Guy calls up, furious we hate handicapped people, and goes on and on about how the country has ripped him off since Vietnam and so on. The tech goes, "Wait, what? Slow down? Who said our systems insulted you because you're handicapped?"
DOS said "Invalid command or parameter." The tech explained what that meant, and that it wasn't calling him an "invalid." Good laughs are had by both sides.
Seeing the open source model, I wonder (not "predict," but wonder) if this is what will happen:
Government bans swapping
Sales still go down
M$, RIAA, and the like make some sort of anti-theft device in CDROMS like they did with DVDs (yes, you can bypass, but not easily for the average user)
Sales still go down
They raise album prices, because of "continued piracy" and renewed advertising cost.
Sales still go down
This model becomes "Hollywood Critical," meaning no innovation because industry people are afraid to take risks in a cutthroat environment. Sales falling through the floor as boy band after boy band thrusts their craft on Nickelodeon. "Latest polls" show 40% of the males aged 12-24 like new star "B*Bop Pinky-Poo," a girl who is genetically part of every race in her demographic target (not too white, not too tan, kind of Asian, kind of black, but not TOO black... and is that a hint of Hindu?), and all about gi--, er, unisex power! Sales are still dropping. B*Bop is forced to make dance remix of Hendrix's "Watchtower." She's found dead in a hotel room over a sleeping pill overdose when even her decrepit sellout morals collapse in on herself. A new artist, "Sharon Apple," who can't possibly offend anyone with her music, turns out to be a computer.
Independent artists begin to spring up everywhere, and thrive because everyone is so sick of the bland crap pumped into their face from countless car ads (thank you Mitsubishi), and there's only so much "classic" stuff you can listen to before it's not classic anymore but, in fact, "reruns." Cyndi Lauper's residual checks even start to dwindle.
Sales still go down. It must be piracy! Raise the price! CDs now going for $50, but now they have videos on them! Music industry desperately tries new format, but it's selling less than 8-tracks did. They start forcing new albums to be on this new "music memory stick" format. The albums only play if your fingerprint matches what they have on file, and can only play on a device that can call home to check and see if you're allowed to play it. Sales still go down. Piracy so rampant, it's like the black market in late 70s Russia.
Artists begin to compose music... not because they want to make money... but because they are artists. They start swapping in Vorbis format or something. Kind of like how people are working on Linux and stuff not for profit, but because they are programmers and wants stuff that works. P2P-like networks show REAL hits, in real-time, and new pop stars spring up from basements and garages around the world. Kind of like MTV when it started. And no money is changing hands.
Music industry collapses. Distributors flee to third-world overseas markets.
Years later, people reminisce that there's no "good live concerts" anymore, and that digital feed HDTV of "Seamus Chien and his New Durban Posse" isn't the same as "Aerosmith" or "Kid Rock." Kids born after 2010 wonder why anyone would expose themselves to all that pollution and crime in the outside world just to see someone sing and pay $30 for a tee-shirt. "Ticketmaster," is officially entered in the Oxford Dictionary as an old synonym for "ripoff."
I remember in an interview with Scottish comedian Billy Connolly where he was touring Boston with an American friend, and she said, "They have a house here that's over 200 years old! It's like you can reach out and touch the history..." He felt bad, because he said where he's from, they have a town called "New Bridge," so called because they built a new bridge in the 12th century. And the old bridge is still there, with cars still driving on top of it.
Culling the data that people have suggested, I would say that the top three ways to build a house to last is:
I used to work for a QA Lab. I have horror stories that I won't bore you with, but because some people weren't watched, we had:
- Systems repair because some jerk downloaded some pr0n4U.exe file that fucked up his machine
- Systems repair where people fill their hard drives with pr0n, mp3s, warez
- LAN slowdown because people are downloading pr0n, mp3s, warez
The list goes on and on! You know what *I* think of people who do this crap instead of work? Lazy bastards! So do you know what I think of spying on them?
Pointless.
I mean, you knew who did work and who didn't. I don't care what employee A's reason of lack of work was, he wasn't working! He could have been reading highly technical manuals, staring off into space, embracing co-ed frottage at the water cooler, whatever. He/she's a slacker! And not in the good "Bob" way, either. I could have told you that without any bandwidth-stealing monitoring software.
The fact is, if you can't tell how an employee is doing with proof of work... you got bigger problems.
__________________________________________________ www.punkwalrus.com - a journal into the forays of living mysteries
I have hard drives go bad for only one reason: shock. I work with hundreds of rack mounted systems, many which overheat, and I get RAM and circuitboard problems a lot because of it... but I have only lost a hard drive due to physical vibration or shock, and we're talking hundreds of them.
I just lost an almost-new 60GB Deskstar because the power screwdriver I used to mount it slipped, and spun into the drive with a hard smack (one of those 1 in million chances). Six bad sectors. Hard drive utilities identify it as physical damage. I have also dropped a drive here and then in my years, and while most of them worked fine afterwards, the only ones that didn't were attributed to a recent jolt right after it was proven to work fine. Even the old MFM drives.
