped biting the hand that fed you with Internet Radio (kinda). Finally:This paranoia over 'copy protection' has simply got to stop! There's a saying that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush! Perhaps it's time that you guys learned that saying, 'cause right now the bunch of you get NOTHING from the bush!...except for Hilary Rosen -maybe- *wink*
I never would have wanted to be THIS guy's assistant!
First he makes him sick from inhaling quicksilver (Mercury) vapor (very poisonous), then he fries (electrocutes) his hand so bad that he can't use his arm for a month, then the poor guy loses his sight in one eye thanks to the discovery of the laser.
How does this guy reward his assistant for giving (literally) so much of himself? He CANS him!
And we thought that our employers were assholes! Jeesh!
See, terrorists can put items on ebay and use the money they make to promote more terrorism!
So..when you use Ebay, you're helping terrorism.. get it?
This will have to be on next week's list.
Thank you,
John Asscroft
And according to The USA post DMCA, you're guilty unless and until you can prove yourself innocent!
The fact that something hasn't been used to break the law doesn't mean that it CAN'T be used in that way. So by doing a pre-emptive strike, the Govt. can make sure that it never will be used to break the law.
Get it?
Let me give you a list of things that aid and abet terrirists:
1. Water. Terrorists drink it you know.
2. Toliets. They use these too.
3. Beds. Terrorists sleep you know.
4. Air. They also breathe.
5. Newspapers, books, especially phone books.
You know that terrorists wuse codes based upon all of these, don't you?
6. Telephones. Terrorists use the phone to talk to each other
7. The Internet. Enough said?
8. Restaurants. Terrorists meet at restaurants.
9. TV, Cable TV, the radio. Terrorists use all of these to see what their cohorts are up to.
10. Parks. terrorists meet at parks all the time.
11. Train stations, bus stations, airports. Terrorists meet at all these places. They use these to travel. Just think of what they did with airplanes after all.
12. Stores. Terrorists buy items used in terrorism there after all.
13. Cars. Terrorists travel in cars all the time. Same thing with motorcycles, motor scooters and bicycles.
We need to BAN these items as soon as possible!
Don't be surprised if this is just scratching the surface. Another list will be out next week. Please not that guns are not on the list though. After all, if guns are banned, only terrorists will have guns!
A few years ago, I went on a tour of some of the ghost stations in the Boston Subway. It was a great experience and a litle spooky too. Many of these stations are excatly like they were when they were open...they just locked the doors and turned out the lights.
I believe that you can take a tour of the Ghost Stations of the New York subway too.
Of course, with all the paranoia of: 'Homeland Insecurity', maybe not....
Here are a couple of links:
Boston: Http://members.aol.com/eddanamta/abandoned/abansta s.html
New York: http://www.cc.columbia.edu/~brennan/abandoned/
Repository of all kinds of interesting stuff like this: http://www.deathrock.net/ariadne/ruins.html
Al Quaida got EXACTLY what they wanted on 9/11/2001! Granted, a few thousand died that day..and a couple of buildings went down...but since then lives have been made miserable for MILLIONS...which is exactly what they wanted to to to us! Our freedoms have been curtailed at the airport..like they'll ever try that again..If they did, they'd be thrown out the window by an entire pissed off airplane. The old ideas of hijacking were to comply with the hijackers' demands...but not any more!!
Now we have cancer patients being strip searched whose only crime is taking the subway. We have TV cameras looking at us everywhere, connected up to facial reckognization systems. We have more freedoms curtailed since World War II and unlike the ones then, these loss of freedoms are permanent.
Yes, the terrorists got exactly what they wanted..a shift in the United States' citizens' right to freedom. The irony is that
the REAL terrorists are Bush and Ashcroft and Congress who've perverted this awful event for their own political ends.
Which would actually be great for listening to talk shows. Those glasses and a cell phone would be a talk show junkie on the go's dream!
I can hear it now though: "Hello, you're on the air (dead air)...Hello, (sound of breathing) Hello, can you turn down your glasses please, we're on 7 second delay!"
I used to work for a radio station that was owned by a newspaper and located in their building. The advertising circulars used to come in on big pallets WEEKS before they were to be inserted into the Sunday papers. They used to leave the pallets in the garage where most ANYONE could look at them! I'll wager that literally hundreds of papers do the same thing with their circulars.
WalMart and any other advertiser has to be pretty freaking naive if they think that they should have any expectation of privacy whatsoever!....and, don't kid yourself, THEY KNOW IT TOO!!!!!
Slashdot Mirror
Spherical airships running on Volkswagen engines for the transmission of spam and pr0n. Hmmmmm...I've had ideas like this before. Usually after several bong hits....
