I've seen Windows and Microsoft bashed enough on Slashdot, and sometimes for good reasons, but I have to say that the parent post is completely wrong.
1) The Windows Update is installed by default, and (annoyingly) pops up when using a new computer until you tell it what to do. The options are simple: 1) Enable Windows Update (on by default). a) Notify before downloading, b) Download automatically, but don't install. c) Auto-download, and auto-install at scheduled time. Default is Updates ON, but just to notify.
2) Yes, in the past there have been a couple windows updates that were not up to par, but they have become much better. The last problem one I remember was about 2 years ago with an Exchange Update (not security related) messing up an existing exchange server. I have yet to have a security update mess anything up, and I run about 100 windows servers. Like any update, I do test on a non-production box (like staging server or development server) before I push to production, but I have yet to have a problem.
A large chunk of our military aircraft production, especially engines, is out sourced to russian engineers.
Actually, this is not true. Maybe a very small portion of it is outsourced to another country. But the US has a very strict rule about military equipment, it is to be made in the United States.
This is an economic standpoint and a National Defense standpoint. It includes everything from bullets to planes. Why do you think Boeing and Chrysler are still in business? Not because they make the best consummer equipment, but because they make the best military equipment. The government will not let those companies fail. Even if Aerobus came out with a better military aircraft, the US would not buy it.
It all makes sense when you think about it, do we want to be dependant on another country for important military equipment. Even if they are our friends, what happens when someone decided to blow up the boat bringing over the bullets we need for our military?
A little off topic, but I wanted to clear that up
Hopefully, this will encourage other big monopolistic ISPs... cough cough Comcast cough cough to provide internet standards for email.
I've been asking them for years, and not once have they actually responded to my emails. I am tired of having to delete (the same) email on the 4 different machines I use because they only support POP3. And don't get me started on their "web-mail" which doesn't even let you sort by date, sender, etc.
Also, don't forget that different materials shrink and expand in different ways. As a wood worker, I need to take into consideration how wood will expand and contract differently along it's width versus it's length. Without taking this into consideration, a piece of furniture WILL develop split joints or worse, the stress on the wood will cause the wood to split itself (not at a joint). Applying the wood to metal is just trouble waiting to happen. The wood will definately expand much more than the metal as humity rises. Where's it going to go? I know you're going to think that the wood is sealed and therefore won't absorb humidity. That is wrong, it is only mostly sealed, and that depends a lot on the finish that is used too. If it is just an oil finish (tung oil, danish oil), then it's not sealed nearly as much as a polyeurothane finish.
I am sure that with today's modern glues, the veneer will probably stay intact for a few years, but after many cycles of expand/contract, the glue will fail. There some antique furninture (200+years old) with veneer that has failed in comparison.
IANAL, but my roommate is. The Porsche was probably part of the liquidation of assets. If they guy didn't have enough hard cash to pay the settlement/award to AOL, AOL can then start liquidating his assets to get all the money they were awarded. I don't know who gets to choice which particular assets get "disposed" of, but I guess AOL worked with the government to just keep the Porsche as a Porsche and not convert it into cash. The spammer probably made out on the deal also, as I believe the cost of turning assets back to cash would have been charged to the spammer. So instead of converted the $40K Porcshe into $30K cash or whatever someone would have bought it for minus the cost of selling it, the spammer probably got the full 'value' out of it.
I can only give you my experiences. Our company was purchasing new laptops and/or computers for everyone (well- alot of us). Our Director of Technology wanted a Compaq tablet PC. So he got one instead of a kick-ass desktop. (He doesn't travel except a few times a year, doesn't really require a portable.) Aside from the first week, I have yet to see him undock the tablet PC and use it anywhere but his desk. He has a 19" CRT monitor that is the "primary" and the tablet's monitor is setup as the secondary monitor.
He complains now about it being too slow, and it is only a year old, meanwhile, my powerhorse is still pretty kick ass. He gave a few people the option of getting a normal laptop or the tablet PC. There was one other person that got the tablet. I have yet to see him use it as a table, and it too sits nicely docked all day long, and it is this other person's ONLY monitor.
Unfortunately, I think that tablet PCs are in that "cool" status symbol phase that Laptops used to be in. Meaning, there are mostly purchased by people who don't need their functionality, but are bought as a status symbol.
Your post is reminisent of the Invisible Hand theory that I learned about in Economics. The theory is that in a free market society businesses that strive to do their best (make the most profit) end up with creating residual beneficial effects through-out society. It is a cornerstone of the free-market system (in theory). Because as companies attempt to maximize their productivity (economize), they create social benefits (more jobs, more money, etc) that everyone benefits from.