Okay, if I do this search, I want to see a RFC document come out of this.
My story stems from a congressional intern (don't laugh) under Frank Wolfe in 1986. She was a friend of mine, and told us one day that part of her job was to answer the mail that the congressman got. Everything had to be logged, filed, and in most cases, given a standard form answer. One day, she got one that went something along the lines of:
Dear Congressman Wolfe,
Twice I have sent letters regarding the CIA trying to beam mind-controlling microwaves into my brain, and I have gotten form responses each time. I am serious. If you don't tell me how to prevent the CIA from beaming these thoughts into my head, I will have to take action.
Loyal Voter,
Sylvester P. Smythe
Or something along those lines. My friend was not exposed to much weirdness in her upscale little life, so she got very scared, and showed the congressman. He simply said (deadpan), "Type up a response telling him to wear tinfoil on his head, take his personal medications, eat more natural vegetables and thank him for being a loyal citizen." She thought he was kidding, he winked at her, and assured her that it would be okay to type that letter. "I don't want him to 'take action' or do whatever he feels necessary if we don't respond. Type it up, and I'll sign it." She did, he did, and they never heard from him again.
We may hate politicians, but they have to put up with this kind of stuff a lot.
One of the things that people go on about is "Save the Earth." Well, the Earth is fine, and will always be so until the sun swells up some 5 billion years down the road. What I think we mean to say is "Keep the global status quo for our lifesytle," meaning that we don't want the Earth to be an uncomfortable place for us humans, living en masse, on the crusty surface above the water.
I saw an article about how the ice ages were studied. Thanks to ice core drilling, we know the general weather back through 250,000 years. Because of a bug tree ring database, we have a more accurate reading for local areas back some 16,000 years (with some gaps). One thing they noticed is that just before a major ice age, the global temperature spikes sharply just before it plummets downwards and stays there. Now, this could be a lot of things, but some are starting to wonder if the Earth has some sort of Gaia effect, a self-regulating thermostat, via atmosphere and weather.
A "simplified until possibly incorrect" example would be when the earth heats up, the ice caps melt, and more heat is raidated out into space via water reflection, making the Earth cooler, making ice caps, which then reflect more heat, but trap a lot of water, exposing more land, which absorbs heat, and so we go around again. I am sure there are a lot of other debates that would shatter my example as "uneducated to the point of nausea," but I wanted to give everyone an idea what I mean by "self-regulating."
So back to us. Well, we are a hardy bunch, and we have our own self-regulation. First, we chop down trees and burn them, releasing heat-trapping gasses. We also plant crops, which reduce diversity, and increase the chance of global-sized plagues on our food sources. The ozone layer might also be thinning, and pollution is choking us in the growing urban sprawl. So... after a while, we go to far. We chop down one too many trees, or one too many cars puffs out the critical puff of CO2. Crops die. People die. Civilization collpases. The whole societal infrastructure is reduced to pre-Roman levels. Well, that means less people to pollute, chop down trees, and so on. Nature heals itself, the empty niches we made by wiping out 90% of the animals are filled by animals who specialize, the Earth goes on, or as Vonnegut said, "And so it goes..." Civilization now will be a legend (like Atlantis), supported only by oily ruins, mined for their scrap until they, too, are gone. We'll probably have two or three of those cycles before we finally learn.
"Tell my grandfather, of this oracle you used to conlsut called Slashdot? It is true angry Gods banished you, sending trolls to attack the commons with a plague called Spam? Or is Lord Cowboy Neal the IV drunk on fermented cabbage again?"
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"They said it couldn't be done. So we stopped. It was cheaper that way." - Punk Walrus
I know what a lot of KDE/GNOME/Sawfish/X people are posting, "Ugh, why make it look like Windows?" Well, easy. Beacuse it's what people are used to. 90% of the people who could make the switch from Windows to Linux GUI don't have an f'n clue what goes on under the hood. They don't care. They want E-mail, IM, Web, and some Office Product (assuming this is a business environment). But they don't want to learn new stuff. This is a great idea for those people.
Then again, Windows could sue under the "look and feel" issue. I mean, MS can't sue for Windows, Icons, Menus, Bitmapping, and other GUI concepts (which they stole from Apple, who stole it from Xerox Parc Labs), but this is almost a direct copy of copyrighted images and graphics. It's the razor's edge, but I hope they succeed.
Seeing the rants, sometimes I wonder if certain people don't WANT the mass public to go mass-Linux. Like it would take away their "specialness" or power or something. "I am geek, hear me roar!"
Don't bash Microsoft. People already curse Windows, but they carry on because they don't think Linux is ready.
