Well, props to Microsoft.
I just downloaded IE 8 at this link: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/default.aspx
I figured it might be slow, or unreachable - but, guess what?
Average download speed: 1.48 MB / Sec.
Wow. Two possibilities here:
1) They threw some serious bandwidth at this thing. Or,
2) IE 8 is already a dismal failure because only 17 people in the entire United States have downloaded it so far today.
I'm guessing #1 - but you may disagree...
Guys, get a grip!
This is nothing new - the ReadMe.txt file for WHS says the same thing:
Don't *store* frequently modified critical files such as Outlook (.ost) files on the server. Keep them local, and let WHS back them up like any other file.
This excellent advice applies to all operating systems and networks: any file that is frequently updated and may get corrupted if a write is interrupted should be stored locally. Network connections can go down; packets can get lost; etc. etc.
Sure, in an ideal world writes are atomic and files are never left in a vulnerable state - but that's not as common as we would like.
If this guy's info is accurate, that means robots.txt just hides the archived data, it doesn't remove it.
So if some criminal tries to use robots.txt to hide information, the lawyers can still get it, either by subpoena/discovery to wayback, or an injunction to get the guy to remove his robots.txt, at which point the data returns to wayback!
For example, tens of thousands of eager, brilliant students have arrived at Freshman Orientation at (Harvard/Yale/Oxford/U of P) to find that their 120 IQ puts them right in the middle of the pack, at best.
Even your average programmer is probably well over 100 IQ.
Not that I really expect any of you to go along, but I know I won't be buying one of these things.
Why?
Because that 'celebrity party' he talks about in the article took place at the Grove in Los Angeles, right next to my apartment building. This 'party' consisted of earth-shaking 'music' that kept my one- and two-year old children up till after 1:00 in the morning on a week night, listening to an amplified rapper yelling Mother-F**er again and again. This was audible a full city block away, with all of the windows closed up tight. I'm telling you, my building was shaking. I'm just lucky the kids didn't learn that word - it was repeated hundreds of times.
The police were called multiple times, by me and other neighbors, and eventually shut them down.
These kinds of irresponsible corporate citizens don't deserve our support.
You were expecting a super-critical package that needed to be kept in deep-freeze.
It was Friday afternoon around quitting time, and it hadn't arrived.
So you went home.
So UPS showed up, and left the package (perhaps ignoring the 'signature required' - you don't say so, but perhaps).
What were they supposed to do? Bring it back to their special freezer for people who don't stick around to make sure $20K packages are properly handled?
And what about insurance, anyway? Had you not heard that packages don't *always* arrive on time and intact?
Imagine a world where PHBs can turn their office wall into a window onto any cube.
Slashdot paranoia strikes again!
What does your imagination have to do with this story? If the PHB has a video camera pointed at you, he doesn't need to turn his wall into a video screen, he can use an existing device called a 'monitor.'
Also, I don't think most of us have too much to worry about - what could be more boring than watching a programmer work?
That would make the IRS systems nice and simple, sure.
But it wouldn't be fair.
A tax attorney friend of mine explained this to me once.
All of the clever tax planning would shift away from 'finding deductions' to 'hiding income.'
In other words, if the IRS doesn't consider that pile of money 'income,' they won't take their pound of flesh.
Now, do you imagine the working (salaried) stiffs are going to be able to hide their income?
No, only the wealthy and super-wealthy will be able to play that game. So the flat tax will end up being nice and regressive.
Oh, and all those complexities will come back right quick, in the form of rules about what constitutes (earned, unearned, implied, presumed, effective, etc.) income.
Still, a little flattening and removing of sweetheart provisions might be nice for me - I know some pretty good tax attorneys...:-)
Laura DiDio is a senior analyst for the Yankee Group's Application Infrastructure & Software Platforms Planning Service, which is closely aligned with the Enterprise Computing & Networking Planning Service. In this capacity, Ms. DiDio focuses on desktop and server operating systems, with a particular emphasis on Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, Active Directory, and Novell, Inc.'s NetWare. Additional areas of coverage are Web services platforms and standards including Microsoft's emerging.NET services and the rival J2EE. She also covers the directory services arena and interoperability and migration issues associated with Active Directory, eDirectory, and Sun's iPlanet, as well as desktop and server operating system security, software distribution, and third-party performance monitoring and management tools.
