My corporation just spent 2 years divesting itself from all Symantec products. We literally finished this last quarter; we've actually removed Symanetc from all of our acquisition systems and our software vendors know to remove it from their customised catalogues.
With the announcement of this deal, the show of hands was unanimous for 'people not returning after christmas' who work on the Veritas account.;)
I wish I could remember whom to attribute this quote, but a study of literature -- any literature -- starts with a basic premise. "Trust the word, not the author." I'd guess Northrope Frye offhand...
I'll offer a very Slashdot-relevant example:
Tolkien argued that his works were not allegorical in nature. However, the most basic and straightforward interpretation of LOTR would allow for the following: it is a 'romantic' lament on the decline of Merrie england in the face of industrialisation. Whether Tolkien had this as his primary focus or not is irrelevant -- that THEME is present in his work, whether intentional or not.
Authors are artists, and artists are never to be trusted. They purpose is to create; their audience's purpose is to ascribe value to their work (if at all). Whether the artist is aware of their contributions is irrelevant. (note: don't tell the MPAA/RIAA this)
For Blade: Trinity, I timed it on my watch -- 27 minutes before the first scene from the movie started. I include 6 layers of promotional Movie Studio logos as commericals.
The way they trick you is through having 2-3 minute commercials... you're expecting a 15-30 second spot like TV, but in the theatre you're a captive audience...you can't flip channels. You're very unlikely to get up and leave in fear of missing the start.
In fairness, I sometimes enjoy the movie trailers...but they're still advertisements.
It's like this ancient evil that lurks under the surface of the apparently peaceful company, just waiting to consume the souls of young programmers. With Tentacles.
Cthulu of Borg? Since its IBM he/she/it will be wearing a blue pin striped suit I'd assume...
Actually, this is a good opportunity to discuss what EA does once they corner a market. From about 1991 - 1997 EA NHL was ~THE~ sports franchise for any platform. High intensity action, good graphics, and marked improvement in gameplay year after year.
However, once EA finished dominating this sport, it branched out into others, gradually trying to recreate the success of the NHL games. As EA diverted its focus, this meant that the franchise began a gradual decline...alot of gimmicks were added in to justify new versions from year to year. PC Gamer discusses the decline of EA NHL in this month's issue.
I'd argue "Success" = "jumped the shark" for EA Sports games. There's no reason to believe that NFL Football under EA will not be the same. EA got the rights to the NFL based on the solid 2005 offering of Madden, and will probably futher improve the game for the first year or two in the deal. But I guarantee that the 2009/2010 Madden will be derivative garbage, EA maximising profits before the license comes due.
When Depp and Burton get together, they rarely disappoint. Next to Mifune/Kurosawa and DeNiro/Scorcese, I don't think you can find a more solid actor/director partnership.
Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The last film isn't as good as the first two, but still a solid production given typical Hollywood fare.
"The light pole near the flash has been inspected and does not show any damage, although the light inside was not working."
I interpret that comment to mean that the light fixture housing is not smashed, and no physical damage has occured. That doesn't mean that the lighting element isn't burnt out, which still supports my original hypothesis.
I disagree that its just a dirty camera lense (because of the before and after photos), but I think Ockham's razor does need to be applied liberally to this situation...
Offhand, i'd guess a burst lightfixture in the streetlamp results in a weird digital camera artifact. Lord knows I've seen some weird photographic behaviour with my Canon A70 which could never be reproduced with analog physical film.
Well, I would say down to two. It is left as an exercise to reader to figure out which one should be left out. In addition one of the remaining OS's should have the vendor prefix removed.
That's funny, I was thinking the list should at least contain 4, if not 5.
AIX and HP-UX are here to stay. If you look at RISC Unix sales, you'll realise that the market is still contains 3 significant market segments.
Sun is trying to position its OS in the commodity space, aka equivalent to Linux and Windows. Take a look at their renewed interest of Solaris on x86. However, in my experience, companies make choices regarding a) discount commodity computing, or b) enterprise/robust computing. You buy Solaris servers for different reasons than why you buy a Linux or Wintel server.
People are reacting to this market-speak in the wrong way...they're preceiving it as an attack on Linux, but only in regards to ownership of linux (waaahh!!! its not just Redhat!!!). His commentary is more finely tuned... he's trying to bring Solaris down-market to make $ on volume. The pitch will be "Why buy Linux with that convoluted vendor stategy and ownership problems? Get the stability of unix at discount pricing on Operton!!!".