I wanted to emphasize this, because a lot of Linux fans sound pretty rabid and desperate sometimes. I was in sales for a long time earlier in life, and one of the lessons we learned is "The customer does not like to be told what they use is wrong." You have product A, you meet customer stuck on product B. If you say, "You use Product B? Hah! Loser! I am so much smarter than you because I use Product A" you will alienate the customer by making them feel bad about themselves, and thus, they will avoid you. Here are some phrases to learn if you want to "sell" Linux on other people. Note, some of these seem like obvious marketing ploys, but I made them a little obvious so you could see how this works.
"I see you use Windows and MSOffice. Those are really powerful programs, and do the job well. I bet someone like you is looking for something a little better, something that will do what you do now, but is free, will always be free, has free upgrades for life, AND... has a VAST support community online. Let me know if this interests you."
"I got pretty frustrated with all the Microsoft products. They kept making my hardware obsolete, and never supported any of my older stuff. I mean, two years ago, we got a bunch of Pentium 400s for our servers, and now, I was told I had to buy all new systems 1ghz or higher. I got pretty mad, this was going to cost a LOT. Not only did I have to pay for all new Windows versions, but I had to get all new hardware. I can't even sell those old 400s for pennies on the dollar in today's market. It was a total loss. Then I found a solution that not only let me keep my existing hardware, but was free, had free upgrades, was more secure, more configurable, worked with everything I had, and had a huge support base. I saved hundreds of thousands of dollars, and was able to keep my job. You interested?"
"Linux was hard at first, but then again, so was using Windows. Man, I screwed up more registries with my hacking, and I never even knew why because MS refused to admit there was a problem on their end. Configurable? Hardly. Then someone gave me a Debian disk with Samba, and damn if it didn't do what I wanted, how I wanted, and worked with everything. And it was free! Not like "hacked a disk from Taiwan" free, either, but legally free. It ran faster, and I could see how all my shares were doing, caught some hack attempts, and made full utilization of all network connections. It was like a whole new network and server farm... only for the cost of my time to learn a new system. Of course, the slackers in the computer room couldn't play MS Pinball like they could on NT, but I gave them an old 486, put Pingus on it, and I haven't heard from them since."
The lessons here are:
Don't slam people for using Microsoft. People already know if they don't like it, and if they do like it, you'll make them feel bad.
Identify with their needs. Ask them what they REALLY do. You'd be surprised how many people just want a browser and some mail.
Give self testimony. Present problem, give solution. Man, this is an old rule, you see it on informercials all the time... "Does this happen to YOU? Uh-oh! What a mess!!"
Be honest - don't lie. Ever. Linux is hard at first, but so was anything advanced in Windows. Lies will eventually be found out, and you'll look like a total moron.
Praise them for listening to you, make them feel good about hearing about Linux. Tease them with hooks. "I gotta disk right here... it's my last one. But here, if you give it right back, I'll loan it to you."
Okay, here I have to disagree. Almost 90% of all driver issues on Linux happen to me because I am using a POS hardware. Some bizzare $10 LAN Card named "Panasony LANinator Pro 98" or an RPI modem or something. I also work with Windows 9x - XP, and you know what? Same problem. In fact, I just lost the use of my $200 Soundblaster Live Platinum 5.1 when I upgraded to XP (it was an issue because I got the "first series made" where as SBLPro 5.1 cards made after the first batch work fine). Put in on the Linux Box. Ran fine (ran fine in Win9x, too, but I am not going back). Got a SB Live Value off of Ebay for $20, and THAT worked in XP.
Hardware issues are not JUST a Linux problem, but I have found that on average, if you have some POS Korean fly-by-night company hardware... it will more likely work on Linux than WinXP. Not always, but more likely. Have an old 3COM 10mb Coax BNC card? Christ, even those Single Floppy Boot Open Source firewalls recognized it. I had an ancient ISA MCI sound card that went by the name "WillowPond" that I couldn't find any drivers for, I suspect it was pulled from a proprietary E-machine or something. Windows never recognized it. Guess what? Red Hat 6.x did. Ran fine until the power supply blew up (which I don't blame on any OS, just a lot of cat hair).
This has led me to have several Linux/BSD boxes at home with hardware that became useless otherwise. I have to agree, my main "play" boxes are XP or 98, but all my servers/firewalls/data crunchers are Linux or BSD. It's a nice balance for now.
Do I wish it was all Linux/BSD? Yes. For ethical and for practical reasons, I want MS to be taken down a lot. Not go away, because I believe in free enterprise, but they need to seriously stripped of the blatantly obvious abuse of power they currently have. Especially MSN, they make AOL look like hippy free love in comparison.
But as I look at my jaggy fonts, and wonder just how I am going to upgrade my latest security patch, I understand why it still has a while to go before it becomes a mainstream product.
Have you ever noticed that all the worlds these games take place in our DARK, DANK, and DYSTOPIAN??
I have several responses:
Smartass: Are you saying it's more like real life in my windowless office pods, living under the marketing office?
Smarmy: How about Serious Sam? I almost got sun blindness looking at the Pyramids.
Patronizing (that's when someone talks down to you with simple words): It's just a game. Chill. Go outisde and play with your little neighborhood friends. No one ever died going, "I wish my games had been better..."
