Anybody with any common sense can tell that the thing wasn't a bomb.
No, they can't.
The function of a booby trap is to tempt the greedy and the careless into doing something supremely stupid.
It is the big red button that screams "Do Not Touch!"
But the Geek isway too smart to be taken in by anything so utterly ridicuous.
The Geek ---to paraphrase Asimov --- is logical, but not reasonable. He'll accept conspiracy theories that are wildly implausible so long as they are internally consistent.
But madness he cannot understand or accept on its own terms. The Joker in the deck. The man who doesn't play by the rules.
And the small independents only hated SO until they got super rich from the company shares that Rockefeller and Phipps paid them in, ha ha.
Not exactly.
Standard's regional operating companies grew stronger than ever after the break-up and simply absorbed the little guys---a small reminder that anti-trust campaigns are notoriously short-lived and rarely end as they begin---and a lesson in history for the Geek who still believes that the break-up of Microsoft would have been a good thing.
AT&T used to be the big evil empire. Then it was IBM. Microsoft took over for IBM. Sure why not have Apple take over for Microsoft as most hated company? So who came before AT&T? Standard Oil?
How many of the big corporations have ever been hated by anyone beyond a narrow and short-lived circle of populist reformers?
Standard Oil was a villain to the small independents. Not to the customer who found the Standard product to be cheap, predictable and safe.
With virtualization built into desktop processors, you could just go ahead and run a hybrid linux/bsd/windows/osx box and run whatever application you want or need natively. Your host OS would be irrelevant.
Oh, joy, just what I've always wanted.
Four operating systems to maintain. Four software libraries to maintain. Four skill sets to maintain.
Perhaps they should switch to Mac OS X. They have "The Print Shop" available...
Of course they do. Look hard enough and you'll find Print Shop running on Apple II. But it is telling when a commercial Linux distribution for the home market has so little to offer to the home market.
If only Adolf Hitler had not had access to videogames, the history of modern Europe would look entirely different.
You do know that the propaganda machine re-designed children's board games to teach hatred of the Jews? That paramilitary training for boys in the Hitler Youth began at around age ten? If Hitler had the tech he would have used the tech.
I expect to go to any computer retailer and be able to buy a computer without Windows pre-installed. That's all I want --
What the retailer wants is sales. Lots and lots of sales.
Which is what he gets when he stocks OEM Windows. No arm-twisting required. Walmart.com had thirty Vista systems ready for the January launch, beginning at $500.
As long as Windows is shipped with computers and people have to pay the Microsoft tax, there isn't a free market to speak of.
OEM Vista at Walmart starts at $500 for the no-name Vista Basic laptop. The Microsoft Tax amounts to $40 to $80 on a dual-core system with very attractive specs. No one gives a damn about the Microsoft Tax.
Most Windows users didn't choose a Microsoft operating system, so their preferences weren't a factor.
I wish people would stop calling me because their crummy greeting card creation program quit printing a certain color
Stop right there.
In Linspire's CNR Warehouse there are no "Greeting Card" programs.
20,000 titles.
But nothing to replace The Print Shop, which has been doing business at the same old stand for about twenty-five years.
Page through the catalog as a home user would.
Strip away the programs that are available for Windows, then ask yourself what is left and what is missing. You may not find the answers very comforting.
should be spent getting their apps to work on Linux and just abandon Vista. Would be a good attack against M$ and I would really like to use iTunes in Ubuntu.
that new Vista Premium system will have damn good specs for media play.
when fully half your revenues come through sales of the iPod and iTunes you do not drop support for the OS that ships or will ship with 95-98% of the new home PCs and consumer laptops sold world-wide.
probably not, unless you are shopping for guitar strings.
this Linux coversion story is what, four years old now? getting a little long in the tooth, don't you think?
it tempts one to ask where all the Ernie Bells are that haven't migrated to Linux. if the answer is "everywhere" and the answer is "still running Windows," then Ernie Ball has changed very much.