Bean counters killed Xmas bonuses. Their domain is the spreadsheet, and an Xmas bonus is a negative entry along with overtime, moving expenses, paid holidays and vacation. Business lives and dies by numbers these days. Face it, all workers are are numbers too - usually negative numbers. We are liabilities instead of assets. I know of one company that fired their IT person because: "They didn't need an IT person, everything's working great!" This is a perfect example of how short-sighted top managers have become. They think that people are interchangeable. I had a friend who started an IT admin's job and asked if he could call on the old admin. (who had left on good terms and also was available as a consultant if necessary). The manager asked: "Why do you need to do that? A computer is a computer!". We have people making decisions these days who are clueless but don't think they are. This is the most dangerous kind of boss: the kind that think they know more then they really do. Finally, the best story ever told me was by a Chief Engineer friend in the radio business: His station's tower took a direct lightening hit, which caught the 'doghouse' building under the tower on fire, destroying it. The General Manager wanted from him within one week: 1: How many thunderstorms there were going to be in the next year and 2: How much damage each one was going to cost the radio station in dollars. How's that for clueless?
If so, that's the reason the CEO does so well! He blows all the people over him....
They do bill it as: "The Internet that knows you" They simply don't elaborate how much it knows....
I know that my joining Slashdot made more difference to its value then any person before me. ;-)
It's a tube computer, so it HAS to sound better then a solid state one.
OS/2 is/was a kickass OS that 1000 books about bad marketing could be written about. It was at least as stable as DOS, if not more so. Seiko paging used OS/2 as the operating system for all their watch paging terminals They ran on IBM 486DX2/66 computers. The paging system used the SCA subcarrier of FM stations. Satellites were used to receiev the signal and then it went through this paging terminal and out the FM transmiter from there. I was Chief Engineer for two of these FM stations for two years until Seiko went out of business and during that time the number of reboots to those computers numbered ZERO! Show me an OS other then pure UNIX today that can make that boast! I also remember that these computers were being used under fairly heavy load 24/7, because each one had to process the data from the entire transponder (Which included every Seiko page made in the U.S.), and send out only the ones desired for the area it transmitted to.
There's so much dark fiber running all over the U.S.!
Vyvx, a petroleum company ran hundreds of thousands of miles of fiber through old oil pipelines. Along most every railroad right of way, you're likely to find lots of dark fiber.
There may be upwards of a half a million miles of the stuff unused. The only saving grace is that eventually some part of it will probably end up getting lit.
I had a friend who owned a medium sized ISP back east. Around 1996 he asked me how to grow his company (he had about 15k subscribers at that point, virtually all dialup). I told him that it was time to take the plunge and either become a major coast to coast player or else get bought out by one. He got bought out by Winstar who put millions into his IP, only to declare bankruptcy and sell back to him at pennies on what they paid him in the first place. He was a lucky one. I wonder what would have happened if he had decided to become a major player. He'd probably be broke. Instead he has some decent $$ in the bank and he's gone back to his smallre roots.
I think that Cantenna is a registered trademark of The Heath Company, a former maker of electronic kits. The Cantenna was (is) a 50 ohm resistor in a black colored 1 gallon paint can that you filled with mineral oil. It then became a 1 kW load that you could test your ham radio into. I'm sure that many ham radio operators remember it.
Okay..I've found the Linux nirvana.n a word: Wirex. Their Immunix server appliance software is the easiest server to set up I've ever seen. Yes I know that you geeks out there will look upon it with disdain, but the bottom line is that Joe Sixpack can figure how to configure this one! And yes, I know this is a shameless plug (and no, I have nothing to do with Wirex) but when you find something this good, you just gotta share it.
The cable Industry hates just about everyone, which is why so many people hate them (back)! First off:, they hate the consumer. They think that the consumer should be married to them and pay whatever they want to charge. The fact is that basic cable now costs close to 40 bucks a month these days, almost three times what it did five years ago. Why? because of consolidation in the industry where these clowns now pay close to $4000 bucks PER subscriber when they buy a cable system. Second: They hate the satellite industry because they give the consumer an alternative choice, usually at a better price. When my friend cancelled his cable for DirecTv the cable rep groused: WE have to charge more because we have to pay a franchise fee to the town. My friend said: Ask me if I care? In reality, the franchise fees average about 5% of their net revenue. Third: They hate DTV, because they have to provide all this extra channel space to it. Fourth: They hate the antenna industry because they help the satellite industry break their lock on local TV carriage. Besides, these days a person with a half decent outdoor antenna might well find that he picks up more over the air stations then his cable system carries. Fifth: The hate Congress for giving parity to the satellite industry. Sixth: They hate the DSL industry, the RBOC's, the ISP's and everyone else connected with it, because they provide a viable alternative to their (now) overpriced, capped, unreliable Internet service. I'm sure that I could come up with another dozen examples upon a few minutes reflection. Hmm..maybe they should change theitr name to the MIKEY industry? After all they do seem to hate everything!
