I second that. Academia seems to have been fairly impervious to the economic crises lately (at least the school I work at). Yeah, they've been tightening budgets up, but they sure haven't been laying people of in droves.
In addition, they've been fairly generous with training, equipment, hours, and pay.
The downside? For me, its been politics. Lots of people making noise, very few actually getting anything accomplished. I work for an auxiliary part of the college though, not for an actual school or research department, so I can't speak for those.
In addition, you don't have the opportunity to "make it big" like you do in the private sector (however small an opportunity that is). You're pretty much guaranteed a modest, but steady salary for as long as you work there.
And they narrowly avoid getting sqashed on the crosswalk between the business building and the rest of campus. I see it almost every day with my own two eyes: a young man in a suit, busily yapping away on his cell phone, totally ambivilous to the fact that he is crossing against a green light.
I'm missing the point...is it because they're talking on cellphones or because they're business majors?
Yeah, but reducing humanity to a state of 'you can't believe anything you see, anything you're told, or anybody you know' seems like a fucking high price to pay.
You're right in what you say...but it seems to me that price was paid a long time ago.
"It's deceptive," says Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, a nonprofit organization founded by consumer activist Ralph Nader, when told about the campaign. "People will be fooled into thinking this is honest buzz."
Since when did "thinking this is honest buzz" become an endangered consumer right? If these guys can pull it off for $60 mill, congrats, thats a pretty damned clever marketing campaign. I'm sure it will wear thin in due time as others try it and the consumers start seeing through it.
I was watching Minority Report trying to figure out how they might be able to do that directed advertising you'd see in the scenes where Mr. Cruise would be walking through the public areas, hearing advertisements spoken to him directly. This seems like just the answer, every single person that walked by would get eye-scanned, ID'd, and have a custom ad delivered straight to their ears.
Yeah, but have you ever used one of those? It's ok for fine-tuning the timing of the song to match beats and what not, but for genuine scratching and holding, nothing is the same as literally having the tunes right under your fingers. There's just something eminently satisfying about it.
Not pretending that I understood everything this guy did, it still looks like an improvement over the current "digital turntables"
Wouldn't that be a great game...RIAA and Rep. Berman's best against the hacker community. Assuming they didn't use distributed compromised machines to level their DoS attack (because that would be illegal cracking, as opposed to the legal kind) then it seems that these DoS attacks would be fairly easy to stop.
If I had a "good" relationship with the higher-ups at the current company (as in, there's mutual trust, respect, and it's more probable that they'll work with you rather than screw you), I'm not sure that laying a contract down on the table would be a great thing to do when they've just offered you a 50% pay raise.
That would make it obvious that, while you want more money, you're not willing to trust them any further than you have to. I know you need to look out for yourself, but looking out for yourself involves maintaining stable relationships with those who control your employment. And if I were a boss and had just made a major offer to an employee, and they turned around and lay their own terms down, I wouldn't view that as grateful.
Sticky situation. If I were at a major corp. I would definitely make out the contract b/c they don't give a rat's ass about firing you the next day, but a smaller co. where you are actually dealing with human beings...I don't know that a contract would be the best way to express your confidence in their offer.
but it also infuriated members of the open source
community by aggressively introducing proprietary standards to the public Internet, something
they felt no one should own. Conveniently, Netscape turned its enemies to Microsoft and their
new browser, Internet Explorer.
That has to be one of my favorite parts. Alright, maybe there's some truth to the Netscape part, but what the hell has IE been doing for the last few years if not trying to force their own proprietary standards on people?!?!
ActiveX? Non-standard HTML? C'mon!!
And what's so "convenient" about it? That these users were turned to the same corporation that's funding this whole POS (not a fact, but sure seems likely).
More work for the overworked
on
Data Quality Act
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The law, which takes full effect on Oct. 1, creates a system under which anyone could point out errors in documents; if an error is confirmed, an agency would have to remove the data from government Web sites and publications.
Wow, and I thought the government moved slow as it was. If they're having to devote staff to following up on any possible error pointed out by anyone they're either: a) going to grind to a complete halt or b) not post any information in the first place (which I guess is the point).
Asinine? No, probably extremely paranoid, but I think its smart to look how far laws could go if they go unchecked.
Consider my example, you're in an online chat and the topic of drugs comes up. So your name goes in an FBI file regarding drugs, regardless of the fact that you don't use them, you were just talking about them online. Now you are potentially being investigated (opening all sorts of other doors into your private life) for something you don't have anything to do with.
Suddenly we all have to watch exactly what we say and do online to make sure it falls in line with Big Brothers ideals, otherwise we're under suspicion. Its a leap, but I don't consider it a stupid one.
