I for one can't wait for the Götterdammerung that will result from this one.
What the hell does Götterdammerung mean? Speak English, man! If the Romulans, Ferengi and Borg all speak English, is it really too much to ask that you speak it as well? Sheesh...
P.S.: Upon your arrival at our Guantonimo Bay processing center you will be required to provide five (5) forms of identification. You must also provide them with your assigned processing identification code. Your identification code is
swmag_4638391_chemweap_983
Failure to provide this information upon check-in will extend the duration of your processing by approximately 6-18 months.
Your recent posting to the underground hacking network "slash-period" regarding Halon has been detected by our information bots. Halon is on the list of 638,931 chemicals maintained by the Ministry of Homeland Security as potentially lethal to Americans. Please report immediately to our facility in Guantonimo Bay for processing while we investigate your interest in this chemical. Do not inform friends and co-workers of your reassignment.
In my time there I have had no negative feedback...
Yeah, but have you received any positive feedback while you've been there? (I know you mention one promotion your got -- but anything else?) Maybe they think you're just an average employee.
I'd like to use it at video rental places and CD stores to get product reviews.
Are you kidding? Consumers with the power to make instant informed decisions?
The only way I'd consider these movie reviews to help me making informed decisions would be if those hyperlinks are pointing towards the relevant entry at this site!
Well put. I can't see why a video or CD store would provide hyperlinks to completly unbiased reviews of the products they are trying to sell or rent. Most likely, large stores like Blockbuster could have the resources to write reviews of most of the products they sell and set the hyperlinks to point to those glowing reviews. So I don't see this as much of a benefit to the consumer.
Of course, it might be quite useful to the stores themselves. By recording how many people click for reviews on what products, they might be able to determine things like how effective their display shelves are, what types of people are potentially interested in what products and so on. Hell, what's to stop the store from placing a cookie on your cell-phone and tracking which movies you are asking reviews for?
Then there's the whole issue of whether you want the store to be tracking your interests. Can you imagine the warning lights that would go off if you are under 18 and asking for a review of "Cum Buttered Cornholes Vol. 6"? Or if you have an Arabic-sounding last name and have been asking for reviews on action shoot-em-up movies? Might as well turn yourself in to Asscroft right now.
While it's tempting to jump for joy, I'm not sure this is really anything meaningful. Remember that TIA ia a DARPA program, meaning that it's technology that is still very much in its infancy. TIA probably wouldn't be able to be rolled out for several years yet just because it hasn't been developed, yet alone tested, yet. True, whenever it finally IS ready for action they'll need to get congressional approval but who knows what the world will be like then? Hell, maybe this action will be repealed between now and then!
In short, I'm not sure this is much to celebrate. It seems like an attempt on the part of congress to reassure the public without actually putting any meaningful constraints on DARPA or the TIA program.
And did I mention that Linda Hamilton's speech about the wonders of childbirth was possibly the most disgusting thing committed to celluloid in the last ten years? I think "T2" probably did as much for a shortage of kids becoming scientists as anything else.
Look, I agree that Linda's ranting in T2 about how scientists are evil and so forth was insulting but I think it was pretty clear from the movie that she was just talking crazy. Even young John Conner realizes that she's teetering on shaky ground with the nonsense she spews.
The reasons why kids don't want to become scientists is a topic well outside the scope of movie reviews of T2 and T3. Here are a couple potential reasons that are much more likely than Linda Hamilton's speech in T2:
Scientists don't get fame or fortune from their work (and by fame I'm talking about recognition by the general public, not their scientific collegues)
Science is hard work and most people don't want to dedicate themselves to their career that much
Many scientific disciplines are taught in such a bland manner that it's not until kids take advanced classes in a subject do they start to see why interesting it can be
The dot-com era convinced many talented youngsters that designing websites allowing people to purchase dogfood online would be a greater contribution to humanity than performing detailed research in the physical, natural or biological sciences
After the cold war, the US government decided that science was no longer funding at such high levels since we didn't need to show off how superior we were to the Soviets. Potential future scientists caught wind of the funding shortful and quickly changed their career trajectories
Well, I could go on and on. But I think you're way off the mark by blaming the current scientific woes on a blurb in one movie.
You'd think Japan would be the last place to be having trouble getting a large, heavy, stiff object to fly at great speeds. Can't they just study how Rodan does it?
Next you'll be telling me they're having trouble demolishing buildings...
I certainly hope someone at that company has the balls to say Nemesis sucked because we made it suck, and shop for a decent script for a new movie.