...and they still can't come up with a successful model that will allow them to make a buck from downloadable music. They're a bunch of F**K- ups, what can I say? There's truly no other way to describe these morons. For the TEN MILLIONTH TIME let me try to explain it to these pure idiots: The consumer is willing to pay for downloadable music under the following conditions: First: It must be reasonably priced. The guys who think I'm going to pay a buck a cut for a 128k quality MP3 are nuts! 35-50 cents is more like it. A monthly flat rate for stuff over a year old makes even more sense. Second: I want to be able to play MY songs (emphasis on MY) on my computer, in my car, on my boombox, on my portable player, and anywhere else I see fit. Third:I want a GOOD SELECTION OF SONGS! I HATE the crap coming out on CD these days. Also, I NEED A SOURCE TO HEAR all kinds of music! I half give you credit for this one: at least you got half a clue and stopped biting the hand that fed you with Internet Radio (kinda). Finally:This paranoia over 'copy protection' has simply got to stop! There's a saying that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush! Perhaps it's time that you guys learned that saying, 'cause right now the bunch of you get NOTHING from the bush!...except for Hilary Rosen -maybe- *wink*
PAC Contribution: $100,000 Contribution to RNC: $250,000 Congressional access: Priceless
I never would have wanted to be THIS guy's assistant! First he makes him sick from inhaling quicksilver (Mercury) vapor (very poisonous), then he fries (electrocutes) his hand so bad that he can't use his arm for a month, then the poor guy loses his sight in one eye thanks to the discovery of the laser. How does this guy reward his assistant for giving (literally) so much of himself? He CANS him! And we thought that our employers were assholes! Jeesh!
The Enterprise is from the future..and Linux is the OS of the future!
See, terrorists can put items on ebay and use the money they make to promote more terrorism! So..when you use Ebay, you're helping terrorism.. get it? This will have to be on next week's list. Thank you, John Asscroft
And according to The USA post DMCA, you're guilty unless and until you can prove yourself innocent! The fact that something hasn't been used to break the law doesn't mean that it CAN'T be used in that way. So by doing a pre-emptive strike, the Govt. can make sure that it never will be used to break the law. Get it?
Terrorists use these too after all.
Let me give you a list of things that aid and abet terrirists: 1. Water. Terrorists drink it you know. 2. Toliets. They use these too. 3. Beds. Terrorists sleep you know. 4. Air. They also breathe. 5. Newspapers, books, especially phone books. You know that terrorists wuse codes based upon all of these, don't you? 6. Telephones. Terrorists use the phone to talk to each other 7. The Internet. Enough said? 8. Restaurants. Terrorists meet at restaurants. 9. TV, Cable TV, the radio. Terrorists use all of these to see what their cohorts are up to. 10. Parks. terrorists meet at parks all the time. 11. Train stations, bus stations, airports. Terrorists meet at all these places. They use these to travel. Just think of what they did with airplanes after all. 12. Stores. Terrorists buy items used in terrorism there after all. 13. Cars. Terrorists travel in cars all the time. Same thing with motorcycles, motor scooters and bicycles. We need to BAN these items as soon as possible! Don't be surprised if this is just scratching the surface. Another list will be out next week. Please not that guns are not on the list though. After all, if guns are banned, only terrorists will have guns!
A few years ago, I went on a tour of some of the ghost stations in the Boston Subway. It was a great experience and a litle spooky too. Many of these stations are excatly like they were when they were open...they just locked the doors and turned out the lights. I believe that you can take a tour of the Ghost Stations of the New York subway too. Of course, with all the paranoia of: 'Homeland Insecurity', maybe not.... Here are a couple of links: Boston: Http://members.aol.com/eddanamta/abandoned/abansta s.html
New York: http://www.cc.columbia.edu/~brennan/abandoned/
Repository of all kinds of interesting stuff like this: http://www.deathrock.net/ariadne/ruins.html
Al Quaida got EXACTLY what they wanted on 9/11/2001! Granted, a few thousand died that day..and a couple of buildings went down...but since then lives have been made miserable for MILLIONS...which is exactly what they wanted to to to us! Our freedoms have been curtailed at the airport..like they'll ever try that again..If they did, they'd be thrown out the window by an entire pissed off airplane. The old ideas of hijacking were to comply with the hijackers' demands...but not any more!! Now we have cancer patients being strip searched whose only crime is taking the subway. We have TV cameras looking at us everywhere, connected up to facial reckognization systems. We have more freedoms curtailed since World War II and unlike the ones then, these loss of freedoms are permanent. Yes, the terrorists got exactly what they wanted..a shift in the United States' citizens' right to freedom. The irony is that the REAL terrorists are Bush and Ashcroft and Congress who've perverted this awful event for their own political ends.
Which would actually be great for listening to talk shows. Those glasses and a cell phone would be a talk show junkie on the go's dream! I can hear it now though: "Hello, you're on the air (dead air)...Hello, (sound of breathing) Hello, can you turn down your glasses please, we're on 7 second delay!"
Then you'll see it for 29.95 on Pricewatch..and not need a fan. I can see it now.. the VIA/Cyrix Alpha DLC!
I used to work for a radio station that was owned by a newspaper and located in their building. The advertising circulars used to come in on big pallets WEEKS before they were to be inserted into the Sunday papers. They used to leave the pallets in the garage where most ANYONE could look at them! I'll wager that literally hundreds of papers do the same thing with their circulars. WalMart and any other advertiser has to be pretty freaking naive if they think that they should have any expectation of privacy whatsoever! ....and, don't kid yourself, THEY KNOW IT TOO!!!!!
Then my kids become affected while at school. Let the schools use 'net nanny' to block sites on an 'as found' basis.