Serious: Okay, I do agree that a lot of FPRs are dark and depressing. So are a lot of sci-fi films. I was told it's a trick so you can use less pixels (or in films, work in a smaller studio).
_________________________________________________ SAT grads to this party is like water is to fire... Mark Jackson, 1987 - www.punkwalrus.com
The preview release they sent out to the reviewers was apparently so bad, that one of my best Star Trek fan (he has a ship/club thing, leather jacket with logo on it, etc) friends said it was a embrassing as watching your best friend get drunk and try to get a date with a stripper.
Wow... a sequel to Beyond the Thunderdome. I know I speak for everyone in Slashdot when I say that I wanted to see if Tina Turner ran Bartertown better than Master Blaster. [/sarcasm]
... ever have one of those nightmares that you are required to take a test back in college, and you realize, "Oh no! I haven't studied the subject in 20 years! And where are my pants?" Then you wake up, and you realize the silly and illogical nature of your dream. Ha ha... no one would ever bring back the PDP line. Ha ha ha... whew! Now I think I'll read Slashdot...
Doh! [check] Whew... got pants.
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I smell a Wumpus! Shoot or move? [S/M]
Re:How sad would you rate Trekkie fans ?
on
Ask William Shatner
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· Score: 1
The sad thing, I have seen Trekkies who think this is a "funny skit." That's not sad in itself, not even when they show it over and over and over again on some blooper tape. But what gets me as sad, is the people who analyze it the same way an art professor might try and interpret some impressionism (that is, like they often interpret Trek episodes themselves).
"You can tell this is where Dan Carvey forgot his line, and was trying to ad lib because Shatner was late picking up the episode number response..."
"Ha ha ha! Yeoman Rand's cabin was NOT Y290! What *idiots!* Did anyone do, like, script research??? [nervous, frustrated laugh] Like, Hel-LO?"
Those people are truly sad, because they are so deep into the analysis, they don't see the irony *of* the analysis...
__________________________________________________ _ Trekkiediskaphobia - The fear of 13 Trekkies quoting episode numbers
Click and Clack, the old Tappit brothers who host Car Talk on NPR was one of the first truly interactive web sites out there for a PBS show. Ever since the beginning, they have had a "Boss" button to click so it would load your browser with something official and work-looking. Of course, any detailed look at these "work-looking" documents shows a bit of humor, like ratio of donuts eaten per producer per show, graphs showing increase in mailbombs sent to the office, and the precent of NPR listeners who wish they'd never heard of their show.
I always thought Slashdot should have a boss button.
Stupid side note: I graduated high school with Vern. When I started watching the show, I thought... that looks like Vernon. Damn, his name is Vern Yip, how many...? I went and got the yearbook. Sure enough. Oddly enough, in the yearbook, he's shown with Mimi Rhee, Jhoon Rhee's daughter (Jhoon Rhee Self Defense is a huge martial arts studio empire).
The title? "Best dressed couple." Well, here's to you Vern, you went with a theme and stuck to it.
I also graduated with Mary Cheney, VP Dick Cheney's daughter who is now a champion for gay rights in the workplace, and thus, an embarassment to the Republican Party.
Who knew my stupid high school would influence today's culture?
I can't believe no one has mentioned this from Win9x:
"Windows has detected unknown hardware - attempting to find driver for it."
Uh... it never finds it, does it?
Then there are some home-grown errors I have seen in old Unix E-mail systems (I hope they have changed it):
An error has occured while sending mail. Please mail the sysadmin with the details of what happened when this error occured
By what, postal mail? "Dear sirs: In reguards to an e-mail I received on the machine dated January the 23rd..."
__________________________________________________ Are those cookies made from real Girl Scouts? - Wednesday Addams
It all repeats itself... just work smarter.
on
Generation Wrecked
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· Score: 1
Me, I don't what generation I'm in, I was born in the last 60s. I am self made, not college educated (well, not totally true, I have taken some courses, and read used textbooks on my own time, but I don't anyone would consider that "college"), and have been supporting myself since age 16 (no parents - long story). I watched my upper-crust classmates go from high school to college, thinking that in the early 1990s, it would just be as good as the Reagan era. Uh uh. They fall down go boom.
I was doing retail jobs to support myself since I was a teen, and by the time they graduated college, I was already in retail management. Yes, to most people, that's like being proud you are a sewer worker, but I was already married with a kid when my buddies were graduating from a 4-year degree. The economy under the Bush Era back then sucked, too. My family was really poor! Most of my buddies went to live with their parents, or retreated to graduate studies to buy themselves another 4 years of living off of their parent's income (not that it's a bad thing, many of them are now very successful). I caught the wave of the tech boom in 1995 or so, and rode that thing until about 2000, when I started studying the stock market's history and realized, "Oh shit! This looks familiar." I cashed in most of my stocks, bought a house, paid off all debts, and now, one big bubble burst later, I have a fairly steady job as a QA Admin, with two Saturns in my driveway, some technical letters after my name, and I take a lot of time to learn new technologies all the time. Is my job 100% secure? No, no one's is, and so I am always thinking a few months down the road. My job is more secure than most, because I work for a large corp with a lot of positive cash flow from steady revenues and a ton of new projects that change the way people communicate with each other. But, yes, it could all come crashing down, maybe because some student in Norway has just invented the mother of all killer apps that will replace what my company does in the next two years, or some CEO runs off with all the money to some undisclosed South American country. That's why I keep learning new things.
