About a month ago, I started a new job with a dress code. Reading this in the employment packet, I was surprised. The last time I had a dress code at work, it involved wearing 14 pieces of flair. I asked about it, and was informed that the dress code was for corporate HQ and I didn't need to worry about it. Now that I'm on the job, the rule, as best as I can tell, is use your head. Ergo, I don't wear this shirt at work...yet.
Admittedly, I work in IT in California, but the rule seems to be that if you don't work directly with the customer, who cares? If someone knows how to configure a router, who cares if they've got dreadlocks? As for tattoos, 90% of your body is covered during work hours, so who's gonna see 'em? Suppose your tattoo is visible. As long as it doesn't say "Dude, don't say Pigfucker in front of Jesus", who cares?
the original Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 being developed in 6 weeks because Atari realized they had the license but had no product for Christmas of that year
It's worth noting that the original Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 was the single biggest disappointment ever released for the 2600. I had always assumed that Atari figured that since they'd paid for the rights to the game, they would be the only source for the game, and no one would care if it was any good. Sure, it was a huge seller, but there wasn't a gamer out there who wasn't disappointed when they fired it up on Christmas morning. Hearing that Atari hacked it together in 6 weeks explains a lot. It also explains why there were so many Pac-man clones that were so good in the following months.
I had a fairly atypical college experience. I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do, so I took a lot of random stuff. I studied math, general science, English, Philosophy, Photography, Scenecraft, TV and Radio broadcasting, Horseback Riding, Anthropology, Film, and a bunch of other things. Along the way I realized that I was actually fulfilling the goal of the University: I was giving myself a general education. Round about year 3, I realized that what I really wanted to do was hang around the radio station all day, so I enrolled in the Broadcasting Program. 4 weeks later, the program was discontinued due to budget cuts. Fine. I studied film and spent my off hours spinning records at KBVR.
During the summers, I delivered pizzas. This was a hugely valuable lesson: without a college degree, I'd be delivering pizza for a long time. That's when I started to get serious about school. There was no way I wanted to continue in this noble unappreciated profession. This conclusion was echoed by one of my best freinds, who worked in a lumber mill to cover school. He was kind of half-assing it at school until he looked around work one day. He was surrounded by 40-year-old guys named "Lefty" who made $1 an hour more than him. Dude was the only guy in the room with 10 fingers. He decided right there that this was not going to be his future. He buckled down and got serious. 10 years later, based on the success of his startup, he retired.
My point, and I do have one, is that college is valuable time, but not in the way you think. The big big lessons aren't going to be in the classroom and they probably won't be in your major. Sure, you may learn linked lists and binary trees, you may learn the social structure of a Mayan village, but are these really things to base a life on?
While you're in college, take the time. If you're an engineering major, you're already down for a five-year degree. I recommend that you take six years and enjoy yourself a little more. Broaden your horizons. Take a pottery class, learn Russian, hang lights at the theatre, draw. All these things will enrich your life in ways that might not pay off for decades, but they will pay off. College is a time in your life when you have a great deal of freedom and very few responsibilities. Use that time. Waste it wisely.
You want me to put in baser terms? What are you going to DO with those programming languages? The actual applications are outside the Engineering building. Outside is where you learn what needs to be built. It just may be that you figure out that what the world really needs is a cheap open-source application for controlling theatre lights or kiln temperatures. The idea for the billion-dollar startup will come when you're doing something away from the computer.
Baser still? OK, ever notice how many women hang around the arts buildings? Ever notice how few there are in your engineering classes? Do the math, boys.
There's no way that Hollywood could do Snow Crash as a feature film. It was hard enough for Peter Jackson to get New Line to allow Lord of the Rings to be three separate (and very long) films. Should a major studio get a bead on Snow Crash, they'll try to turn it into a single 90-minute feature that leaves out all the really intersting stuff in favor of the flashy effects-intensive material.
For example, we could expect a lot of footage of Hiro jetting through the metaverse on his (BMW) bike, Hiro attacking The Raft, Hiro hanging out in the Black Sun, and YT talking with Hiro on her Verizon cell phone while cruising through traffic on her skateboard ("Hiro! Can you hear me now?"). Gone will be the history of glossalia, the story of Enki, and all the details that make the Snow Crash virus plausible. Finally, they'll want to get Keanu Reeves to play Hiro Protaganist, Hilary Duff to play YT, The Rock to play Raven and Vitaly Chernobyl will be replaced with Limp Biskit.