The only drawback (that we learned) from a free-market economy is that wealth is not distributed equally. Also, please note, capitalism is not equal to free market. Capitalism is a modified free-market system, the details of the differences escape me right now though.
The standard practice is to recover assets when leaving a building. Just like a company takes it's servers, desktop computers, chairs, and desks, it also takes the relatively expensive network hook up equipment. This generally means the patch panels and the network racks. One rack, 6 or 7ft high, entirely populated with patch panels could easily have cost $4,000.
Now, in some cases, people are jerks and do not take the time to cut the wires as close to the patch panels as possible. I have seen some cut where the wires enter the room (ussually through the ceiling). This makes re-using the wires impossible since there isn't enough left to do the hookups.
I just recently deployed 15 XP boxes. Took me 2 hours to set them all up, after first installing XP on one of them. I then took the original's hard drive out, and used Drive Image Pro to copy to each new computer. I speed things up by using the first few copies as masters for further copies, so I wasn't waiting on just one master.
I could have burned a CD with the image on it, but that required copying the file to a computer with a CD burner, then burning the image.
The only bummer was that I then had to register the new machines individually with their CD keys so that they were fully functional. But since I had to boot up OFF net to change the name of the machine anyway, it wasn't that big of a deal.
Ok, I'm as much as a geek as the rest, and I liked StarWars.. But I'm not buying the DVD, never.
Why? Lucas doesn't deserve my money anymore. Not counting the latest (earliest) installments of Ep IV and V.. Lucas held out for too long on making these DVDs. Had he made them.. say 5 years ago, I would have bought, now, I realized that a) I can live without them, and b) Lucas just wants as much as my money as possible, without doing anything more to earn it.
How about just an electronic voting system that has redundancy. Example: 1) User votes for who they want to and it is recorded 2) Machine prints out card with users vote 3) Card is checked by user for accuracy 4) Card is then re-inserted into machine to generate the backup tally.
If the tallies from 1 and 4 don't match, the cards are "certified" and then rerun.
Ussually, when I but stuff, I shop around, if you pay MSRP for stuff, I've got a bunch of stuff I'd like to sell you. Here's $2399 for Windows 2003 Enterprise edition:
http://www.atomicpark.com/productList.aspx?familyI d=6354&RefID=6
The only problem with getting feedback from anyone is that it would be very easy to reduce a search engines hit on specific things. Example, say I work for Pepsi, I seach to cola, and say "BAD" for every Coca-Cola result. I script it to submit hundreds of "bads" an hour. Now, I search for Cola, and only get Pepsi results.
I just had an idea. I agree that the song is copyrighted. But a song is actually the combination of the music and the lyrics. So, copying JUST the lyrics is only taking a portion of the copyrighted material.
That is the biggest problem with voting. I'm not sure if it's directly in the constitution, or interpreted from the constitution, but one of the guarantees of voting is that other people will not know who you voted for. From what I've read and heard, it would be illegal to tie a vote to a person, even if it's just for the purposes of auditting.
So knowing that social security number xxx-xx-xxxx has voted could be done, but not who that person voted for, it's not even allowed to be recorded.
Although you are correct in your posting the way things stand now, what if Comcast decides it wants to provide a business VPN type account? Then, using your own VPN will be defrauding Comcast, because I know you won't be paying comcast for VPN access.
Also, currently, comcast charges extra for IP addresses, the point being that you can add more computers to the network. If you add more computers to your network, without paying for it, then you are defrauding Comcast of it's fees.
You see. this is the problem with lawyer'ese speak, there is always an interpretation for each side of the issue.
This guy apparently has never heard of the phrase selective enforcement. For those that do not know, it is illegal to practice selective enforcement. The reason it isn't legal, and shouldn't be is that by only presecuting select individuals, you create an inequity in the justice system (ok.. don't get on me about all the inequities there are now).
The point is that selective enforcement allows people (not laws) to determine who gets punished. Be the wrong skin color, wrong age, not buy-off enough people, and those prosecutors may come after you for simple crimes.
So, in order to send ANY number of people to jail, the prosecutors must show that they are actively persuing all crimes of this nature. In fact, if I was one of these kids I would probably use that as a defense. I would put to burden on the prosecutor to prove to a jury that they are not targeting (profiling) my racial/ethnical/age profile. Show me the hundreds of other cases out there you are investigating, etc..etc..