Now, some of my younger pals went for the VC avenue, taking those six figure salaries to work for some startup on ghost cash. They ramped up the bills, got nice mansions, sporty cars, and so on. Then it all crashed around them. Heavy in debt, nothing in the bank, and no "what-if" plans. Some of them never learned work or social networking skills, because they could afford to be arrogant, and do what they pleased. I preferred to take the modest path that would not earn me as much money, but teach me the most skills. I am still working, they are still looking. They have outdated skills, or worse, skills that are now saturated in the job market. "Got an MCSE, huh? From Windows NT 4? Listen, I have a stack of resumes from people who just got an MCSE from XP that will work for minimum wage, why should I even consider you?"
There will be more ups and more downs in the future. These waves have come and gone since the 1800s and will continue to do so until the end of civilized humanity. You have to study the patterns, learn from other's mistakes, and move on. Don't live in the past.
Okay, I used to program call centers, and I really don't think this Telezapper works, unless they have MAJORLY changed hardware and software since 1998. This is how telemarketing was done:
- Autodialer dials number from read-only database - Upon pickup, it picks the next available agent, your info shows up on their computer terminal via application bridge from the switch to a computer on the LAN. - If you hang up, agent gets dialtone, and they hit a button to flag they are available for the next call
I don't care what signal you send to the switch, your number is in a read-only computer database that automates the dialer, not some dynamic read-write database. I mean, think of the security holes in that model! And if you made such a model, then you lose phone numbers, which means less calling stats, and lower numbers. Or some angry hax0r could break in, and program a number of someone they don't like in there (how often I realized I could get back at my enemies by putting them on the autodialer, they'd get a "out of area" call every 10-25 minutes).
When you ask to be put on the "do not call list" then flag the number to be removed from the database, but that has to be done manually. Another thing is that a lot of the products and "companies" that call you are really a huge call center pool in Podunk, Wisconsin (where land and labor are cheap), that isn't really the company. Like say ABC Mortgage calls you to get a second mortgage. That's not ABC Mortgage calling you, but a call center they contracted to do dialing for them in return for a promised percentage of sales.
Another sneaky, low-down-dirty trick used against you is that the following companies sell your number: Dominos, Pizza Hut, and other delivery places. They trace your number via CallerID and they have your address....
I pay for an unlisted number, but sure enough, within a year, I got telemarketers (someone who was housesitting ordered a Pizza). When I am "forced" to give phone numbers (by contests and whatnot), I give my fax/modem line. From time to time, when I am not on the modem, I see the "ring" light go on and off (we have the fax at a silent ring). I can't imagine how many people have called that number.
________________________________________________ __ __ www.punkwalrus.com - Incomplete sentences can be
Okay, here's the definition of a planet from dictionary.com: 1. A nonluminous celestial body larger than an asteroid or comet, illuminated by light from a star, such as the sun, around which it revolves.
Non-luminous celestial body? Could we be any *more* vague? Using the same dictionary.com (which I am not blaming, I am sure Oxford has something similar), the defintions for:
Luminous: Emitting light, especially emitting self-generated light.
Celestial:Of or relating to the sky or the heavens; Of or relating to heaven; divine; Supremely good; sublime: celestial happiness.
Body: A mass of matter that is distinct from other masses [see Cowboy Neal]
Okay... so, a planet is some form of matter in the sky that does not glow in the visible light spectrum. Hmmm... then, techincally, I could say a frisbee or other dog chew toy I threw up in the air was a planet.
Okay, all kidding aside, that doesn't answer the asteroid/planet debate. Now, in MY universe (which may or may not allow tourists), a planet was defined as a very large, round blob of matter that revolved around the sun in a fairly regular eliptical orbit, and was created from the original star stuff(tm - (c) Carl Sagan) that made our solar system. Why does it have to be round? I don't know! I just needed standards and was pressed for time! Round to what tolerance? Shut up! I determine round by eye. Eros is shaped like a peanut, thus is an asteroid. Earth is round, thus a planet. Pluto and Charon are double planets. Black is white. Oh, forget it.
Wake me up when we have a good definition for "moon" vs. "satellite."
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I tried to join the sexual revolution, but I flunked the physical
Slashdot Mirror
Guy calls up, furious we hate handicapped people, and goes on and on about how the country has ripped him off since Vietnam and so on. The tech goes, "Wait, what? Slow down? Who said our systems insulted you because you're handicapped?"