Sample dialogue from the first planning meeting:
"Can we change High-row? We see him as more of an Ashton Kutcher type named 'John Everyman'"
"We love the robot dog thing. Let's put him in Act One and have him follow YT around wherever she goes."
"Hiro's office is a cool concept. He'll have an Imac on his desk and one of those lightning-globe things and a really cool interface for AOL."
"Does The Black Sun have to be a bar? What about a Starbucks?"
A far better plan would be to sell it to HBO or the Sci-Fi network and make it a 12-part mini series like Band of Brothers, or Taken.
I have successfully lobbied our alpha geek to spring for a small party for our IT guys. Here's the problem: I need to distract both the PC support guy and the Networking guy for about 15 minutes while we set up. Our guys rarely work together on stuff and their paths rarely cross, so this is a bit daunting. Can anyone suggest a way to get them both out of the way for a few minutes that won't seem suspicious and won't involve actually destroying anything?
"How do you motivate your employees?" is a good starter. Look for something besides the party line about salary and pizza. You want to know that this guy will crack the whip when neccessary and ease back and let people do their thing when it's not.
"How do you see your role in the work process?" is another good one. The worst boss I ever had didn't think anyone was working unless they were on a brand new assignment that he'd just thought of. If this meant yesterday's new number one priority wasn't going to get done, that's your problem.
On the other hand, the best boss I ever had was hired two weeks before a release. To his credit, he holed up in his cube learning about the product and our internal procedures, emerging only to ask questions (about 1 a day per employee). He recognized that he couldn't help us get the release done on time because he wasn't up to speed yet and that trying to make a big splash up front would only hinder us. He hung back and watched us work for two weeks, then when the pressure was off, he went into boss mode.
I think it's valuable to throw one or two curveballs at a potential new hire, something that's not covered in books on interviewing and isn't directly about the job. It can reveal how they think on their feet, and because there's no "right" answer, they have to be creative. This can be revealing. "What's your superpower?" is a good question. If the answer is "Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound..." they aren't very creative. If it's "able to see through bullshit at a single bound", you may have a winner. If the answer is I am Sancho, hire him on the spot.
If we all work together as a team, we can insure that there isn't a single moment on the tour where there isn't a "Powered by Linux" sticker visible on the tour bus.
Seems like a perfect application of Google's mail technology. Baltimore has tons of mail which needs to be searchable. Google has a scheme for holding and searching large quantities of mail. Plus, even the spam is worth keeping, should Baltimore decide to file suit against someone for attacking the City's technological infrastructure by flooding their servers with spam. Scott Richter, I'm looking in your direction.
In what NASA officials stress was a completely unrelated story, the Spirit rover stopped functioning immediately after photographing the object. A NASA spokesman was quoted as saying "Nope, the events have no relation at all. A total coincidence. Really. Whoops! Gotta go..."
Yep, I worked in the belly of the beast. It was the single worst job I've ever had. The salary was OK (not great), but because I was working for a startup that was aquired, I had insanely lucrative stock options.
My manager was the single worst person I've ever encountered on the planet. Every minor issue was greeted with abuse. Every time you reported something, he'd ask if you'd stake your job on it, then ask again, three or four times to see if you'd get nervous and change your answer. On of my co-workers asked for a day off to take his wife in for surgery. The manager asked why he couldn't just drop her off and have her get a cab home.
After a year of him screaming at me, his manager gave him a pair of hockey tickets to give to an employee who'd been "kicking ass". He gave them to me, made sure his manager knew he'd rewarded an employee, then assigned me a "rush" project the night of the game so I couldn't use them.
Shortly therafter, I decided that no amount of money was worth this kind of abuse, and simply walked out the door one day. When HR called to see what had happened, I told them my story. Word got back to me that he'd told HR that I was a fuckup from Day 1. The next week another of my co-workers quit and the manager told the same story. A month later, a third quit, and HR got suspicious. People rarely quit Microsoft, and to have three leave a single 9-person team in less than two months in unheard of. Morover, you can't claim they were ALL bad apples when they all report an abusive boss.
At that point, I guess manager decided he had a problem. He blew the morale budget (We had a morale budget? Where was that going?) taking the remainder of the team out for a gourmet lunch via limo. He honestly believed that one gesture would make up for all the abuse. There was no andmission that he'd done anything wrong, and as soon as everyone got back to work, the abuse continued.