1) As both pro-microsoft and pro-linux user, I am inclined to believe that this could cause alot of negativity toward Linux. Just like an "anything Microsoft" shop makes pro-linux users cringe, an "anything BUT Microsoft" shop would make someone like me cringe, and I'm pro-linux. I just use both OS'es to the best purpose.
2) College is supposed to prepare people for a career in their desired field. There are benefits for CS majors to have Linux machines, just like there are benefits for NON-CS majors to have Windows machines. If you ignored the students needs, then word will eventually get out that that school is no good for anything. It may take 4 years (current students who graduate and try to get jobs). I beleive that the school would be doing a great dis-service to it's students (who should be more important than the board) if the went all linux.
Actually, it is illegal for anyone to ask for you social security number except for:
1) The purposes of reporting individual tax information (such as wages and salaries).
2) The payment and qualification for social security benefits.
Alot of people do not believe the above, because they have gotten used to it and have accepted that people will use their SSN for means of unique identification number. It's great for database developers to just use your social security number as your customer ID. Because we know that SSN's are unique. Example, if you go to a hospital, what do you think your ID is? Now, you have the absolute, 100% right to refuse to give ANYONE your social security number. (Aside for the above reasons) In the above example, the hostipals will probably insist. But they most definately treat non-americans (either visiting the US or here on a Visa). These people do not have SSN's.
The SSN's have become a defacto National ID card only because people have let it become so.
That being said, your social security number is NOT a national ID card system, although it is being used like one whether we like it or not.
Is WordSpy's definition correct? I have always used the phrase "to google" meaning just to search the web.. Wordspy has it more about searching for info/dirt about someone using a search engine.. "I googled her before I asked her out"
For those that didn't check it out at WordSpy.com:
(GOO.gul) v. To use an Internet search engine such as google.com to look for information related to a new or potential girlfriend or boyfriend. (Note that Google(TM) is a trademark of Google Technologies Inc.)
--Googling pp.
Emphasis added by me.
My comment about this is pretty straight-forward, it's their trademark, but it's everyones language. The cat is out of the bag, so to speak. For the more obscure references, Typewriter used to be a brand name too.
As a taxpayer in the philadelphia area, I need new roads here to get to work more efficiently. Or more accurately, get the other idiot drivers out of my way:-) Why am I supposed to pay for a road that goes no-where in another country?
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1) The Windows Update is installed by default, and (annoyingly) pops up when using a new computer until you tell it what to do. The options are simple: 1) Enable Windows Update (on by default). a) Notify before downloading, b) Download automatically, but don't install. c) Auto-download, and auto-install at scheduled time. Default is Updates ON, but just to notify.
2) Yes, in the past there have been a couple windows updates that were not up to par, but they have become much better. The last problem one I remember was about 2 years ago with an Exchange Update (not security related) messing up an existing exchange server. I have yet to have a security update mess anything up, and I run about 100 windows servers. Like any update, I do test on a non-production box (like staging server or development server) before I push to production, but I have yet to have a problem.
Actually, this is not true. Maybe a very small portion of it is outsourced to another country. But the US has a very strict rule about military equipment, it is to be made in the United States.
This is an economic standpoint and a National Defense standpoint. It includes everything from bullets to planes. Why do you think Boeing and Chrysler are still in business? Not because they make the best consummer equipment, but because they make the best military equipment. The government will not let those companies fail. Even if Aerobus came out with a better military aircraft, the US would not buy it.
It all makes sense when you think about it, do we want to be dependant on another country for important military equipment. Even if they are our friends, what happens when someone decided to blow up the boat bringing over the bullets we need for our military?
A little off topic, but I wanted to clear that up
Hopefully, this will encourage other big monopolistic ISPs ... cough cough Comcast cough cough to provide internet standards for email.
I've been asking them for years, and not once have they actually responded to my emails. I am tired of having to delete (the same) email on the 4 different machines I use because they only support POP3. And don't get me started on their "web-mail" which doesn't even let you sort by date, sender, etc.
Also, don't forget that different materials shrink and expand in different ways. As a wood worker, I need to take into consideration how wood will expand and contract differently along it's width versus it's length. Without taking this into consideration, a piece of furniture WILL develop split joints or worse, the stress on the wood will cause the wood to split itself (not at a joint).
Applying the wood to metal is just trouble waiting to happen. The wood will definately expand much more than the metal as humity rises. Where's it going to go?
I know you're going to think that the wood is sealed and therefore won't absorb humidity. That is wrong, it is only mostly sealed, and that depends a lot on the finish that is used too. If it is just an oil finish (tung oil, danish oil), then it's not sealed nearly as much as a polyeurothane finish.