It's quite tempting, but I somehow don't think I could bring myself to work for Microsoft even for that much money (add a zero on the end, and I might think about compromising
if that's the attitude you bring to the interview, you won't have to worry about being offered the job---even if it came with the extra zero attached to it.
This only really works, however, if you have a clear vision of how the world should be. From what I've seen, Bill doesn't.
I beg to differ:
"I know what I want to do," [Warren Buffet] said, "and it makes sense to get going." On that spring day his plan was uncertain in some of its details; today it is essentially complete. And it is typical Buffett: rational, original, breaking the mold of how extremely rich people donate money.
Buffett has pledged to gradually give 85% of his Berkshire stock to five foundations. A dominant five-sixths of the shares will go to the world's largest philanthropic organization, the $30 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, whose principals are close friends of Buffett's (a connection that began in 1991, when a mutual friend introduced Buffett and Bill Gates).
The Gateses credit Buffett, says Bill, with having "inspired" their thinking about giving money back to society. Their foundation's activities, internationally famous, are focused on world health -- fighting such diseases as malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis -- and on improving U.S. libraries and high schools.Warren Buffett gives away his fortune
In 2001 the Geographic was reporting:
The Gates Foundation has committed more than U.S. $100 million so far: $50 million to launch a malaria vaccine initiative; $40 million to a malaria research program at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; and $25 million to Medicines for Malaria Venture, a public-private project promoting malaria drug treatments.Bill Gates Fortune Used to Wage War on Malaria
I know of a couple exceptionally talented programmers that couldn't even get an offer from MS.
"I could'a been a contender."
Talent as you define it isn't necessarily talent as Microsoft or Google defines it. Talent alone doesn't make you employable. Not everyone gets a shot at the brass ring.
What a joke....
99% of software runs on xp/win2k, very little of it is vista only, and it cannot offer anything exclusive.
...like DX 10?
There is more than enough that is new in Vista [and in Vista-rated hardware] to make it profitable to program for Vista as the OS gains market share. Features new to Windows Vista
XP on the PC and current Macs both handle HD Tuners without the need for specially crippled video cards.
if by "crippled" you mean no support for Cable Card 2, no support for a broadcast flag, then what you say is true, and it also true for Vista.
however, if you are Apple and need a product that can successfully compete with Microsoft and Scientific Atlanta in the market for the 400 channel set top box, then you have a problem.
The question still remains, "Why Vista?" Why devote that large a chunk of your resources to an OS that spends most of its time making sure you're not being naughty?
When you add an HD tuner or Blu-Ray drive to your Mac you will discover that the rules for HD content protection are the same.
Vista spends most of its time doing what OSX does most of its time: running applications and maintaining an end-user oriented GUI.
I need access to Windows because I have to test my Java code on Windows.
Yup, me too
But no way Vista is going on any of machines: Mac, PC, or other.
Please explain to me how a programmer writing cross-platform apps in Java (or any other language) avoids testing on Vista.
Great news, I just wish she had gone for pain and suffering, harassment, and libel (or something like it). Get those greedy bastards to set her up for life and we'll see how many more suits they file. Fuck you RIAA!
going into court with revenge or greed as your objective (to be "set up for life") is why judges instinctively resist awards for pain and suffering, etc. too nebulous, too easily abused.
the courts are a very conservative institution.
issues are progressively narrowed, not enlarged as cases proceed to judgment.
Here's an even better idea, get rid of the DMCA and go back to the tried and true "innocent until proven guilty."
"Innocent until proven Guilty" has meaning only in criminal law. In civil law there is simply a finding for the plaintiff or the defendant based on the weight of the evidence.
It doesn't take much to shift the balance against you.
Has the press in America even been negative? The one news piece I saw of it highlighted the ridiculousness of the government's response to the advertisements
Then you weren't watching the live cable news feeds, or the follow-up on CNN, which is owned by Turner Broadcasting. The stunt won no friends for CN in Boston.