Ms. DiDio has covered client and server operating systems, directory services, and OS and NOS security for 15 years as an analyst, reporter, and editor. Prior to joining Yankee Group, she spent three and a half years at Giga Information Group, where she held a similar position. Before that she held various reporting positions at a number of computer networking industry trade publications including: Computerworld, Network World, Communications Week, LAN Times, and Digital Review. Ms. DiDio also worked as an investigative reporter for various broadcasting and print outlets including CNN and Channel 5 News in New York. Her investigative reports have also appeared in The Village Voice and The Minneapolis Star Tribune. Laura DiDio holds a B.A. in Communications and a minor in French from Fordham University
He led the discussion with the whole Diebold 'committed to raising $100,000 for GWB' thing.
Actually, I think he should have led with the paper trail issue - as others have said before, the GWB fund-raising thing is a red herring that makes voting machine critics look like tin-foil hat-wearing nutcases.
At the end of the day, the Diebold people are clearly incompetent, and the system is hugely flawed. Those facts are hard-to-dispute.
The idea that large groups of Diebold staffers are involved in a massive right-wing conspiracy is significantly harder to prove, and fails the Occam's Razor test - why ascribe to malice what can easily be ascribed to incompetence?
I agree that Diebold got off the NPR hook too easily on their security flaws...
Well, this one's my dad's mistake (but I paid the price:-)
When I was about seven or eight, my dad decided we kids were watching too much TV. So he decided to implement an early version of the V chip.:-)
He put replaced the male plug at the end of the tv power cord with a female plug, and built a male-to-male power adapter that he kept control over. He would give us the adapter for two hours per night, then confiscate it again.
Worked pretty well - with no way to plug in the tv, there was no way to turn it on! We got bored watching the blank screen pretty quickly.
Can you see the flaw in his plan?:-)
One day, the TV didn't turn on - but I was pretty sure the adapter was in place. So I reached behind the stand without looking, to plug it in - and accidentally grabbed one end of the adapter - the end that wasn't plugged in to the wall...
YOWSA!...
:-(:-(
no permanent damage, thank Gd (twitch twitch)
I never told him about it, and I was always much more careful around electrical stuff after that.
Actually, that's not strictly true. A few months later, I was home sick, without the adapter.
I couldn't imagine an *entire* day staring at a non-functioning tv, so I got into his toolbox and built myself a replacement male-to-male adapter.
Being 8 years old, I did a piss-poor job - a couple of strands of wire weren't properly tucked into their screw post, and touched some other strands (causing a short circuit).
sparks everywhere, scared the heck out of me.
So I hit the circuit breaker, cleaned up the strands, plugged it back in and watched TV till 5 minutes before my mom was due back.:-)
Yes - and that's pretty much how it works to this very day for local calls, through the magic of the 5ESS switch - still the mainstay of POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service).
Here's a simplified picture:
If I'm calling the lower east side of manhattan from the upper west side, I pick up my handset in my apartment. That establishes a physical straight wire from the handset to my switch (typically just a few blocks away).
I then dial a number - say, 222-2123.
At the switch, the computer examines the exchange (the first three digits), determines the correct remote switch associated with that exchange, chooses another physical wire that directly connects the two switches. That line is connected directly to my line, and the number dialed is forwared to the remote switch.
The remote switch then analyzes the last four digits, find the physical wire connecting the destination phone, and rings that phone. We're
then connected with a direct wire between the two points - almost exactly the same as the operator used to create, except the computerized switch is much faster than the operator:-)
One important point - there's lots of multiplexing going on, whereby many simultaneous conversations share the same wires. At the very dawn of telephony, it was one conversation, one wire. That changed quickly.:-)
Until relatively recently, long distance worked more or less the same way, with wires. Overseas calls were wired or via satellite, but still the same idea.
Today, lots of traffic is carried via IP, which is a whole different ball of wax - packets fly around in no particular sequence, to be reassembled near the destination. But that's another story.
here's a pretty good technical history, if you're interested...