They would be charging for the service, not the content. Usenet is public domain... you can archive 10,000,000 gb of information if you wish on your home data storage array too if you'd like.
Calista Flockhart is listed as being born in 1964.
Some quick math 1964 and 1942...uh...divide by..uh...square root...denominator...uh...
Okay, just over 20 years difference. Weight wise though I suspect Portman and Flockhart are a wash, so as usual with statistical science it all comes down to sample size and what you declare as your variable.
For non-Canadian Slashdotters... Canadian Tire is a chain of stores here in Canada that specialises in automobile parts and hardware. Its hugely popular and one of the few homegrown stores here that have fought off the onslaught of US box stores.
They have a loyalty program of sorts, where they give you "Canadian Tire Money" for a % of your purchase (something like 2%?). This is one of the oldest loyalty programs in Canada, as I can remember my dad having Canadian Tire $ in the 1970s, and it must have gone back farther than that.
From time to time, the $ is so popular that people will trade up for it at cash value. Also, from tiem to time, it will be dispensed as 'real' money from cash machines or store tellers due to human error. These make for amusing situations.
The joke for the last few years was that Canadian Tire $ exchanged better with the US $ than our own currency.:) That's obviously no longer the case as the US$ has tanked for the past 18 months...
Once you work for an organisation that has had an IT department longer than the mid-1990s (say, a bank where it goes back 40+ years), you'll realise this article about "Big Iron" is a joke.
Where I work, we have several designations for breaking down inventory. Destkop/Wintel (including stand-alone WinOS servers), Mid-Range (Unix, cluster windows, linux), and Transactional ("Big Iron").
E15ks are big, powerful, and excellent enterprise servers. But...even then they're just servers. Their workload is managed differently (e.g. no batch) and their failure/recovery modes are completely different.
Aside from DEC, I mean Compaq, I mean HP Tandems, MVS (Z/OS, aka OS/390) would be the only thing we consider "Big Iron". Calling an E10k "Big Iron" is equivalent to noob-speak in senior IT corporate circles. If we had Crays, that would be in scope of this definition too.
But snail mail has to be read by meat popsicles which you have to hire, train and pay...
Oh, I agree 100%. Possibility of human error increases tremendously. Online instant access should be a win-win for all concerned.
However...
Ma'n'pa driving the 1970s dodge dart in rural Manitoba probably doesn't have a computer, let alone internet access. In the interests of universal access, you need to keep the most basic contact point alive. If Equifax is forced to do this, then I can't see it being fair to expect them to add another service to their offering without compensation.
If you're proactive and plan-ahead with your financial needs, a 2 week lead time should be more than sufficient.
For comparison purposes, credit reports are free in Canada from both major credit unions -- Transunion and Equifax. You can pay a fee to get instant-access online, but for free you can have a copy mailed to your house (~ 2 weeks) through a mailed, faxed, or 1-800 request.
Given that its ~your~ data, you should always have free unfettered access.
I think its reasonable though for a charge for instant access over the web. Postal service is the lowest-common denominator for universal access, which should be the 'free' service. Secure web platforms don't build themselves for free... The instant access fee is a way of recovering the cost for that convenience.
The scouring of the shrie is NOT in the EE due to dramatic pacing for the big screen (according to Jackson) ~and~ considerations regarding length.
SPOILER
Until I see the movie I can't say for sure, but likely Wormtongue will still be the one to kill off Saurman. And instead of the Hobbit milita shooting down Wormtongue, it will probably be numerous unnamed Rohan horseriders(sp).
In fairness, I'd watch the Indiana Jones or Godfather trilogies before BttF...although my subsequent choices might be lacking in the 'geek' factor since they're not SF. And given the putrid mess of The Matrix sequels i can't be bothered considering them...
For my 30th birthday, I am going to indulge myself in couch-potato madness and watch all 3 trilogies in sequence. 11hr and 20 min is a significant investment of time, but I think it can be done.
7am: friends arrive, pancake breakfast.
8am: Fellowship of the Ring (~4+ hrs)
12:30pm: Lunch
2:00pm: The Two Towers (~3 1/2 hrs)
5:30pm: Dinner
7:00pm: Return of the King (~ 4 1/2 hrs)
11:30pm: Eyes ooze out of our sockets, bedsores open on our asses.