Christ, give it a break. I know there's an anti-anti-Microsoft backlash here, but for fuck's sake all he did was mention the previous employer with absolutely NO bias or connotations. If the guy had been employed at XYZ University, I'm sure it would have still shown up.
From the USA Today article regarding the FBI restrictions being loosened:
Officials said they believe that terrorists unknown to the FBI have taken advantage of such policies by meeting in mosques or Internet chat rooms where agents were unlikely to be watching. That was the case with most of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers, officials said.
But the NY Times article only says they were meeting in mosques, and I've heard no other proof of Internet chat rooms being a contributer to 9/11.
So that justifies placing agents in chat rooms for the sole purpose of developing leads?
In addition, from NY Times:
Among other changes, the new guidelines let agents search Web sites and online chat rooms for evidence of terrorists' planning or other criminal activities.
It's that "other criminal activities" that has me worried. If someone is talking about drugs (regardless of whether or not they actually use them), does Uncle Sam track 'em down and start a file? And "terrorist activities"...seems that they could possibly keep pushing that one until anything that criticizes "Our Great Country" could lead to an investigation.
Seems to me the Thought Police can't be far behind.
Seems to me that would make a great stealth missle then...design a missle that purposefully wobbles and "dances around" in midflight.
I don't even pretend that it would be easy to create a stable unstable flight, but it seems that if something so dumb can elude our ultra-high-tech anti-missile systems, then maybe we should consider doing the same thing on purpose. Without letting the missle turn in to a mass of flying shrapnel though.
Fahrenheit 451?
on
Paintable LCDs
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
The technique could create giant TV screens
Holy buh-jeezus! Did anyone else read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury?
It was scary enough when they brought out those flat-panel plasma screens (not that I'm complaining), but now that you could paint all 4 walls w/ television screens...
This combined with the advent of Aibo (remeber the mechanical dog in the firehouse?), seems to me Bradbury was dead on.
He is the person in charge of a top-down implementation of Linux software at Merrill Lynch.
and
one of the big benefits that Carey sees is that Merrill can write an application once and then deploy it with minimal work on mainframes, minicomputers, desktops, laptops and handhelds
Sounds to me like that means top-down. I doubt most of the brokers were using Solaris 8 (or whatever) on their local handheld.
On top of that, I created my account with the Passport user name of "Joe Shmo" (note: that's not really my name). Its kind of funny when I start receiving volumes of spam address to "Joe" or "Mr. Shmo".
And no, I don't use that name or alias regularly on the net.
> but after being into computers for over 15 years
Seriously? Christ...I can't count how many machines I've installed Linux/Win9x/WinNT/Win2K/whatever on (and I know that number is much lower than most people on/.) and I have either never experienced the problems you're experiencing or figured out some way around them. What on earth are you trying to do with those things?
I think that no matter what technology the recording industry comes out with, the general unpopularity of it will drive it straight into the ground. After we all pay $12+ for a CD, don't we have the right to record it to our computer/MP3 player/mix CD?
While this does allow it to become freely distributed over the internet, how is the anti-piracy technology supposed to tell the difference between our legitimate copy and the pirated copy. I really don't think they can do it without seriously pissing off the public.
Slashdot Mirror
In addition, they've been fairly generous with training, equipment, hours, and pay.
The downside? For me, its been politics. Lots of people making noise, very few actually getting anything accomplished. I work for an auxiliary part of the college though, not for an actual school or research department, so I can't speak for those.
In addition, you don't have the opportunity to "make it big" like you do in the private sector (however small an opportunity that is). You're pretty much guaranteed a modest, but steady salary for as long as you work there.
I'm missing the point...is it because they're talking on cellphones or because they're business majors?
You're right in what you say...but it seems to me that price was paid a long time ago.
"It's deceptive," says Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, a nonprofit organization founded by consumer activist Ralph Nader, when told about the campaign. "People will be fooled into thinking this is honest buzz."
Since when did "thinking this is honest buzz" become an endangered consumer right? If these guys can pull it off for $60 mill, congrats, thats a pretty damned clever marketing campaign. I'm sure it will wear thin in due time as others try it and the consumers start seeing through it.
Scary.
When will this tripe no longer funny? I'm sorry, I thought that point had passed LONG ago.
Or excessively brave/stupid test pilots.
Those guys must have balls the size of boulders.
Not pretending that I understood everything this guy did, it still looks like an improvement over the current "digital turntables"
I see the potential for weeks of amusement here.
Leading the way where? Speak of the blind leading the blind...