I am sure that with today's modern glues, the veneer will probably stay intact for a few years, but after many cycles of expand/contract, the glue will fail. There some antique furninture (200+years old) with veneer that has failed in comparison.
IANAL, but my roommate is. The Porsche was probably part of the liquidation of assets. If they guy didn't have enough hard cash to pay the settlement/award to AOL, AOL can then start liquidating his assets to get all the money they were awarded. I don't know who gets to choice which particular assets get "disposed" of, but I guess AOL worked with the government to just keep the Porsche as a Porsche and not convert it into cash. The spammer probably made out on the deal also, as I believe the cost of turning assets back to cash would have been charged to the spammer. So instead of converted the $40K Porcshe into $30K cash or whatever someone would have bought it for minus the cost of selling it, the spammer probably got the full 'value' out of it.
I can only give you my experiences. Our company was purchasing new laptops and/or computers for everyone (well- alot of us). Our Director of Technology wanted a Compaq tablet PC. So he got one instead of a kick-ass desktop. (He doesn't travel except a few times a year, doesn't really require a portable.) Aside from the first week, I have yet to see him undock the tablet PC and use it anywhere but his desk. He has a 19" CRT monitor that is the "primary" and the tablet's monitor is setup as the secondary monitor. He complains now about it being too slow, and it is only a year old, meanwhile, my powerhorse is still pretty kick ass. He gave a few people the option of getting a normal laptop or the tablet PC. There was one other person that got the tablet. I have yet to see him use it as a table, and it too sits nicely docked all day long, and it is this other person's ONLY monitor. Unfortunately, I think that tablet PCs are in that "cool" status symbol phase that Laptops used to be in. Meaning, there are mostly purchased by people who don't need their functionality, but are bought as a status symbol.
Your post is reminisent of the Invisible Hand theory that I learned about in Economics. The theory is that in a free market society businesses that strive to do their best (make the most profit) end up with creating residual beneficial effects through-out society. It is a cornerstone of the free-market system (in theory). Because as companies attempt to maximize their productivity (economize), they create social benefits (more jobs, more money, etc) that everyone benefits from. The only drawback (that we learned) from a free-market economy is that wealth is not distributed equally. Also, please note, capitalism is not equal to free market. Capitalism is a modified free-market system, the details of the differences escape me right now though.
The standard practice is to recover assets when leaving a building. Just like a company takes it's servers, desktop computers, chairs, and desks, it also takes the relatively expensive network hook up equipment. This generally means the patch panels and the network racks. One rack, 6 or 7ft high, entirely populated with patch panels could easily have cost $4,000.
Now, in some cases, people are jerks and do not take the time to cut the wires as close to the patch panels as possible. I have seen some cut where the wires enter the room (ussually through the ceiling). This makes re-using the wires impossible since there isn't enough left to do the hookups.
I just recently deployed 15 XP boxes. Took me 2 hours to set them all up, after first installing XP on one of them. I then took the original's hard drive out, and used Drive Image Pro to copy to each new computer. I speed things up by using the first few copies as masters for further copies, so I wasn't waiting on just one master. I could have burned a CD with the image on it, but that required copying the file to a computer with a CD burner, then burning the image. The only bummer was that I then had to register the new machines individually with their CD keys so that they were fully functional. But since I had to boot up OFF net to change the name of the machine anyway, it wasn't that big of a deal.
Ok, I'm as much as a geek as the rest, and I liked StarWars.. But I'm not buying the DVD, never. Why? Lucas doesn't deserve my money anymore. Not counting the latest (earliest) installments of Ep IV and V.. Lucas held out for too long on making these DVDs. Had he made them.. say 5 years ago, I would have bought, now, I realized that a) I can live without them, and b) Lucas just wants as much as my money as possible, without doing anything more to earn it.
How about just an electronic voting system that has redundancy. Example:
1) User votes for who they want to and it is recorded
2) Machine prints out card with users vote
3) Card is checked by user for accuracy
4) Card is then re-inserted into machine to generate the backup tally.
If the tallies from 1 and 4 don't match, the cards are "certified" and then rerun.
PC users can prepare to drool with envy, again."
Uh.. nope.. I don't think so. I mean, it may be a cool display stand for an iMac.. but that it not a desk, sorry.
What kind of message is that? You are saying that it's OK to lie if the end justifies the means. You should go into politics my friend.