As far as I know, he's still there, happy as a pig in shit knowing as long as tech jobs are in short supply, he can do whatever he wants to his employees because they're afraid to quit.
Actually, I was referring to the lunchroom. By October, every clique has their table staked out for the year. I foresee that same dynamic playing out in the workplace, which would suck even harder.
I remember reading about this. There are a ton of problems with the virtual office concept. First, graphic artists need hi-def monitors, so they need a defined space to work in. Second, with your team spread out around the building, everyone's going to need a cell phone. Admittedly, Nextels are dead sexy and amazingly useful, but they're also ungodly expensive. This is 2003, we simply can't afford to give every employee a cell phone. Third, despite all the hype about paperless offices, I still have a lot of paper to deal with. If nothing else, I have a lot of books in my office. Unless someone wants to scan them and post the pages as jpgs on some server (hello, lawsuit), I need to have them with me. Fourth, you need an amazing security policy and nobody can be lazy. If all your documents are on a server, that server has to be buttoned down. No more saving files on your local machine if you don't know who's going to have your laptop tomorrow. Admins: be prepared for a non-stop parade of people who can't log in/can't find their stuff/lost that one document that's really important.
Next, there's the human factor. No definable workspace that's "mine" gives the impression that I'm temporary, simply a cog in a machine. Plus, remember high school? Everyone will gravitate to an area and stake out turf. They will consider that space "theirs" and resent any intrusion. Plus, the "cool kids" will undoubtedly stake out the good areas, leaving the less powerful to wander the office aimlessly looking for a place to work.
Shared space sounds like a pure utopian ideal that would never work in the real world. The assumption is that everyone on your team gets along perfectly and never needs time apart. I'm part of a pretty good team, but if we all had to share one big cube, we'd be at each other's throats. What happens when you have to work on something with someone? Two people have a conversation with an unwilling audience of three. Either you whisper or you bother everybody else.
Damn! That would have been brilliant! Scratchy keeps stepping on rakes, and the third time the tines go right through his foot. Scratchy screams, and Itchy hits him several times with a rake, ripping him to small leaf-like pieces. Then Itchy rakes all the little pieces into a pile, which he sets on fire. Finally, Itchy and his son stand back to watch the burning "leaves" in a heartwarming Norman Rockwell moment.
They addressed that once. Peter grabs at his chin and says "What the hell? What are these doing up here?" (or words to that effect). Then he pulls his chin off and stuffs it/them down his pants. Not the classiest gag, but still funny.
It's the humor of repetition. If you do something funny once, it's funny. A second time is less funny. The third time establishes a deliberate pattern, which is funny. 4, 5 and 6 are far less funny because you're milking it. The seventh time is comic gold because you've established that you are deliberately taking it way beyond the point where it would be funny, which is funny. Don't do 8. Just don't. You know who does 8? Paul Reiser.
Specific example: In the Simpsons episode where Sideshow Bob is out of prison on work release, and he keeps stepping on rakes. The longer it goes, the funnier it is. The third time the bit is repeated, he keeps stepping on one rake after another, which is hilarious.
Caveat: If what you're doing isn't funny, no amount of repetition will save you. Case in point: "You like-a the juice?"
Final point: there's very little that's less funny than someone talking in technical terms about why something is funny.
In an effort to see if there was anything more on CNN about e-voting (and to boost related traffic to give the impression that people are interested in the story), I searched CNN for "Diebold". The results were even more frightening. Remember those web-enabled ATMs that run Windows? Guess who makes 'em? That's right.
Yes, I used a Diebold Touch Screen Voting Machine, and I really enjoyed it. It was almost identical to another activity I enjoy which also involves a computer screen and touching things. And the end result is so similar.
Admittedly, I share a few files on one of my machines, but I'm very careful about what gets shared. The only files I share are unavailable any other way.
For example, I used to have a bunch of Family Guy and Futurama episodes available. Now that they've been released on DVD, I don't share them any more. The same for Tenacious D's HBO series. I scoured the web for them and made them available, noting that they were wildly popular. As it turns out, HBO initially refused to release Tenacious D (the series) against the wishes of the band because HBO maintained that they were sole owners and hte band had no legal right to royalties. Now that Tenacious D are huge rock stars, Tenacious D: The Complete Masterworks is available for sale. Even though I have every episode, I bought the DVD because I wanted a really good copy, AND I wanted to pay the band what they were due. And because I don't want to rob the band of income (cuz, you know, Jack Black is clearly starving to death), I don't share those files any more.