And here I was thinking *BSD's whole principle was solid, (mostly) bug-free code. Guess they aren't "publicly" leading the way, so they don't count.
Server: Apache/1.3.19 (Unix) PHP/3.0.18
X-Powered-By: PHP/3.0.18
For someone whose business is to prevent the spread of information, that seems a bit ironic that they're using GPL'd software.
Not that I blame them, hell, its a whole lot cheaper than the alternatives...but still....
That would make it obvious that, while you want more money, you're not willing to trust them any further than you have to. I know you need to look out for yourself, but looking out for yourself involves maintaining stable relationships with those who control your employment. And if I were a boss and had just made a major offer to an employee, and they turned around and lay their own terms down, I wouldn't view that as grateful.
Sticky situation. If I were at a major corp. I would definitely make out the contract b/c they don't give a rat's ass about firing you the next day, but a smaller co. where you are actually dealing with human beings...I don't know that a contract would be the best way to express your confidence in their offer.
That has to be one of my favorite parts. Alright, maybe there's some truth to the Netscape part, but what the hell has IE been doing for the last few years if not trying to force their own proprietary standards on people?!?!
ActiveX? Non-standard HTML? C'mon!!
And what's so "convenient" about it? That these users were turned to the same corporation that's funding this whole POS (not a fact, but sure seems likely).
Wow, and I thought the government moved slow as it was. If they're having to devote staff to following up on any possible error pointed out by anyone they're either: a) going to grind to a complete halt or b) not post any information in the first place (which I guess is the point).
Consider my example, you're in an online chat and the topic of drugs comes up. So your name goes in an FBI file regarding drugs, regardless of the fact that you don't use them, you were just talking about them online. Now you are potentially being investigated (opening all sorts of other doors into your private life) for something you don't have anything to do with.
Suddenly we all have to watch exactly what we say and do online to make sure it falls in line with Big Brothers ideals, otherwise we're under suspicion. Its a leap, but I don't consider it a stupid one.
Christ, give it a break. I know there's an anti-anti-Microsoft backlash here, but for fuck's sake all he did was mention the previous employer with absolutely NO bias or connotations. If the guy had been employed at XYZ University, I'm sure it would have still shown up.
Officials said they believe that terrorists unknown to the FBI have taken advantage of such policies by meeting in mosques or Internet chat rooms where agents were unlikely to be watching. That was the case with most of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers, officials said.
But the NY Times article only says they were meeting in mosques, and I've heard no other proof of Internet chat rooms being a contributer to 9/11.
So that justifies placing agents in chat rooms for the sole purpose of developing leads?
In addition, from NY Times:
Among other changes, the new guidelines let agents search Web sites and online chat rooms for evidence of terrorists' planning or other criminal activities.
It's that "other criminal activities" that has me worried. If someone is talking about drugs (regardless of whether or not they actually use them), does Uncle Sam track 'em down and start a file? And "terrorist activities"...seems that they could possibly keep pushing that one until anything that criticizes "Our Great Country" could lead to an investigation.
Seems to me the Thought Police can't be far behind.
I don't even pretend that it would be easy to create a stable unstable flight, but it seems that if something so dumb can elude our ultra-high-tech anti-missile systems, then maybe we should consider doing the same thing on purpose. Without letting the missle turn in to a mass of flying shrapnel though.
Holy buh-jeezus! Did anyone else read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury?
It was scary enough when they brought out those flat-panel plasma screens (not that I'm complaining), but now that you could paint all 4 walls w/ television screens...
This combined with the advent of Aibo (remeber the mechanical dog in the firehouse?), seems to me Bradbury was dead on.
Probably the most insightful thing I've heard in a long time.
and
Sounds to me like that means top-down. I doubt most of the brokers were using Solaris 8 (or whatever) on their local handheld.
On top of that, I created my account with the Passport user name of "Joe Shmo" (note: that's not really my name). Its kind of funny when I start receiving volumes of spam address to "Joe" or "Mr. Shmo".
And no, I don't use that name or alias regularly on the net.
Seriously? Christ...I can't count how many machines I've installed Linux/Win9x/WinNT/Win2K/whatever on (and I know that number is much lower than most people on /.) and I have either never experienced the problems you're experiencing or figured out some way around them. What on earth are you trying to do with those things?
God's trying to tell you something.
Heh, they better come out with the 30 second model for some of us.
*sigh* Can't believe I stooped even lower
While this does allow it to become freely distributed over the internet, how is the anti-piracy technology supposed to tell the difference between our legitimate copy and the pirated copy. I really don't think they can do it without seriously pissing off the public.