Ussually, when I but stuff, I shop around, if you pay MSRP for stuff, I've got a bunch of stuff I'd like to sell you. Here's $2399 for Windows 2003 Enterprise edition: http://www.atomicpark.com/productList.aspx?familyI d=6354&RefID=6
The only problem with getting feedback from anyone is that it would be very easy to reduce a search engines hit on specific things. Example, say I work for Pepsi, I seach to cola, and say "BAD" for every Coca-Cola result. I script it to submit hundreds of "bads" an hour. Now, I search for Cola, and only get Pepsi results.
I just had an idea. I agree that the song is copyrighted. But a song is actually the combination of the music and the lyrics. So, copying JUST the lyrics is only taking a portion of the copyrighted material.
If I had to pay that amount of money, do I now own those songs and can use them just as if I've bought the original CD?
That is the biggest problem with voting. I'm not sure if it's directly in the constitution, or interpreted from the constitution, but one of the guarantees of voting is that other people will not know who you voted for. From what I've read and heard, it would be illegal to tie a vote to a person, even if it's just for the purposes of auditting.
So knowing that social security number xxx-xx-xxxx has voted could be done, but not who that person voted for, it's not even allowed to be recorded.
Although you are correct in your posting the way things stand now, what if Comcast decides it wants to provide a business VPN type account? Then, using your own VPN will be defrauding Comcast, because I know you won't be paying comcast for VPN access. Also, currently, comcast charges extra for IP addresses, the point being that you can add more computers to the network. If you add more computers to your network, without paying for it, then you are defrauding Comcast of it's fees.
You see. this is the problem with lawyer'ese speak, there is always an interpretation for each side of the issue.
This guy apparently has never heard of the phrase selective enforcement.
For those that do not know, it is illegal to practice selective enforcement.
The reason it isn't legal, and shouldn't be is that by only presecuting select individuals, you create an inequity in the justice system (ok.. don't get on me about all the inequities there are now).
The point is that selective enforcement allows people (not laws) to determine who gets punished. Be the wrong skin color, wrong age, not buy-off enough people, and those prosecutors may come after you for simple crimes.
So, in order to send ANY number of people to jail, the prosecutors must show that they are actively persuing all crimes of this nature. In fact, if I was one of these kids I would probably use that as a defense. I would put to burden on the prosecutor to prove to a jury that they are not targeting (profiling) my racial/ethnical/age profile. Show me the hundreds of other cases out there you are investigating, etc..etc..
I have a few points to make, so bare with me:
1) As both pro-microsoft and pro-linux user, I am inclined to believe that this could cause alot of negativity toward Linux. Just like an "anything Microsoft" shop makes pro-linux users cringe, an "anything BUT Microsoft" shop would make someone like me cringe, and I'm pro-linux. I just use both OS'es to the best purpose. 2) College is supposed to prepare people for a career in their desired field. There are benefits for CS majors to have Linux machines, just like there are benefits for NON-CS majors to have Windows machines. If you ignored the students needs, then word will eventually get out that that school is no good for anything. It may take 4 years (current students who graduate and try to get jobs). I beleive that the school would be doing a great dis-service to it's students (who should be more important than the board) if the went all linux.
Actually, it is illegal for anyone to ask for you social security number except for:
1) The purposes of reporting individual tax information (such as wages and salaries).
2) The payment and qualification for social security benefits.
Alot of people do not believe the above, because they have gotten used to it and have accepted that people will use their SSN for means of unique identification number. It's great for database developers to just use your social security number as your customer ID. Because we know that SSN's are unique. Example, if you go to a hospital, what do you think your ID is? Now, you have the absolute, 100% right to refuse to give ANYONE your social security number. (Aside for the above reasons) In the above example, the hostipals will probably insist. But they most definately treat non-americans (either visiting the US or here on a Visa). These people do not have SSN's. The SSN's have become a defacto National ID card only because people have let it become so. That being said, your social security number is NOT a national ID card system, although it is being used like one whether we like it or not.
Is WordSpy's definition correct? I have always used the phrase "to google" meaning just to search the web.. Wordspy has it more about searching for info/dirt about someone using a search engine.. "I googled her before I asked her out"
For those that didn't check it out at WordSpy.com:
(GOO.gul) v. To use an Internet search engine
such as google.com to look for information
related to a new or potential girlfriend or
boyfriend. (Note that Google(TM) is a
trademark of Google Technologies Inc.)
--Googling pp. Emphasis added by me.
My comment about this is pretty straight-forward, it's their trademark, but it's everyones language. The cat is out of the bag, so to speak. For the more obscure references, Typewriter used to be a brand name too.
As a taxpayer in the philadelphia area, I need new roads here to get to work more efficiently. Or more accurately, get the other idiot drivers out of my way :-)
Why am I supposed to pay for a road that goes no-where in another country?