DOS said "Invalid command or parameter." The tech explained what that meant, and that it wasn't calling him an "invalid." Good laughs are had by both sides.
Okay... maybe not...
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"A planet where walruses evolve from men?" - Get your flippers off me, you damn, dirty pinniped!
Culling the data that people have suggested, I would say that the top three ways to build a house to last is:
Not to be snarky, but I have never browsed a web site with pornographic pop ups at work. In fact, even at home. Slashdot never gave me pr0npops.
- Systems repair because some jerk downloaded some pr0n4U.exe file that fucked up his machine
- Systems repair where people fill their hard drives with pr0n, mp3s, warez
- LAN slowdown because people are downloading pr0n, mp3s, warez
The list goes on and on! You know what *I* think of people who do this crap instead of work? Lazy bastards! So do you know what I think of spying on them?
Pointless.
I mean, you knew who did work and who didn't. I don't care what employee A's reason of lack of work was, he wasn't working! He could have been reading highly technical manuals, staring off into space, embracing co-ed frottage at the water cooler, whatever. He/she's a slacker! And not in the good "Bob" way, either. I could have told you that without any bandwidth-stealing monitoring software.
The fact is, if you can't tell how an employee is doing with proof of work... you got bigger problems._
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www.punkwalrus.com - a journal into the forays of living mysteries
I just lost an almost-new 60GB Deskstar because the power screwdriver I used to mount it slipped, and spun into the drive with a hard smack (one of those 1 in million chances). Six bad sectors. Hard drive utilities identify it as physical damage. I have also dropped a drive here and then in my years, and while most of them worked fine afterwards, the only ones that didn't were attributed to a recent jolt right after it was proven to work fine. Even the old MFM drives.
My story stems from a congressional intern (don't laugh) under Frank Wolfe in 1986. She was a friend of mine, and told us one day that part of her job was to answer the mail that the congressman got. Everything had to be logged, filed, and in most cases, given a standard form answer. One day, she got one that went something along the lines of:
Or something along those lines. My friend was not exposed to much weirdness in her upscale little life, so she got very scared, and showed the congressman. He simply said (deadpan), "Type up a response telling him to wear tinfoil on his head, take his personal medications, eat more natural vegetables and thank him for being a loyal citizen." She thought he was kidding, he winked at her, and assured her that it would be okay to type that letter. "I don't want him to 'take action' or do whatever he feels necessary if we don't respond. Type it up, and I'll sign it." She did, he did, and they never heard from him again.We may hate politicians, but they have to put up with this kind of stuff a lot.
I saw an article about how the ice ages were studied. Thanks to ice core drilling, we know the general weather back through 250,000 years. Because of a bug tree ring database, we have a more accurate reading for local areas back some 16,000 years (with some gaps). One thing they noticed is that just before a major ice age, the global temperature spikes sharply just before it plummets downwards and stays there. Now, this could be a lot of things, but some are starting to wonder if the Earth has some sort of Gaia effect, a self-regulating thermostat, via atmosphere and weather.
A "simplified until possibly incorrect" example would be when the earth heats up, the ice caps melt, and more heat is raidated out into space via water reflection, making the Earth cooler, making ice caps, which then reflect more heat, but trap a lot of water, exposing more land, which absorbs heat, and so we go around again. I am sure there are a lot of other debates that would shatter my example as "uneducated to the point of nausea," but I wanted to give everyone an idea what I mean by "self-regulating."
So back to us. Well, we are a hardy bunch, and we have our own self-regulation. First, we chop down trees and burn them, releasing heat-trapping gasses. We also plant crops, which reduce diversity, and increase the chance of global-sized plagues on our food sources. The ozone layer might also be thinning, and pollution is choking us in the growing urban sprawl. So... after a while, we go to far. We chop down one too many trees, or one too many cars puffs out the critical puff of CO2. Crops die. People die. Civilization collpases. The whole societal infrastructure is reduced to pre-Roman levels. Well, that means less people to pollute, chop down trees, and so on. Nature heals itself, the empty niches we made by wiping out 90% of the animals are filled by animals who specialize, the Earth goes on, or as Vonnegut said, "And so it goes..." Civilization now will be a legend (like Atlantis), supported only by oily ruins, mined for their scrap until they, too, are gone. We'll probably have two or three of those cycles before we finally learn.
"Tell my grandfather, of this oracle you used to conlsut called Slashdot? It is true angry Gods banished you, sending trolls to attack the commons with a plague called Spam? Or is Lord Cowboy Neal the IV drunk on fermented cabbage again?"
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"They said it couldn't be done. So we stopped. It was cheaper that way." - Punk Walrus
Then again, Windows could sue under the "look and feel" issue. I mean, MS can't sue for Windows, Icons, Menus, Bitmapping, and other GUI concepts (which they stole from Apple, who stole it from Xerox Parc Labs), but this is almost a direct copy of copyrighted images and graphics. It's the razor's edge, but I hope they succeed.