A few weeks ago us.imdb.com had a brief blurb stating that Patrick Stewart had formally decided that Nemesis would be his last Trek. He said he was bitterly disappointed with the poor reception of the film and he thought it was actually quite good. Apparently he's pissed off enough that he's vowed never to do another Trek. He said that he was sorry that it would have to end on a low note but that he had lost all interest. Sorry I don't have a link.
I only use file swapping services for new release movies, software and pr0n. I have nothing to fear from the RIAA.
Funny that, isn't it? Even though the RIAA and MPAA are claming that p2p sharing is killing their business, you never hear the adult industry complaining about p2p. Perhaps they have modified their business model so that p2p sharing has only limited negative effect (or maybe even a positive effect). Boy, that would be something, wouldn't it? If all the fancy RIAA and MPAA business managers couldn't figure out something that Ron Jeremy did! Man, talk about humiliation!
Perhaps a wiser use of our money would be to establish a national DNA database of these whackos that are spending their free time pretending to kill people...
No, no, you've got it all wrong. "Wackos" pretend to kill people while watching a computer screen. "Whackos" pretend they're having sex with people (usually sexy women) while watching a computer screen.
Y'know, it's getting harder and harder to determine which of these slashdot stories is a legitmate duplicate and which are actually technically "new" but are actually just a new helping of the same old stuff.
Microsoft promises to crack down on spam or increase security
RIAA terrorises some college kids
Clueless politicans pass some law that doesn't really make any sense
It's getting harder and harder to indentify dupes here!
Really, if there is worry that ex-employees will try to sabotage things, shouldn't that be an indication that the company didn't treat them very well in the first place? I guess escorting them out is just a continuation of that...
Anyone who gets fired can be expected to be a little upset... but I think it takes a vested hatred of the company to start sabotaging things.
That's because you're thinking like a mature, intelligent, emotionally-stable individual (I'll ignore the fact that I ran into you on slashdot:) ). I think that people are very unpredictable. I can easily see situations in which an employee is under some delusion that the company loves him. Then the hammer falls: he gets fired. Who can say how s/he's going to react? Their whole worldview and opinion of themselves comes crashing down. I wouldn't trust someone like that to quietly pack up their things and leave without doing anything harmful. I'm sorry, but I think your assumption that "it takes a vested hatred of the company to start sabotaging things." is a little naive. And even if *I* didn't think this way, management most certainly does.
The way the company handled it though came across as if they trusted me about as much as they trusted a potential disgruntled employee. It comes across as a lack of respect for the person leaving and their level of responsibility.
Yes, I understand that it's not "nice" or "fair" but companies don't really care about those things. They are playing it safe by assuming you're as bad as everyone else. Besides, would it really be any "nicer" for the company to escort certain employees out and let others take their time?
The best part of it was the companies core values and beliefs touted the fact that they believed firmly in giving individuals respect and that individuals treated with respect acted accordingly. But their treatment of those is another story.
You seem to already understand that their stated core values were really just words on a page to them. Also, you should double check that their stated core values really say "treating individuals with respect" and not "treating employees with respect". Since you just severed your relationship with them -- amicable or not -- I'm not sure why I see that they should still be held to those core values with regards to a now-former employee.
I'm not trolling or flaming you. I do understand the points you're making. I'm just saying that you have to look at this whole situation from the company's point of view. You remember how the LAPD told O.J. "Sure, you can turn yourself in down at the station when it's convienent, Juice. We don't want this to be any more embarrasing for you than it already is." Well, we know how well that approach went. Even if you seem like a nice guy, no manager is going to risk that one-in-a-million chance that you might go bonkers on your way out. That's the way PHB think. Remember, it's called "Human resources" and not "personel" for a reason.
The reason employers do this "kick them out quick" approach is not out of spite but, rather, to protect themselves from employees who might try to exact some revenge on their way out. A just-fired employee might try to sabotage the computer system (particulary if file permissions are not set correctly). There's a whole bunch of things that a disgruntled employee can do to hurt his former employer. Giving them access to any work equipment or materials just after they got laid off or fired is very unwise.
I, too, am very into martial arts (not Wing Chun, though). Although most people think of fancy fighting moves when they think of martial arts, I tend to think of things such as "mastery of self" and "developing control over mind and body". I think the development of control and desire to improve oneself are found in many geeks. In fact, I would go so far as to say that programming clearly requires control and serious thought as to what you're doing. Many geeks would rather code up their own version of a subroutine rather than use a "canned" one so that they can fully understand what exactly the routine does. They also like to tweak and modify their code to obtain optimum performance by whatever measure they desire (e.g., memory usage vs. runtime). I believe that martial arts has similar goals. It is not enough for a martial artist to throw a punch or kick. S/he wants to understand what makes a strike effective. How can it be improved? Under what conditions/input parameters should a course of action be followed? And so forth.