At least they dropped the useless "did you pack your own bags" question. the only incidents that ever occurred in that light were when a SPOUSE was trying to do in a partner.
Actually, this was tried (and came damn close to working) a number of times on El Al flights. The most well known:
...in April 1986 Nezar Hindawi, a
freelance Syrian-funded Jordanian terrorist and would-be agent of Syrian
intelligence, sent his pregnant Irish girlfriend on an El Al flight to Israel,
promising to meet her there to be married. Unknown to her, however, Hindawi had
hidden a bomb (provided by the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO)) in a false bottom
to her hand luggage. His attempt to bomb the airliner in midair by duping his
pregnant girlfriend was thwarted when the bomb was discovered by Heathrow
security personnel...
...Taylor regards Hindawi's behavior in this incident as
psychopathic because of Hindawi's willingness to sacrifice his fiance and unborn
child...
But I don't buy that - a suicide bomber is willing to sacrifice himself, after all, and I don't believe most people consider all suicide/ murderers insane. Evil, yes. Often brainwashed by even more evil people. But not automatically insane.
Anyway, this guy may well have wanted to get rid of an embarrasing situation at the same time he killed some Jews (a 'win-win' from his point of view).
Anyway, "did you pack your own bags" is a fine and useful tool, when asked by a trained interrogator.
The point is not the content of the answer, but the out of band information - demeanor, attitude, non-verbal communication, etc. etc.
That's why American Airlines was *unusually* clueless when they set up their automated check in machine to ask this question (!)
Slashdot Mirror
Wow - Google confirms the budget? I didn't even know they were *in* the Constitution!
Well, props to Microsoft. I just downloaded IE 8 at this link: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/default.aspx I figured it might be slow, or unreachable - but, guess what? Average download speed: 1.48 MB / Sec. Wow. Two possibilities here: 1) They threw some serious bandwidth at this thing. Or, 2) IE 8 is already a dismal failure because only 17 people in the entire United States have downloaded it so far today. I'm guessing #1 - but you may disagree...
Guys, get a grip! This is nothing new - the ReadMe.txt file for WHS says the same thing: Don't *store* frequently modified critical files such as Outlook (.ost) files on the server. Keep them local, and let WHS back them up like any other file. This excellent advice applies to all operating systems and networks: any file that is frequently updated and may get corrupted if a write is interrupted should be stored locally. Network connections can go down; packets can get lost; etc. etc. Sure, in an ideal world writes are atomic and files are never left in a vulnerable state - but that's not as common as we would like.
So if some criminal tries to use robots.txt to hide information, the lawyers can still get it, either by subpoena/discovery to wayback, or an injunction to get the guy to remove his robots.txt, at which point the data returns to wayback!
cool!
For example, tens of thousands of eager, brilliant students have arrived at Freshman Orientation at (Harvard/Yale/Oxford/U of P) to find that their 120 IQ puts them right in the middle of the pack, at best.
Even your average programmer is probably well over 100 IQ.
Why?
Because that 'celebrity party' he talks about in the article took place at the Grove in Los Angeles, right next to my apartment building. This 'party' consisted of earth-shaking 'music' that kept my one- and two-year old children up till after 1:00 in the morning on a week night, listening to an amplified rapper yelling Mother-F**er again and again. This was audible a full city block away, with all of the windows closed up tight. I'm telling you, my building was shaking. I'm just lucky the kids didn't learn that word - it was repeated hundreds of times.
The police were called multiple times, by me and other neighbors, and eventually shut them down.
These kinds of irresponsible corporate citizens don't deserve our support.
OK, I'm done with my rant.
It was Friday afternoon around quitting time, and it hadn't arrived.
So you went home.
So UPS showed up, and left the package (perhaps ignoring the 'signature required' - you don't say so, but perhaps).
What were they supposed to do? Bring it back to their special freezer for people who don't stick around to make sure $20K packages are properly handled?
And what about insurance, anyway? Had you not heard that packages don't *always* arrive on time and intact?
Sheesh.