Seeing the rants, sometimes I wonder if certain people don't WANT the mass public to go mass-Linux. Like it would take away their "specialness" or power or something. "I am geek, hear me roar!"
I wanted to emphasize this, because a lot of Linux fans sound pretty rabid and desperate sometimes. I was in sales for a long time earlier in life, and one of the lessons we learned is "The customer does not like to be told what they use is wrong." You have product A, you meet customer stuck on product B. If you say, "You use Product B? Hah! Loser! I am so much smarter than you because I use Product A" you will alienate the customer by making them feel bad about themselves, and thus, they will avoid you. Here are some phrases to learn if you want to "sell" Linux on other people. Note, some of these seem like obvious marketing ploys, but I made them a little obvious so you could see how this works.
The lessons here are:Hardware issues are not JUST a Linux problem, but I have found that on average, if you have some POS Korean fly-by-night company hardware... it will more likely work on Linux than WinXP. Not always, but more likely. Have an old 3COM 10mb Coax BNC card? Christ, even those Single Floppy Boot Open Source firewalls recognized it. I had an ancient ISA MCI sound card that went by the name "WillowPond" that I couldn't find any drivers for, I suspect it was pulled from a proprietary E-machine or something. Windows never recognized it. Guess what? Red Hat 6.x did. Ran fine until the power supply blew up (which I don't blame on any OS, just a lot of cat hair).
This has led me to have several Linux/BSD boxes at home with hardware that became useless otherwise. I have to agree, my main "play" boxes are XP or 98, but all my servers/firewalls/data crunchers are Linux or BSD. It's a nice balance for now.
Do I wish it was all Linux/BSD? Yes. For ethical and for practical reasons, I want MS to be taken down a lot. Not go away, because I believe in free enterprise, but they need to seriously stripped of the blatantly obvious abuse of power they currently have. Especially MSN, they make AOL look like hippy free love in comparison.
But as I look at my jaggy fonts, and wonder just how I am going to upgrade my latest security patch, I understand why it still has a while to go before it becomes a mainstream product.
I have several responses:
Smartass: Are you saying it's more like real life in my windowless office pods, living under the marketing office?
Smarmy: How about Serious Sam? I almost got sun blindness looking at the Pyramids.
Patronizing (that's when someone talks down to you with simple words): It's just a game. Chill. Go outisde and play with your little neighborhood friends. No one ever died going, "I wish my games had been better..."
Serious: Okay, I do agree that a lot of FPRs are dark and depressing. So are a lot of sci-fi films. I was told it's a trick so you can use less pixels (or in films, work in a smaller studio).
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SAT grads to this party is like water is to fire... Mark Jackson, 1987 - www.punkwalrus.com
Harlan Ellison? Is that you? I thought you were dead!
"It's not even a good two-parter," he sobbed.
"Four films enter! One film leaves!"
Doh! [check] Whew... got pants.
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I smell a Wumpus! Shoot or move? [S/M]
Those people are truly sad, because they are so deep into the analysis, they don't see the irony *of* the analysis...
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Trekkiediskaphobia - The fear of 13 Trekkies quoting episode numbers
I always thought Slashdot should have a boss button.
[ Boss Button]
The title? "Best dressed couple." Well, here's to you Vern, you went with a theme and stuck to it.
I also graduated with Mary Cheney, VP Dick Cheney's daughter who is now a champion for gay rights in the workplace, and thus, an embarassment to the Republican Party.
Who knew my stupid high school would influence today's culture?
"Windows has detected unknown hardware - attempting to find driver for it."
Uh... it never finds it, does it?
Then there are some home-grown errors I have seen in old Unix E-mail systems (I hope they have changed it):
An error has occured while sending mail. Please mail the sysadmin with the details of what happened when this error occured
By what, postal mail? "Dear sirs: In reguards to an e-mail I received on the machine dated January the 23rd..."
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Are those cookies made from real Girl Scouts? - Wednesday Addams
Me, I don't what generation I'm in, I was born in the last 60s. I am self made, not college educated (well, not totally true, I have taken some courses, and read used textbooks on my own time, but I don't anyone would consider that "college"), and have been supporting myself since age 16 (no parents - long story). I watched my upper-crust classmates go from high school to college, thinking that in the early 1990s, it would just be as good as the Reagan era. Uh uh. They fall down go boom.
I was doing retail jobs to support myself since I was a teen, and by the time they graduated college, I was already in retail management. Yes, to most people, that's like being proud you are a sewer worker, but I was already married with a kid when my buddies were graduating from a 4-year degree. The economy under the Bush Era back then sucked, too. My family was really poor! Most of my buddies went to live with their parents, or retreated to graduate studies to buy themselves another 4 years of living off of their parent's income (not that it's a bad thing, many of them are now very successful). I caught the wave of the tech boom in 1995 or so, and rode that thing until about 2000, when I started studying the stock market's history and realized, "Oh shit! This looks familiar." I cashed in most of my stocks, bought a house, paid off all debts, and now, one big bubble burst later, I have a fairly steady job as a QA Admin, with two Saturns in my driveway, some technical letters after my name, and I take a lot of time to learn new technologies all the time. Is my job 100% secure? No, no one's is, and so I am always thinking a few months down the road. My job is more secure than most, because I work for a large corp with a lot of positive cash flow from steady revenues and a ton of new projects that change the way people communicate with each other. But, yes, it could all come crashing down, maybe because some student in Norway has just invented the mother of all killer apps that will replace what my company does in the next two years, or some CEO runs off with all the money to some undisclosed South American country. That's why I keep learning new things.