If us slashdotters were simply interested in having something that works "well enough", we'd all be running Windoze. But most people here have an affinity towards Linux which allows users who have the requisite knowledge and motivation to customize the experience to tailor their individual desires. So it is with martial arts as well. By studying martial arts one gains a better knowledge and appreciation for your body and movement. Fighting is simply the most obvious application. What martial artists are really after is total control. Just like Linux users.
I think that martial artists are "power users" of their body and mind. I hope that doesn't sound too arrogant. But studying martial arts takes real commitment. It's exhausting work. The bruises and injuries you accrue during sparing are not fun to endure. So why do people study martial arts? Because they really want to beat people up? Because they want to show off? For any of you who have met people who are serious about their martial art, you know that typically these people are very kind, considerate and modest.
To those slashdotters who are looking for a non-tech hobby/activity that still features a lot of the core values that you find fascinating about computing, I would encourage you to give martial arts a try. You compete only against yourself and strive towards mastery of your body and mind.
Don't listen to anyone at all who disses this. They underestimate how much people will put up with if you are confident and very good at what you do. I rate the confidence as more key than anything else. If you don't treat it as strange or unusual, people will put up with quite a bit.
Fair enough. But if this guy is asking the slashdot crowd for feedback before getting body modification, I'm guessing he's not exactly oozing with self-confidence.
There's nothing like having a batter stare down an ump or kick dirt or get thrown out of a game.
In addition to the crowd-pleasing aspect of man-on-man confrontation, there's also the wrinkle that having a batter judged by a machine is somewhat at odds with the entire American way of doing things. Our criminal justice system, for example, gives the accused the right to confront the accuser in a court of law. A lot of Americans believe very strongly in that type of system. I imagine that lots of fans aren't going to like the idea of a batter being called out on strikes because of the calcuations of a machine.
Slashdot Mirror
I for one can't wait for the Götterdammerung that will result from this one.
What the hell does Götterdammerung mean? Speak English, man! If the Romulans, Ferengi and Borg all speak English, is it really too much to ask that you speak it as well? Sheesh...
GMD
P.S.: Upon your arrival at our Guantonimo Bay processing center you will be required to provide five (5) forms of identification. You must also provide them with your assigned processing identification code. Your identification code is
swmag_4638391_chemweap_983
Failure to provide this information upon check-in will extend the duration of your processing by approximately 6-18 months.
Dear swmagazine:
Your recent posting to the underground hacking network "slash-period" regarding Halon has been detected by our information bots. Halon is on the list of 638,931 chemicals maintained by the Ministry of Homeland Security as potentially lethal to Americans. Please report immediately to our facility in Guantonimo Bay for processing while we investigate your interest in this chemical. Do not inform friends and co-workers of your reassignment.
Sincerely,
Thomas Ridge
John Ashcroft
In my time there I have had no negative feedback...
Yeah, but have you received any positive feedback while you've been there? (I know you mention one promotion your got -- but anything else?) Maybe they think you're just an average employee.
GMD
I'd like to use it at video rental places and CD stores to get product reviews.
Are you kidding? Consumers with the power to make instant informed decisions?
The only way I'd consider these movie reviews to help me making informed decisions would be if those hyperlinks are pointing towards the relevant entry at this site!
GMD
Well put. I can't see why a video or CD store would provide hyperlinks to completly unbiased reviews of the products they are trying to sell or rent. Most likely, large stores like Blockbuster could have the resources to write reviews of most of the products they sell and set the hyperlinks to point to those glowing reviews. So I don't see this as much of a benefit to the consumer.
Of course, it might be quite useful to the stores themselves. By recording how many people click for reviews on what products, they might be able to determine things like how effective their display shelves are, what types of people are potentially interested in what products and so on. Hell, what's to stop the store from placing a cookie on your cell-phone and tracking which movies you are asking reviews for?
Then there's the whole issue of whether you want the store to be tracking your interests. Can you imagine the warning lights that would go off if you are under 18 and asking for a review of "Cum Buttered Cornholes Vol. 6"? Or if you have an Arabic-sounding last name and have been asking for reviews on action shoot-em-up movies? Might as well turn yourself in to Asscroft right now.
