At an old government job we had rigged up a crude intercom system based on the Suns in everybody's office. The business related use lasted about a day and a half, then things went downhill in the predictable ways.
That concept is hardly new. Back In The Day, Sun workstations used to ship with live microphones built in to the case which had open access rights. Want to listen to a meeting in someone's office? Just telnet to their desktop.
It's not quite the same as a camera, but it was twenty years ago.
Seriously, I could walk down the street to the Goodwill and drop $10 on an old monitor or a PC, but they wouldn't be pretty. For $100 I could buy a decent P-II system used. That's not too bad for something which I can use to help me get a job. Heck, it's less than some unemployed people I have known spent on beer in a month.
Believe it or not, computers don't all cost $4000, have an "Alienware" logo on them and come with artificially intelligent graphics cards from a company called "Skynet".
"It's more than a little tempting to find out the local aracade's IP, nmap it, see if the machine shows up, if sshd is up by default, and uh...oh...Trinity, you around?"
"Cadre kids, don't forget October is bonus recruitment month, earn a double bonus for reporting a family member. ICS your entertainment and information network remind you seeing is believing."
Maybe it's because they couldn't find anyone to buy the unprofitable part of the company. Because, you know, not everybody is dumb.
If you read the fuckin' article instead of just the fuckin' summary you would see that they have been losing money even when you include the profits from the software division. Sometimes just making an "AWESOME" application doesn't mean that you have any cash in the bank or are able to pay your bills.
The $80 million that they made by selling the software unit will let them keep losing $8.1 million a year, which they did last year, for another ten years, during which time they will try to turn things around.
Given the choice between saying "Forget it, we're screwed, everybody go home. We're not going to pay any of our creditors." and making a deal that guarantees almost ten years of continued operation, why is staying in business "dumb"?
"IBM once was asked to setup a system that allowed a certain country to register the religion of each person and that of their parents."
Wow, that's awful. Good thing you don't live in a country which requires its citizens to register things like their age, race, whether or not they were born in that country, their source of income and history of military service with the government on a regular basis. That kind of thing would be intolerable.
Okay, this is a Debian thread, you all know the drill. Everybody who wants to make a crack about Debian packages being at least twenty years old by the time they are released form a line to the right.
Zealotous supporters of other Linux distributions over by the wall. If you have no clue how apt works but still want to say that rpm/emerge/tar is far superior, just raise your hand when we call on you.
If you think you're being pretty darn rebelious by railing against the use of "GNU/Linux", then stand over by the wading pool. We'll get to you once the grown-ups have had their say.
BSD supporters can congregate near the exit. We've heard some rumours about you and I want to make sure you have a clear path to the ambulance in case anything happens.
Everyone who thinks Yggdrasil is the one and only true distribution, there's a special thread for you over in the cafeteria.
How about some important ones?
on
Soyuz To The Moon?
·
· Score: 5, Funny
First game of golf played on another planet or moon: USA, Alan Sheppard, 1971 First wheeled vehicle to be kicked because it wasn't working on another planet or moon: USA, Apollo 15, 1971 First mutant space fungus to be grown entirely in orbit: Russia, Mir, 2000. Bonus points to the USA for bringing the original strain up with them on the space shuttle. First zero-gee sex in orbit: Still waiting for confirmation on this. Suspect a government cover-up of some kind.
"Our security cameras showed that you spent twenty six minutes and eighteen seconds staring directly at Ms. Jones' chest in the last month alone. I'm afraid we're going to have to let you go before she files a sexual harassment complaint with the board. Have a nice day."
On average, salary is only half of what a company pays for an employee. If you count benefits, office space, training, administration and all of the other costs involved that $135k works out to more like a $67,000 salary.
A junior programmer working in Manhattan makes about $60,000 a year according to a recent salary survey, going up to $90,000 for a senior guru. Based on those numbers I don't see anything wrong with the $135k/year figure.
Coders may not _make_ $135,000, but they do _cost_ that much to employ.
Glib's Law only states that there exists _some_ measure with a value greater than that of not measuring. It doesn't say that every measure, no matter how bizarre, is better than nothing. Glib's Law tells us nothing about the value of lines of code.
If measurement for measurement's sake was always a good thing then I could take an eight bit CRC of the source code or the ratio of "e"s to "i"s and use those as metrics for quality.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, more like ten years. I can't count.
At an old government job we had rigged up a crude intercom system based on the Suns in everybody's office. The business related use lasted about a day and a half, then things went downhill in the predictable ways.
That concept is hardly new. Back In The Day, Sun workstations used to ship with live microphones built in to the case which had open access rights. Want to listen to a meeting in someone's office? Just telnet to their desktop.