Now, some of my younger pals went for the VC avenue, taking those six figure salaries to work for some startup on ghost cash. They ramped up the bills, got nice mansions, sporty cars, and so on. Then it all crashed around them. Heavy in debt, nothing in the bank, and no "what-if" plans. Some of them never learned work or social networking skills, because they could afford to be arrogant, and do what they pleased. I preferred to take the modest path that would not earn me as much money, but teach me the most skills. I am still working, they are still looking. They have outdated skills, or worse, skills that are now saturated in the job market. "Got an MCSE, huh? From Windows NT 4? Listen, I have a stack of resumes from people who just got an MCSE from XP that will work for minimum wage, why should I even consider you?"
There will be more ups and more downs in the future. These waves have come and gone since the 1800s and will continue to do so until the end of civilized humanity. You have to study the patterns, learn from other's mistakes, and move on. Don't live in the past.
Okay, I used to program call centers, and I really don't think this Telezapper works, unless they have MAJORLY changed hardware and software since 1998. This is how telemarketing was done:
_ __ __
- Autodialer dials number from read-only database
- Upon pickup, it picks the next available agent, your info shows up on their computer terminal via application bridge from the switch to a computer on the LAN.
- If you hang up, agent gets dialtone, and they hit a button to flag they are available for the next call
I don't care what signal you send to the switch, your number is in a read-only computer database that automates the dialer, not some dynamic read-write database. I mean, think of the security holes in that model! And if you made such a model, then you lose phone numbers, which means less calling stats, and lower numbers. Or some angry hax0r could break in, and program a number of someone they don't like in there (how often I realized I could get back at my enemies by putting them on the autodialer, they'd get a "out of area" call every 10-25 minutes).
When you ask to be put on the "do not call list" then flag the number to be removed from the database, but that has to be done manually. Another thing is that a lot of the products and "companies" that call you are really a huge call center pool in Podunk, Wisconsin (where land and labor are cheap), that isn't really the company. Like say ABC Mortgage calls you to get a second mortgage. That's not ABC Mortgage calling you, but a call center they contracted to do dialing for them in return for a promised percentage of sales.
Another sneaky, low-down-dirty trick used against you is that the following companies sell your number: Dominos, Pizza Hut, and other delivery places. They trace your number via CallerID and they have your address....
I pay for an unlisted number, but sure enough, within a year, I got telemarketers (someone who was housesitting ordered a Pizza). When I am "forced" to give phone numbers (by contests and whatnot), I give my fax/modem line. From time to time, when I am not on the modem, I see the "ring" light go on and off (we have the fax at a silent ring). I can't imagine how many people have called that number.
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www.punkwalrus.com - Incomplete sentences can be
And this is bad how? Considering how much YOU have paid for this setup, maybe you should ask for your money back.
I fail to see how lack of security, public health, and education is a "political view." That's a political as you saying Rob is political.
Oh, man, now you made ME politcal! I am blaming you for this. Man, there I go again!
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All opinions expressed were compiled by a dozen drunken wombats
Haven't we ALL already paid for Microsoft security? Trojans, worms, and virii have cost my company a hell of a lot.
Non-luminous celestial body? Could we be any *more* vague? Using the same dictionary.com (which I am not blaming, I am sure Oxford has something similar), the defintions for:
Luminous: Emitting light, especially emitting self-generated light.
Celestial:Of or relating to the sky or the heavens; Of or relating to heaven; divine; Supremely good; sublime: celestial happiness. Body: A mass of matter that is distinct from other masses [see Cowboy Neal]
Okay... so, a planet is some form of matter in the sky that does not glow in the visible light spectrum. Hmmm... then, techincally, I could say a frisbee or other dog chew toy I threw up in the air was a planet.
Okay, all kidding aside, that doesn't answer the asteroid/planet debate. Now, in MY universe (which may or may not allow tourists), a planet was defined as a very large, round blob of matter that revolved around the sun in a fairly regular eliptical orbit, and was created from the original star stuff(tm - (c) Carl Sagan) that made our solar system. Why does it have to be round? I don't know! I just needed standards and was pressed for time! Round to what tolerance? Shut up! I determine round by eye. Eros is shaped like a peanut, thus is an asteroid. Earth is round, thus a planet. Pluto and Charon are double planets. Black is white. Oh, forget it.
Wake me up when we have a good definition for "moon" vs. "satellite."
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I tried to join the sexual revolution, but I flunked the physical