GMD
While it's tempting to jump for joy, I'm not sure this is really anything meaningful. Remember that TIA ia a DARPA program, meaning that it's technology that is still very much in its infancy. TIA probably wouldn't be able to be rolled out for several years yet just because it hasn't been developed, yet alone tested, yet. True, whenever it finally IS ready for action they'll need to get congressional approval but who knows what the world will be like then? Hell, maybe this action will be repealed between now and then!
In short, I'm not sure this is much to celebrate. It seems like an attempt on the part of congress to reassure the public without actually putting any meaningful constraints on DARPA or the TIA program.
GMD
And did I mention that Linda Hamilton's speech about the wonders of childbirth was possibly the most disgusting thing committed to celluloid in the last ten years? I think "T2" probably did as much for a shortage of kids becoming scientists as anything else.
Look, I agree that Linda's ranting in T2 about how scientists are evil and so forth was insulting but I think it was pretty clear from the movie that she was just talking crazy. Even young John Conner realizes that she's teetering on shaky ground with the nonsense she spews.
The reasons why kids don't want to become scientists is a topic well outside the scope of movie reviews of T2 and T3. Here are a couple potential reasons that are much more likely than Linda Hamilton's speech in T2:
Well, I could go on and on. But I think you're way off the mark by blaming the current scientific woes on a blurb in one movie.
GMD
IE things stop happening the way that they happened the previous time.
I think all Microsoft products have that problem with reproducability -- not just IE! :)
GMD
You'd think Japan would be the last place to be having trouble getting a large, heavy, stiff object to fly at great speeds. Can't they just study how Rodan does it?
Next you'll be telling me they're having trouble demolishing buildings...
GMD
Photographs showed a round leathery substance like a mammoth jelly fish, about as long as a school bus.
So show us the above mentioned photographs already! What the fuck kind of tease is this?
GMD
A plane this fast has got to have tremendous spy potential. Remember the U2?
Actually, we already have a hypersonic spyplane: the SR-71
GMD
I think the Columbia disaster painfully illustrates the significant problems of hypersonic flight.
No, the Columbia disaster painfully illustrates the significant problems of NASA's bureaucracy and incompetence.
GMD
I certainly hope someone at that company has the balls to say Nemesis sucked because we made it suck, and shop for a decent script for a new movie.
A few weeks ago us.imdb.com had a brief blurb stating that Patrick Stewart had formally decided that Nemesis would be his last Trek. He said he was bitterly disappointed with the poor reception of the film and he thought it was actually quite good. Apparently he's pissed off enough that he's vowed never to do another Trek. He said that he was sorry that it would have to end on a low note but that he had lost all interest. Sorry I don't have a link.
GMD
Maybe I'm a little out of touch with gaming these days but is there really so much rape in videogames these days that it deserves it's own category?
GMD
I only use file swapping services for new release movies, software and pr0n. I have nothing to fear from the RIAA.
Funny that, isn't it? Even though the RIAA and MPAA are claming that p2p sharing is killing their business, you never hear the adult industry complaining about p2p. Perhaps they have modified their business model so that p2p sharing has only limited negative effect (or maybe even a positive effect). Boy, that would be something, wouldn't it? If all the fancy RIAA and MPAA business managers couldn't figure out something that Ron Jeremy did! Man, talk about humiliation!
GMD
Perhaps a wiser use of our money would be to establish a national DNA database of these whackos that are spending their free time pretending to kill people...
No, no, you've got it all wrong. "Wackos" pretend to kill people while watching a computer screen. "Whackos" pretend they're having sex with people (usually sexy women) while watching a computer screen.
GMD
Y'know, it's getting harder and harder to determine which of these slashdot stories is a legitmate duplicate and which are actually technically "new" but are actually just a new helping of the same old stuff.
It's getting harder and harder to indentify dupes here!
GMD
Really, if there is worry that ex-employees will try to sabotage things, shouldn't that be an indication that the company didn't treat them very well in the first place? I guess escorting them out is just a continuation of that...
Anyone who gets fired can be expected to be a little upset... but I think it takes a vested hatred of the company to start sabotaging things.
That's because you're thinking like a mature, intelligent, emotionally-stable individual (I'll ignore the fact that I ran into you on slashdot :) ). I think that people are very unpredictable. I can easily see situations in which an employee is under some delusion that the company loves him. Then the hammer falls: he gets fired. Who can say how s/he's going to react? Their whole worldview and opinion of themselves comes crashing down. I wouldn't trust someone like that to quietly pack up their things and leave without doing anything harmful. I'm sorry, but I think your assumption that "it takes a vested hatred of the company to start sabotaging things." is a little naive. And even if *I* didn't think this way, management most certainly does.