All was well for about five minutes, when I realized I had lost my Google Toolbar(!!!)
So, yes, I can confirm Google Toolbar is a BHO.
I went right back and rechecked the box - life isn't worth living without Google. :-)
Unfortunately, I can't find any mention on A-W's web site.
Half.com says 'June 2005,' and Amazon says 'February 2004,' which seems unlikely... :-)
Still, if it's useful I suppose there's no point in waiting a year for the new edition...
Slashdot paranoia strikes again!
What does your imagination have to do with this story? If the PHB has a video camera pointed at you, he doesn't need to turn his wall into a video screen, he can use an existing device called a 'monitor.'
Also, I don't think most of us have too much to worry about - what could be more boring than watching a programmer work?
I know - watching a sysadmin work! :-)
That would make the IRS systems nice and simple, sure.
But it wouldn't be fair.
A tax attorney friend of mine explained this to me once.
All of the clever tax planning would shift away from 'finding deductions' to 'hiding income.'
In other words, if the IRS doesn't consider that pile of money 'income,' they won't take their pound of flesh.
Now, do you imagine the working (salaried) stiffs are going to be able to hide their income?
No, only the wealthy and super-wealthy will be able to play that game. So the flat tax will end up being nice and regressive.
Oh, and all those complexities will come back right quick, in the form of rules about what constitutes (earned, unearned, implied, presumed, effective, etc.) income.
Still, a little flattening and removing of sweetheart provisions might be nice for me - I know some pretty good tax attorneys... :-)
They found water!
This was last year.
oops.
ITF 2003
Here's her bio from the site...
Laura DiDio is a senior analyst for the Yankee Group's Application Infrastructure & Software Platforms Planning Service, which is closely aligned with the Enterprise Computing & Networking Planning Service. In this capacity, Ms. DiDio focuses on desktop and server operating systems, with a particular emphasis on Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, Active Directory, and Novell, Inc.'s NetWare. Additional areas of coverage are Web services platforms and standards including Microsoft's emerging .NET services and the rival J2EE. She also covers the directory services arena and interoperability and migration issues associated with Active Directory, eDirectory, and Sun's iPlanet, as well as desktop and server operating system security, software distribution, and third-party performance monitoring and management tools.
Ms. DiDio has covered client and server operating systems, directory services, and OS and NOS security for 15 years as an analyst, reporter, and editor. Prior to joining Yankee Group, she spent three and a half years at Giga Information Group, where she held a similar position. Before that she held various reporting positions at a number of computer networking industry trade publications including: Computerworld, Network World, Communications Week, LAN Times, and Digital Review. Ms. DiDio also worked as an investigative reporter for various broadcasting and print outlets including CNN and Channel 5 News in New York. Her investigative reports have also appeared in The Village Voice and The Minneapolis Star Tribune. Laura DiDio holds a B.A. in Communications and a minor in French from Fordham University
It brings me a much more immediate benefit than you describe - (I assume) it directly affects the 'TiVo Recommendations' I get.
I sure do love my TiVo!!!!
The thing is, I don't remember that happening.
Not doubting you or anything, but can you post a supporting link or two?
Ideally, you could find a Microsoft-sponsored article in the wayback machine...
He led the discussion with the whole Diebold 'committed to raising $100,000 for GWB' thing.
Actually, I think he should have led with the paper trail issue - as others have said before, the GWB fund-raising thing is a red herring that makes voting machine critics look like tin-foil hat-wearing nutcases.
At the end of the day, the Diebold people are clearly incompetent, and the system is hugely flawed. Those facts are hard-to-dispute.
The idea that large groups of Diebold staffers are involved in a massive right-wing conspiracy is significantly harder to prove, and fails the Occam's Razor test - why ascribe to malice what can easily be ascribed to incompetence?
I agree that Diebold got off the NPR hook too easily on their security flaws...
Don't hold Chaucer up to modern standards.
Nobody gave a rat's ass for English spelling before the revolution of the printing press.
Shakespeare spelled his own name a bunch of different ways - according to the BBC, even two different ways in his own will(!)
here is a ridiculously exhaustive analysis of the different ways to spell 'Shakespeare.'