Rumor has it that it was rampant filesharing of "Family Guy" episodes that convinced Fox to release them on DVD. Again, even though I have most episodes, I paid to have good copies and because it's the right thing to do.
Here's a thought: the MPAA should digitize copies of their files at a low bitrate (say 750 kbps mpeg-1) and release them to P2P. IF the files turn out to be popular, they can be released commercially at a higher quality (4.5 mbps). This way, the work is promoted and if it turns out that there's an audience for it, a commercial release can follow.
By the same token, why not take advantage of "just in time" production? Make the files available at the low bit rate as a promo, and tag them with a url where a better quality copy can be purchased. That way, the copyright owners could create a continual stream of income even from "failed" series and pilots. As long as there's a market for it, why not exploit it?
I look forward to the day when I can buy a high-quality legal copy of the complete run of Duckman. After all, there's clearly a market for it.
Diebold, Incorporated is now safeguarding the foundation of America's history, the Charters of Freedom: the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights
Admittedly, they're talking about the vaults that store the original documents, but the irony is delicious.
Taking it a step further, why are these documents so safe? It's not because we have the originals stored in fire-proof, earthquake-proof vaults. It's because these precious documents have been copied over and over and distributed to every citizen and stored the world over. Even if the originals were destroyed, the content would be preserved. At the time of the Revolution, these documents were copied and widely distributed to insure that even if the originals fell into the hands of the British Army, the content would live on. Let's apply that model to more current situations:
1) The Founding Fathers, recognizing the value of the documents, copyright them. The Constitution, Declaration of Independence, etc cannot be copied, and can only be read publically by permission of Founding Fathers (tm). Clearly, this concept would have been anathema to our forebears, as they recognized that the principals of government must be public and transparent.
2) Diebold's memos were leaked because copies were stored in an insecure manner. This (original) copy has been copied over and over to insure that it can't be destroyed. Although Dielbold is doing everything in it's power to stop the spread of the information, their success is limited. Now that the documents are on the net via ftp, p2p, and http, they can't all be tracked down and destroyed. People with an interest in freedom (wait, let me capitalize that for emphasis) Freedom continue to spread these douments so that their content is not destroyed and forgotten. I see a direct parallel here, and Diebold probably do too. That's the danger.
Here's a wacky thought as an aside. How can we place the documents in public record? There's got to be a way to make them permanantly available. All I can come up with is for someone to print them out, a second person to steal the copies, then report the crime to the police. The documents, now evidence in a criminal trial, would have to be read into the public record. Can anyone come up with a better plan?
You mean you had sex with an actual girl within the last week, and you're complaining about it on Slashdot? For those of us who almost never get our kernels recompiled, forgive me if I'm less than sypathetic.
On the other hand, you could extract revenge. Go out to the 24-hour drugstore right now and buy a big tube of Kwell. Open it and leave it on the bathroom counter. For the next few weeks, scratch yourself constantly whenever either one of them is around. For bonus points, scream every time you pee. Explain nothing.
Yahoo has gotten me lost more times than alcohol has. Every time I've used Yahoo Maps to get directions in San Francisco, it insists that I make left turns. That might play in Des Moines, but in most of downtown SF, it's simply impossible.
Vindigo, on the other hand, is fantastic. It's a city guide for Palm OS that includes mapping and door-to-door directions. As in "Show me how to get to The Fillmore from where I'm at now, find me parking, then show me all the Italian restaraunts within a 1 mile radius." I've used it in SF, San Jose, LA, DC, Baltimore, San Diego, and it's always been a winner. When my car broke down in Central Los Angeles, it was quite literally a life-saver. Plus, you can walk down a city street holding your PDA like a tricorder as you home in on your destination.
Slashdot Mirror
About a month ago, I started a new job with a dress code. Reading this in the employment packet, I was surprised. The last time I had a dress code at work, it involved wearing 14 pieces of flair. I asked about it, and was informed that the dress code was for corporate HQ and I didn't need to worry about it. Now that I'm on the job, the rule, as best as I can tell, is use your head. Ergo, I don't wear this shirt at work...yet. Admittedly, I work in IT in California, but the rule seems to be that if you don't work directly with the customer, who cares? If someone knows how to configure a router, who cares if they've got dreadlocks? As for tattoos, 90% of your body is covered during work hours, so who's gonna see 'em? Suppose your tattoo is visible. As long as it doesn't say "Dude, don't say Pigfucker in front of Jesus", who cares?