Our first baby is on the way, so I know I'll never get to do something this irresponsible and useless again.:)
Okay, in fairness the picture is a little more balanced. I did some research and here's a more even handed perspective:
"He got divorced from his wife she took half his interest in the company as part of the divorce decree. This meant he no longer had a controlling share. His wife then got together with a couple of other main stock holders (I don't know who exactly) and forced him to step down as President of the company. Faced with the options of dealing with his ex-wife and her cohorts who name had a controlling share of the company he choose to leave." (from usenet)
So technically he was still forced out (or they would have forced him out) but he had a few other options should he have decided to hold out.
Gary Gygax invents D&D (with other contributors, but he was the visionary). Gary Gygax needs money to help found a company to market his product. His wife provides him inherited family money. TSR and D&D become a success.
Unfortunately, on the marital front, his marriage dissolves. His wife retains ownership of all the founding shares, based on some clever legal work. The board is sacked, Gygax is forced out, and he's lost all the intellectual rights to property he helped create.
TSR was a corporate entity, beholden to the majority shareholder. What happened to Gygax is a lesson to ANYONE involved in business -- get a good lawyer. I certainly would have done things differently and probably avoided the scenario, but then again I haven't invented a game played by millions of people.
I think you can make a general statement that any book published by a company documenting its own history is self-serving at best, corporate propaganda most likely, and a purile mastubatory exercise at worst.
RPG companies of the late 1970s in many ways parallel the dot-com industry in the 1990s. Start with a cool idea, driven by young enthusiastic individuals. More people get into the mix. It becomes a business. Business grows. Revenue becomes important. Nature of the beast changes until it becomes unrecognisable -- most likely this is mediocrity, but its also the result of a maturing enterprise.
Gygax is eaten by TSR, TSR is eaten by WOTC, WOTC is eaten by Hasbro. Arguably each step has resulted in a more watered down, inferior product.
On a side note, as for 2nd edition, I think it had the right idea with the original 3 core-rulebooks...but handbook and expansion-itis watered down the product completely. TSR fell into the 'consistent quarterly revenue' trap. As for 3e, I don't even recognise it.
Slashdot Mirror
My corporation just spent 2 years divesting itself from all Symantec products. We literally finished this last quarter; we've actually removed Symanetc from all of our acquisition systems and our software vendors know to remove it from their customised catalogues.
;)
With the announcement of this deal, the show of hands was unanimous for 'people not returning after christmas' who work on the Veritas account.
I wish I could remember whom to attribute this quote, but a study of literature -- any literature -- starts with a basic premise. "Trust the word, not the author." I'd guess Northrope Frye offhand...
I'll offer a very Slashdot-relevant example: Tolkien argued that his works were not allegorical in nature. However, the most basic and straightforward interpretation of LOTR would allow for the following: it is a 'romantic' lament on the decline of Merrie england in the face of industrialisation. Whether Tolkien had this as his primary focus or not is irrelevant -- that THEME is present in his work, whether intentional or not.
Authors are artists, and artists are never to be trusted. They purpose is to create; their audience's purpose is to ascribe value to their work (if at all). Whether the artist is aware of their contributions is irrelevant. (note: don't tell the MPAA/RIAA this)
For Blade: Trinity, I timed it on my watch -- 27 minutes before the first scene from the movie started. I include 6 layers of promotional Movie Studio logos as commericals.
The way they trick you is through having 2-3 minute commercials... you're expecting a 15-30 second spot like TV, but in the theatre you're a captive audience...you can't flip channels. You're very unlikely to get up and leave in fear of missing the start.
In fairness, I sometimes enjoy the movie trailers...but they're still advertisements.
It's like this ancient evil that lurks under the surface of the apparently peaceful company, just waiting to consume the souls of young programmers. With Tentacles.
Cthulu of Borg? Since its IBM he/she/it will be wearing a blue pin striped suit I'd assume...
Actually, this is a good opportunity to discuss what EA does once they corner a market. From about 1991 - 1997 EA NHL was ~THE~ sports franchise for any platform. High intensity action, good graphics, and marked improvement in gameplay year after year.
However, once EA finished dominating this sport, it branched out into others, gradually trying to recreate the success of the NHL games. As EA diverted its focus, this meant that the franchise began a gradual decline...alot of gimmicks were added in to justify new versions from year to year. PC Gamer discusses the decline of EA NHL in this month's issue.
I'd argue "Success" = "jumped the shark" for EA Sports games. There's no reason to believe that NFL Football under EA will not be the same. EA got the rights to the NFL based on the solid 2005 offering of Madden, and will probably futher improve the game for the first year or two in the deal. But I guarantee that the 2009/2010 Madden will be derivative garbage, EA maximising profits before the license comes due.
Just remember... don't bother downloading and installing until MS Toolbar v3.0 is released. (with 2 service packs).