GMD
The way the company handled it though came across as if they trusted me about as much as they trusted a potential disgruntled employee. It comes across as a lack of respect for the person leaving and their level of responsibility.
Yes, I understand that it's not "nice" or "fair" but companies don't really care about those things. They are playing it safe by assuming you're as bad as everyone else. Besides, would it really be any "nicer" for the company to escort certain employees out and let others take their time?
The best part of it was the companies core values and beliefs touted the fact that they believed firmly in giving individuals respect and that individuals treated with respect acted accordingly. But their treatment of those is another story.
You seem to already understand that their stated core values were really just words on a page to them. Also, you should double check that their stated core values really say "treating individuals with respect" and not "treating employees with respect". Since you just severed your relationship with them -- amicable or not -- I'm not sure why I see that they should still be held to those core values with regards to a now-former employee.
I'm not trolling or flaming you. I do understand the points you're making. I'm just saying that you have to look at this whole situation from the company's point of view. You remember how the LAPD told O.J. "Sure, you can turn yourself in down at the station when it's convienent, Juice. We don't want this to be any more embarrasing for you than it already is." Well, we know how well that approach went. Even if you seem like a nice guy, no manager is going to risk that one-in-a-million chance that you might go bonkers on your way out. That's the way PHB think. Remember, it's called "Human resources" and not "personel" for a reason.
GMD
The reason employers do this "kick them out quick" approach is not out of spite but, rather, to protect themselves from employees who might try to exact some revenge on their way out. A just-fired employee might try to sabotage the computer system (particulary if file permissions are not set correctly). There's a whole bunch of things that a disgruntled employee can do to hurt his former employer. Giving them access to any work equipment or materials just after they got laid off or fired is very unwise.
GMD
I am a Master Thespian!
Shatner? Is that you?
I, too, am very into martial arts (not Wing Chun, though). Although most people think of fancy fighting moves when they think of martial arts, I tend to think of things such as "mastery of self" and "developing control over mind and body". I think the development of control and desire to improve oneself are found in many geeks. In fact, I would go so far as to say that programming clearly requires control and serious thought as to what you're doing. Many geeks would rather code up their own version of a subroutine rather than use a "canned" one so that they can fully understand what exactly the routine does. They also like to tweak and modify their code to obtain optimum performance by whatever measure they desire (e.g., memory usage vs. runtime). I believe that martial arts has similar goals. It is not enough for a martial artist to throw a punch or kick. S/he wants to understand what makes a strike effective. How can it be improved? Under what conditions/input parameters should a course of action be followed? And so forth.
If us slashdotters were simply interested in having something that works "well enough", we'd all be running Windoze. But most people here have an affinity towards Linux which allows users who have the requisite knowledge and motivation to customize the experience to tailor their individual desires. So it is with martial arts as well. By studying martial arts one gains a better knowledge and appreciation for your body and movement. Fighting is simply the most obvious application. What martial artists are really after is total control. Just like Linux users.
I think that martial artists are "power users" of their body and mind. I hope that doesn't sound too arrogant. But studying martial arts takes real commitment. It's exhausting work. The bruises and injuries you accrue during sparing are not fun to endure. So why do people study martial arts? Because they really want to beat people up? Because they want to show off? For any of you who have met people who are serious about their martial art, you know that typically these people are very kind, considerate and modest.
To those slashdotters who are looking for a non-tech hobby/activity that still features a lot of the core values that you find fascinating about computing, I would encourage you to give martial arts a try. You compete only against yourself and strive towards mastery of your body and mind.
GMD
Don't listen to anyone at all who disses this. They underestimate how much people will put up with if you are confident and very good at what you do. I rate the confidence as more key than anything else. If you don't treat it as strange or unusual, people will put up with quite a bit.
Fair enough. But if this guy is asking the slashdot crowd for feedback before getting body modification, I'm guessing he's not exactly oozing with self-confidence.
GMD
There's nothing like having a batter stare down an ump or kick dirt or get thrown out of a game.
In addition to the crowd-pleasing aspect of man-on-man confrontation, there's also the wrinkle that having a batter judged by a machine is somewhat at odds with the entire American way of doing things. Our criminal justice system, for example, gives the accused the right to confront the accuser in a court of law. A lot of Americans believe very strongly in that type of system. I imagine that lots of fans aren't going to like the idea of a batter being called out on strikes because of the calcuations of a machine.
Just a thought,
GMD