It's worth noting that the original Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 was the single biggest disappointment ever released for the 2600. I had always assumed that Atari figured that since they'd paid for the rights to the game, they would be the only source for the game, and no one would care if it was any good. Sure, it was a huge seller, but there wasn't a gamer out there who wasn't disappointed when they fired it up on Christmas morning. Hearing that Atari hacked it together in 6 weeks explains a lot. It also explains why there were so many Pac-man clones that were so good in the following months.
During the summers, I delivered pizzas. This was a hugely valuable lesson: without a college degree, I'd be delivering pizza for a long time. That's when I started to get serious about school. There was no way I wanted to continue in this noble unappreciated profession. This conclusion was echoed by one of my best freinds, who worked in a lumber mill to cover school. He was kind of half-assing it at school until he looked around work one day. He was surrounded by 40-year-old guys named "Lefty" who made $1 an hour more than him. Dude was the only guy in the room with 10 fingers. He decided right there that this was not going to be his future. He buckled down and got serious. 10 years later, based on the success of his startup, he retired.
My point, and I do have one, is that college is valuable time, but not in the way you think. The big big lessons aren't going to be in the classroom and they probably won't be in your major. Sure, you may learn linked lists and binary trees, you may learn the social structure of a Mayan village, but are these really things to base a life on?
While you're in college, take the time. If you're an engineering major, you're already down for a five-year degree. I recommend that you take six years and enjoy yourself a little more. Broaden your horizons. Take a pottery class, learn Russian, hang lights at the theatre, draw. All these things will enrich your life in ways that might not pay off for decades, but they will pay off. College is a time in your life when you have a great deal of freedom and very few responsibilities. Use that time. Waste it wisely.
You want me to put in baser terms? What are you going to DO with those programming languages? The actual applications are outside the Engineering building. Outside is where you learn what needs to be built. It just may be that you figure out that what the world really needs is a cheap open-source application for controlling theatre lights or kiln temperatures. The idea for the billion-dollar startup will come when you're doing something away from the computer.
Baser still? OK, ever notice how many women hang around the arts buildings? Ever notice how few there are in your engineering classes? Do the math, boys.
For example, we could expect a lot of footage of Hiro jetting through the metaverse on his (BMW) bike, Hiro attacking The Raft, Hiro hanging out in the Black Sun, and YT talking with Hiro on her Verizon cell phone while cruising through traffic on her skateboard ("Hiro! Can you hear me now?"). Gone will be the history of glossalia, the story of Enki, and all the details that make the Snow Crash virus plausible. Finally, they'll want to get Keanu Reeves to play Hiro Protaganist, Hilary Duff to play YT, The Rock to play Raven and Vitaly Chernobyl will be replaced with Limp Biskit.
Sample dialogue from the first planning meeting:
"Can we change High-row? We see him as more of an Ashton Kutcher type named 'John Everyman'"
"We love the robot dog thing. Let's put him in Act One and have him follow YT around wherever she goes."
"Hiro's office is a cool concept. He'll have an Imac on his desk and one of those lightning-globe things and a really cool interface for AOL."
"Does The Black Sun have to be a bar? What about a Starbucks?"
A far better plan would be to sell it to HBO or the Sci-Fi network and make it a 12-part mini series like Band of Brothers, or Taken.
I have successfully lobbied our alpha geek to spring for a small party for our IT guys. Here's the problem: I need to distract both the PC support guy and the Networking guy for about 15 minutes while we set up. Our guys rarely work together on stuff and their paths rarely cross, so this is a bit daunting. Can anyone suggest a way to get them both out of the way for a few minutes that won't seem suspicious and won't involve actually destroying anything?
"How do you see your role in the work process?" is another good one. The worst boss I ever had didn't think anyone was working unless they were on a brand new assignment that he'd just thought of. If this meant yesterday's new number one priority wasn't going to get done, that's your problem.
On the other hand, the best boss I ever had was hired two weeks before a release. To his credit, he holed up in his cube learning about the product and our internal procedures, emerging only to ask questions (about 1 a day per employee). He recognized that he couldn't help us get the release done on time because he wasn't up to speed yet and that trying to make a big splash up front would only hinder us. He hung back and watched us work for two weeks, then when the pressure was off, he went into boss mode.