How about: Casablanca: The TV Series. Yes, I'm sorry I am bringing this to you attention but it must be known.
Hollywood is run by people who couldn't pass the ethics test required to become personal injury lawyers.
When Depp and Burton get together, they rarely disappoint. Next to Mifune/Kurosawa and DeNiro/Scorcese, I don't think you can find a more solid actor/director partnership.
Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The last film isn't as good as the first two, but still a solid production given typical Hollywood fare.
"The light pole near the flash has been inspected and does not show any damage, although the light inside was not working."
I interpret that comment to mean that the light fixture housing is not smashed, and no physical damage has occured. That doesn't mean that the lighting element isn't burnt out, which still supports my original hypothesis.
I disagree that its just a dirty camera lense (because of the before and after photos), but I think Ockham's razor does need to be applied liberally to this situation...
Offhand, i'd guess a burst lightfixture in the streetlamp results in a weird digital camera artifact. Lord knows I've seen some weird photographic behaviour with my Canon A70 which could never be reproduced with analog physical film.
Well, I would say down to two. It is left as an exercise to reader to figure out which one should be left out. In addition one of the remaining OS's should have the vendor prefix removed.
That's funny, I was thinking the list should at least contain 4, if not 5.
AIX and HP-UX are here to stay. If you look at RISC Unix sales, you'll realise that the market is still contains 3 significant market segments.
Sun is trying to position its OS in the commodity space, aka equivalent to Linux and Windows. Take a look at their renewed interest of Solaris on x86. However, in my experience, companies make choices regarding a) discount commodity computing, or b) enterprise/robust computing. You buy Solaris servers for different reasons than why you buy a Linux or Wintel server.
People are reacting to this market-speak in the wrong way...they're preceiving it as an attack on Linux, but only in regards to ownership of linux (waaahh!!! its not just Redhat!!!). His commentary is more finely tuned... he's trying to bring Solaris down-market to make $ on volume. The pitch will be "Why buy Linux with that convoluted vendor stategy and ownership problems? Get the stability of unix at discount pricing on Operton!!!".
They would be charging for the service, not the content. Usenet is public domain... you can archive 10,000,000 gb of information if you wish on your home data storage array too if you'd like.
Calista Flockhart is listed as being born in 1964.
Some quick math 1964 and 1942...uh...divide by..uh...square root...denominator...uh...
Okay, just over 20 years difference. Weight wise though I suspect Portman and Flockhart are a wash, so as usual with statistical science it all comes down to sample size and what you declare as your variable.
Or Canadian Tire money....
:) That's obviously no longer the case as the US$ has tanked for the past 18 months...
For non-Canadian Slashdotters... Canadian Tire is a chain of stores here in Canada that specialises in automobile parts and hardware. Its hugely popular and one of the few homegrown stores here that have fought off the onslaught of US box stores.
They have a loyalty program of sorts, where they give you "Canadian Tire Money" for a % of your purchase (something like 2%?). This is one of the oldest loyalty programs in Canada, as I can remember my dad having Canadian Tire $ in the 1970s, and it must have gone back farther than that.
From time to time, the $ is so popular that people will trade up for it at cash value. Also, from tiem to time, it will be dispensed as 'real' money from cash machines or store tellers due to human error. These make for amusing situations.
The joke for the last few years was that Canadian Tire $ exchanged better with the US $ than our own currency.
Beleive it or not, my company still runs OS/2 in our branches. Guess what? 100% rock solid. Stable as hell. Never crash. Cheap to license.
Microsoft tried to pitch an upgrade to us. Windows for Workgroups 3.11, WinNT, Win2k, AND WinXP all failed our durability testing.
We're now tentatively testing a locked-down linux desktop as a theoretical replacement for this coming year.
I 100% agree!
Once you work for an organisation that has had an IT department longer than the mid-1990s (say, a bank where it goes back 40+ years), you'll realise this article about "Big Iron" is a joke.
Where I work, we have several designations for breaking down inventory. Destkop/Wintel (including stand-alone WinOS servers), Mid-Range (Unix, cluster windows, linux), and Transactional ("Big Iron").
E15ks are big, powerful, and excellent enterprise servers. But...even then they're just servers. Their workload is managed differently (e.g. no batch) and their failure/recovery modes are completely different.
Aside from DEC, I mean Compaq, I mean HP Tandems, MVS (Z/OS, aka OS/390) would be the only thing we consider "Big Iron". Calling an E10k "Big Iron" is equivalent to noob-speak in senior IT corporate circles. If we had Crays, that would be in scope of this definition too.