Consistency (of spelling and other things) just wasn't as important before 'modern' times...
When I was about seven or eight, my dad decided we kids were watching too much TV. So he decided to implement an early version of the V chip. :-)
He put replaced the male plug at the end of the tv power cord with a female plug, and built a male-to-male power adapter that he kept control over. He would give us the adapter for two hours per night, then confiscate it again.
Worked pretty well - with no way to plug in the tv, there was no way to turn it on! We got bored watching the blank screen pretty quickly.
Can you see the flaw in his plan? :-)
One day, the TV didn't turn on - but I was pretty sure the adapter was in place. So I reached behind the stand without looking, to plug it in - and accidentally grabbed one end of the adapter - the end that wasn't plugged in to the wall...
YOWSA!...
no permanent damage, thank Gd (twitch twitch)
I never told him about it, and I was always much more careful around electrical stuff after that.
Actually, that's not strictly true. A few months later, I was home sick, without the adapter.
I couldn't imagine an *entire* day staring at a non-functioning tv, so I got into his toolbox and built myself a replacement male-to-male adapter.
Being 8 years old, I did a piss-poor job - a couple of strands of wire weren't properly tucked into their screw post, and touched some other strands (causing a short circuit).
sparks everywhere, scared the heck out of me.
So I hit the circuit breaker, cleaned up the strands, plugged it back in and watched TV till 5 minutes before my mom was due back. :-)
wait for it...
$current_price - $future_price + $round_trip_broker_commisions = ...
$40.00 (maybe)
that's quite a lawsuit - Darl must be quaking just thinking about it.
Google, on the other hand, hangs out in my IE toolbar (YMMV).
Type an arithmetic expression into google, and voila - your answer is returned.
It's like magic! :-)
Here's a simplified picture:
If I'm calling the lower east side of manhattan from the upper west side, I pick up my handset in my apartment. That establishes a physical straight wire from the handset to my switch (typically just a few blocks away).
I then dial a number - say, 222-2123.
At the switch, the computer examines the exchange (the first three digits), determines the correct remote switch associated with that exchange, chooses another physical wire that directly connects the two switches. That line is connected directly to my line, and the number dialed is forwared to the remote switch.
The remote switch then analyzes the last four digits, find the physical wire connecting the destination phone, and rings that phone. We're then connected with a direct wire between the two points - almost exactly the same as the operator used to create, except the computerized switch is much faster than the operator :-)
One important point - there's lots of multiplexing going on, whereby many simultaneous conversations share the same wires. At the very dawn of telephony, it was one conversation, one wire. That changed quickly. :-)
Until relatively recently, long distance worked more or less the same way, with wires. Overseas calls were wired or via satellite, but still the same idea.
Today, lots of traffic is carried via IP, which is a whole different ball of wax - packets fly around in no particular sequence, to be reassembled near the destination. But that's another story.
here's a pretty good technical history, if you're interested...
Did you notice the text at the bottom of the page?
Last Modified: 01-DEC-99
Physician, heal thyself! :-)
Actually, this was tried (and came damn close to working) a number of times on El Al flights. The most well known:
That's a verbatim quote from this.
The article goes on to say
But I don't buy that - a suicide bomber is willing to sacrifice himself, after all, and I don't believe most people consider all suicide/ murderers insane. Evil, yes. Often brainwashed by even more evil people. But not automatically insane.
Anyway, this guy may well have wanted to get rid of an embarrasing situation at the same time he killed some Jews (a 'win-win' from his point of view).
Anyway, "did you pack your own bags" is a fine and useful tool, when asked by a trained interrogator.
The point is not the content of the answer, but the out of band information - demeanor, attitude, non-verbal communication, etc. etc.
That's why American Airlines was *unusually* clueless when they set up their automated check in machine to ask this question (!)
It's manual everything, solid no-nonsense body. Very little to break, very easy to use.
Of course, you have to do everything yourself - which helps you to learn little things like composition, depth-of-field, etc. etc.
the model is at least 25 years old - that's when I had mine (!)
After that, I had a Nikon FG - also a great, simple camera.