I think it's valuable to throw one or two curveballs at a potential new hire, something that's not covered in books on interviewing and isn't directly about the job. It can reveal how they think on their feet, and because there's no "right" answer, they have to be creative. This can be revealing. "What's your superpower?" is a good question. If the answer is "Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound..." they aren't very creative. If it's "able to see through bullshit at a single bound", you may have a winner. If the answer is I am Sancho, hire him on the spot.
See, I'm moving, and I won't have cable hooked up at the new place for at least a week. I know, I'm obeying the law but not the spirit.
They will take my Tivo when they pry the remote from my cold, dead hand!
In what NASA officials stress was a completely unrelated story, the Spirit rover stopped functioning immediately after photographing the object. A NASA spokesman was quoted as saying "Nope, the events have no relation at all. A total coincidence. Really. Whoops! Gotta go..."
My manager was the single worst person I've ever encountered on the planet. Every minor issue was greeted with abuse. Every time you reported something, he'd ask if you'd stake your job on it, then ask again, three or four times to see if you'd get nervous and change your answer. On of my co-workers asked for a day off to take his wife in for surgery. The manager asked why he couldn't just drop her off and have her get a cab home.
After a year of him screaming at me, his manager gave him a pair of hockey tickets to give to an employee who'd been "kicking ass". He gave them to me, made sure his manager knew he'd rewarded an employee, then assigned me a "rush" project the night of the game so I couldn't use them.
Shortly therafter, I decided that no amount of money was worth this kind of abuse, and simply walked out the door one day. When HR called to see what had happened, I told them my story. Word got back to me that he'd told HR that I was a fuckup from Day 1. The next week another of my co-workers quit and the manager told the same story. A month later, a third quit, and HR got suspicious. People rarely quit Microsoft, and to have three leave a single 9-person team in less than two months in unheard of. Morover, you can't claim they were ALL bad apples when they all report an abusive boss.
At that point, I guess manager decided he had a problem. He blew the morale budget (We had a morale budget? Where was that going?) taking the remainder of the team out for a gourmet lunch via limo. He honestly believed that one gesture would make up for all the abuse. There was no andmission that he'd done anything wrong, and as soon as everyone got back to work, the abuse continued.
As far as I know, he's still there, happy as a pig in shit knowing as long as tech jobs are in short supply, he can do whatever he wants to his employees because they're afraid to quit.
Why should I help Microsoft?
Actually, I was referring to the lunchroom. By October, every clique has their table staked out for the year. I foresee that same dynamic playing out in the workplace, which would suck even harder.
Next, there's the human factor. No definable workspace that's "mine" gives the impression that I'm temporary, simply a cog in a machine. Plus, remember high school? Everyone will gravitate to an area and stake out turf. They will consider that space "theirs" and resent any intrusion. Plus, the "cool kids" will undoubtedly stake out the good areas, leaving the less powerful to wander the office aimlessly looking for a place to work.
Shared space sounds like a pure utopian ideal that would never work in the real world. The assumption is that everyone on your team gets along perfectly and never needs time apart. I'm part of a pretty good team, but if we all had to share one big cube, we'd be at each other's throats. What happens when you have to work on something with someone? Two people have a conversation with an unwilling audience of three. Either you whisper or you bother everybody else.
Count me out.
Damn! That would have been brilliant! Scratchy keeps stepping on rakes, and the third time the tines go right through his foot. Scratchy screams, and Itchy hits him several times with a rake, ripping him to small leaf-like pieces. Then Itchy rakes all the little pieces into a pile, which he sets on fire. Finally, Itchy and his son stand back to watch the burning "leaves" in a heartwarming Norman Rockwell moment.
They addressed that once. Peter grabs at his chin and says "What the hell? What are these doing up here?" (or words to that effect). Then he pulls his chin off and stuffs it/them down his pants. Not the classiest gag, but still funny.
Specific example: In the Simpsons episode where Sideshow Bob is out of prison on work release, and he keeps stepping on rakes. The longer it goes, the funnier it is. The third time the bit is repeated, he keeps stepping on one rake after another, which is hilarious.
Caveat: If what you're doing isn't funny, no amount of repetition will save you. Case in point: "You like-a the juice?"