It's not quite the same as a camera, but it was twenty years ago.
What you have just described is Athens around the fourth and fifth centuries BC.
There is life outside of video games, and things called "Books" that can tell you more about it.
That's odd. I don't recall that phrase being used anywhere in that book.
That's why there's always Vigor.
It's a lot colder in Buffalo than it is in Toronto.
Latitude doesn't mean everything. If it were, why would people live in Chicago, Detroit or Seattle?
You're not one of those triple-E freaks, are you?
"There's no reason to spell it that way now. In fact, there never was one."
You only need to buy a computer once.
Seriously, I could walk down the street to the Goodwill and drop $10 on an old monitor or a PC, but they wouldn't be pretty. For $100 I could buy a decent P-II system used. That's not too bad for something which I can use to help me get a job. Heck, it's less than some unemployed people I have known spent on beer in a month.
Believe it or not, computers don't all cost $4000, have an "Alienware" logo on them and come with artificially intelligent graphics cards from a company called "Skynet".
Don't worry. Even if they do switch, they'll still pay full license fees for every computer once are audited by the BSA.
Wouldn't you rather ask these girls to help?
"Has anybody seen George? He hasn't reported for dinner in over a month."
"Cadre kids, don't forget October is bonus recruitment month, earn a double bonus for reporting a family member. ICS your entertainment and information network remind you seeing is believing."
I'm still disappointed that they didn't stick with their original mascot, Stoolie the Pigeon.
Are you offering to buy it?
It seems they let just about anybody post to Slashdot these days.
Maybe it's because they couldn't find anyone to buy the unprofitable part of the company. Because, you know, not everybody is dumb.
If you read the fuckin' article instead of just the fuckin' summary you would see that they have been losing money even when you include the profits from the software division. Sometimes just making an "AWESOME" application doesn't mean that you have any cash in the bank or are able to pay your bills.
The $80 million that they made by selling the software unit will let them keep losing $8.1 million a year, which they did last year, for another ten years, during which time they will try to turn things around.
Given the choice between saying "Forget it, we're screwed, everybody go home. We're not going to pay any of our creditors." and making a deal that guarantees almost ten years of continued operation, why is staying in business "dumb"?
Wow, that's awful. Good thing you don't live in a country which requires its citizens to register things like their age, race, whether or not they were born in that country, their source of income and history of military service with the government on a regular basis. That kind of thing would be intolerable.
You can both stand wherever you want.
Okay, this is a Debian thread, you all know the drill. Everybody who wants to make a crack about Debian packages being at least twenty years old by the time they are released form a line to the right.
Zealotous supporters of other Linux distributions over by the wall. If you have no clue how apt works but still want to say that rpm/emerge/tar is far superior, just raise your hand when we call on you.
If you think you're being pretty darn rebelious by railing against the use of "GNU/Linux", then stand over by the wading pool. We'll get to you once the grown-ups have had their say.
BSD supporters can congregate near the exit. We've heard some rumours about you and I want to make sure you have a clear path to the ambulance in case anything happens.
Everyone who thinks Yggdrasil is the one and only true distribution, there's a special thread for you over in the cafeteria.
First game of golf played on another planet or moon: USA, Alan Sheppard, 1971
First wheeled vehicle to be kicked because it wasn't working on another planet or moon: USA, Apollo 15, 1971
First mutant space fungus to be grown entirely in orbit: Russia, Mir, 2000. Bonus points to the USA for bringing the original strain up with them on the space shuttle.
First zero-gee sex in orbit: Still waiting for confirmation on this. Suspect a government cover-up of some kind.
"Viola"?
At least that's a step above "Wallah". I'll give you credit for at least getting the first letter right.
"Our security cameras showed that you spent twenty six minutes and eighteen seconds staring directly at Ms. Jones' chest in the last month alone. I'm afraid we're going to have to let you go before she files a sexual harassment complaint with the board. Have a nice day."
On average, salary is only half of what a company pays for an employee. If you count benefits, office space, training, administration and all of the other costs involved that $135k works out to more like a $67,000 salary.
A junior programmer working in Manhattan makes about $60,000 a year according to a recent salary survey, going up to $90,000 for a senior guru. Based on those numbers I don't see anything wrong with the $135k/year figure.
Coders may not _make_ $135,000, but they do _cost_ that much to employ.
I'm not seeing any connection there.
Glib's Law only states that there exists _some_ measure with a value greater than that of not measuring. It doesn't say that every measure, no matter how bizarre, is better than nothing. Glib's Law tells us nothing about the value of lines of code.
If measurement for measurement's sake was always a good thing then I could take an eight bit CRC of the source code or the ratio of "e"s to "i"s and use those as metrics for quality.