But snail mail has to be read by meat popsicles which you have to hire, train and pay...
Oh, I agree 100%. Possibility of human error increases tremendously. Online instant access should be a win-win for all concerned.
However...
Ma'n'pa driving the 1970s dodge dart in rural Manitoba probably doesn't have a computer, let alone internet access. In the interests of universal access, you need to keep the most basic contact point alive. If Equifax is forced to do this, then I can't see it being fair to expect them to add another service to their offering without compensation.
If you're proactive and plan-ahead with your financial needs, a 2 week lead time should be more than sufficient.
For comparison purposes, credit reports are free in Canada from both major credit unions -- Transunion and Equifax. You can pay a fee to get instant-access online, but for free you can have a copy mailed to your house (~ 2 weeks) through a mailed, faxed, or 1-800 request.
Given that its ~your~ data, you should always have free unfettered access.
I think its reasonable though for a charge for instant access over the web. Postal service is the lowest-common denominator for universal access, which should be the 'free' service. Secure web platforms don't build themselves for free... The instant access fee is a way of recovering the cost for that convenience.
My wife's cat's name is Strider, and the one before that was Wicket.
I think my legacy is assured...;)
The scouring of the shrie is NOT in the EE due to dramatic pacing for the big screen (according to Jackson) ~and~ considerations regarding length.
SPOILER
Until I see the movie I can't say for sure, but likely Wormtongue will still be the one to kill off Saurman. And instead of the Hobbit milita shooting down Wormtongue, it will probably be numerous unnamed Rohan horseriders(sp).
LOL - touche'!
In fairness, I'd watch the Indiana Jones or Godfather trilogies before BttF...although my subsequent choices might be lacking in the 'geek' factor since they're not SF. And given the putrid mess of The Matrix sequels i can't be bothered considering them...
For my 30th birthday, I am going to indulge myself in couch-potato madness and watch all 3 trilogies in sequence. 11hr and 20 min is a significant investment of time, but I think it can be done.
:)
7am: friends arrive, pancake breakfast.
8am: Fellowship of the Ring (~4+ hrs)
12:30pm: Lunch
2:00pm: The Two Towers (~3 1/2 hrs)
5:30pm: Dinner
7:00pm: Return of the King (~ 4 1/2 hrs)
11:30pm: Eyes ooze out of our sockets, bedsores open on our asses.
Our first baby is on the way, so I know I'll never get to do something this irresponsible and useless again.
Okay, in fairness the picture is a little more balanced. I did some research and here's a more even handed perspective:
"He got divorced from his wife she took half his interest in the company as part of the divorce decree. This meant he no longer had a controlling share. His wife then got together with a couple of other main stock holders (I don't know who exactly) and forced him to step down as President of the company. Faced with the options of dealing with his ex-wife and her cohorts who name had a controlling share of the company he choose to leave." (from usenet)
So technically he was still forced out (or they would have forced him out) but he had a few other options should he have decided to hold out.
Gary Gygax invents D&D (with other contributors, but he was the visionary). Gary Gygax needs money to help found a company to market his product. His wife provides him inherited family money. TSR and D&D become a success.
Unfortunately, on the marital front, his marriage dissolves. His wife retains ownership of all the founding shares, based on some clever legal work. The board is sacked, Gygax is forced out, and he's lost all the intellectual rights to property he helped create.
TSR was a corporate entity, beholden to the majority shareholder. What happened to Gygax is a lesson to ANYONE involved in business -- get a good lawyer. I certainly would have done things differently and probably avoided the scenario, but then again I haven't invented a game played by millions of people.
I think you can make a general statement that any book published by a company documenting its own history is self-serving at best, corporate propaganda most likely, and a purile mastubatory exercise at worst.
RPG companies of the late 1970s in many ways parallel the dot-com industry in the 1990s. Start with a cool idea, driven by young enthusiastic individuals. More people get into the mix. It becomes a business. Business grows. Revenue becomes important. Nature of the beast changes until it becomes unrecognisable -- most likely this is mediocrity, but its also the result of a maturing enterprise.
Gygax is eaten by TSR, TSR is eaten by WOTC, WOTC is eaten by Hasbro. Arguably each step has resulted in a more watered down, inferior product.
On a side note, as for 2nd edition, I think it had the right idea with the original 3 core-rulebooks...but handbook and expansion-itis watered down the product completely. TSR fell into the 'consistent quarterly revenue' trap. As for 3e, I don't even recognise it.