Final point: there's very little that's less funny than someone talking in technical terms about why something is funny.
Yes, I used a Diebold Touch Screen Voting Machine, and I really enjoyed it. It was almost identical to another activity I enjoy which also involves a computer screen and touching things. And the end result is so similar.
For example, I used to have a bunch of Family Guy and Futurama episodes available. Now that they've been released on DVD, I don't share them any more. The same for Tenacious D's HBO series. I scoured the web for them and made them available, noting that they were wildly popular. As it turns out, HBO initially refused to release Tenacious D (the series) against the wishes of the band because HBO maintained that they were sole owners and hte band had no legal right to royalties. Now that Tenacious D are huge rock stars, Tenacious D: The Complete Masterworks is available for sale. Even though I have every episode, I bought the DVD because I wanted a really good copy, AND I wanted to pay the band what they were due. And because I don't want to rob the band of income (cuz, you know, Jack Black is clearly starving to death), I don't share those files any more.
Rumor has it that it was rampant filesharing of "Family Guy" episodes that convinced Fox to release them on DVD. Again, even though I have most episodes, I paid to have good copies and because it's the right thing to do.
Here's a thought: the MPAA should digitize copies of their files at a low bitrate (say 750 kbps mpeg-1) and release them to P2P. IF the files turn out to be popular, they can be released commercially at a higher quality (4.5 mbps). This way, the work is promoted and if it turns out that there's an audience for it, a commercial release can follow.
By the same token, why not take advantage of "just in time" production? Make the files available at the low bit rate as a promo, and tag them with a url where a better quality copy can be purchased. That way, the copyright owners could create a continual stream of income even from "failed" series and pilots. As long as there's a market for it, why not exploit it?
I look forward to the day when I can buy a high-quality legal copy of the complete run of Duckman. After all, there's clearly a market for it.
Diebold, Incorporated is now safeguarding the foundation of America's history, the Charters of Freedom: the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights
Admittedly, they're talking about the vaults that store the original documents, but the irony is delicious.
Taking it a step further, why are these documents so safe? It's not because we have the originals stored in fire-proof, earthquake-proof vaults. It's because these precious documents have been copied over and over and distributed to every citizen and stored the world over. Even if the originals were destroyed, the content would be preserved. At the time of the Revolution, these documents were copied and widely distributed to insure that even if the originals fell into the hands of the British Army, the content would live on. Let's apply that model to more current situations:
1) The Founding Fathers, recognizing the value of the documents, copyright them. The Constitution, Declaration of Independence, etc cannot be copied, and can only be read publically by permission of Founding Fathers (tm). Clearly, this concept would have been anathema to our forebears, as they recognized that the principals of government must be public and transparent.
2) Diebold's memos were leaked because copies were stored in an insecure manner. This (original) copy has been copied over and over to insure that it can't be destroyed. Although Dielbold is doing everything in it's power to stop the spread of the information, their success is limited. Now that the documents are on the net via ftp, p2p, and http, they can't all be tracked down and destroyed. People with an interest in freedom (wait, let me capitalize that for emphasis) Freedom continue to spread these douments so that their content is not destroyed and forgotten. I see a direct parallel here, and Diebold probably do too. That's the danger.
Here's a wacky thought as an aside. How can we place the documents in public record? There's got to be a way to make them permanantly available. All I can come up with is for someone to print them out, a second person to steal the copies, then report the crime to the police. The documents, now evidence in a criminal trial, would have to be read into the public record. Can anyone come up with a better plan?
Even better, can someone print out the docs and mail/Fed Ex them to the Maryland Representatives mentioned? I'll kick in to help with postage.
On the other hand, you could extract revenge. Go out to the 24-hour drugstore right now and buy a big tube of Kwell. Open it and leave it on the bathroom counter. For the next few weeks, scratch yourself constantly whenever either one of them is around. For bonus points, scream every time you pee. Explain nothing.
Vindigo, on the other hand, is fantastic. It's a city guide for Palm OS that includes mapping and door-to-door directions. As in "Show me how to get to The Fillmore from where I'm at now, find me parking, then show me all the Italian restaraunts within a 1 mile radius." I've used it in SF, San Jose, LA, DC, Baltimore, San Diego, and it's always been a winner. When my car broke down in Central Los Angeles, it was quite literally a life-saver. Plus, you can walk down a city street holding your PDA like a tricorder as you home in on your destination.