The notion that all publicity is good publicity is adolescent nonsense.
Tell that to Take Two and Rockstar. Tell it to the Fox executives who bought into the O.J. Simpson deal. Tell that to the Nintendo exec the next time someone dies in a video game stunt.
And even more bad that the two poor schmucks working for the ad agency are still charged with crimes. They should be set free, and whatever moron phoned in a litebrite as a "bomb" (and the corresponding police moron who agreed with him) should be looking at potential liability
The caller sees something in passing, something that is not quite right: a parcel where there should be no parcels, movement where there should be no movement, lights where there should be no lights.
Does anybody remember the post-9/11 homeland security debacle with Tom Ridge reccomending people use duct tape and plastic sheeting to protect themselves from terrorists.. and then several people dying by asphyxiating themselves in their own homes?
This has the feel of an urban legend, but something of the sort did happen in Israel:
In mid-March 2003 the Associated Press reported on the demise by suffocation of three Israeli Arabs (a woman and her two teenage sons) in the town of Kfar Kassem, all of whom had spent the night in a room of the family home which had been sealed with plastic sheeting and duct tape against a possible Iraqi chemical missile attack.
Police said the three lost their lives because a coal-fueled heater in an adjacent room sucked oxygen from the room they were sleeping in, which was designed to stop air from entering but allowed air to escape. Around 5 a.m., the husband awoke and realized his wife and their two teens (ages 13 and 14) were not breathing, police said. Their two younger children (ages 3 and 4) survived. Smother of Invention
I'll take the odds that the real or contributing cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning.
Slashdot Mirror
No, they can't.
The function of a booby trap is to tempt the greedy and the careless into doing something supremely stupid.
It is the big red button that screams "Do Not Touch!"
But the Geek is way too smart to be taken in by anything so utterly ridicuous.
The Geek ---to paraphrase Asimov --- is logical, but not reasonable. He'll accept conspiracy theories that are wildly implausible so long as they are internally consistent.
But madness he cannot understand or accept on its own terms. The Joker in the deck. The man who doesn't play by the rules.
Not exactly.
Standard's regional operating companies grew stronger than ever after the break-up and simply absorbed the little guys---a small reminder that anti-trust campaigns are notoriously short-lived and rarely end as they begin---and a lesson in history for the Geek who still believes that the break-up of Microsoft would have been a good thing.
Whatever Happened to Standard Oil? A highly abridged history of the petroleum companies that have used the 'Standard' brand name.
How many of the big corporations have ever been hated by anyone beyond a narrow and short-lived circle of populist reformers?
Standard Oil was a villain to the small independents. Not to the customer who found the Standard product to be cheap, predictable and safe.
Towards extinction.
No one but the grammarian remembers the rules. No one but the grammarian cares about the rules.
Oh, joy, just what I've always wanted.
Four operating systems to maintain. Four software libraries to maintain. Four skill sets to maintain.
Of course they do. Look hard enough and you'll find Print Shop running on Apple II. But it is telling when a commercial Linux distribution for the home market has so little to offer to the home market.
You do know that the propaganda machine re-designed children's board games to teach hatred of the Jews? That paramilitary training for boys in the Hitler Youth began at around age ten? If Hitler had the tech he would have used the tech.
What the retailer wants is sales. Lots and lots of sales.
Which is what he gets when he stocks OEM Windows. No arm-twisting required. Walmart.com had thirty Vista systems ready for the January launch, beginning at $500.
OEM Vista at Walmart starts at $500 for the no-name Vista Basic laptop. The Microsoft Tax amounts to $40 to $80 on a dual-core system with very attractive specs. No one gives a damn about the Microsoft Tax.
Most Windows users didn't choose a Microsoft operating system, so their preferences weren't a factor.
The Geek on crack. Living in his dream world.
Stop right there.
In Linspire's CNR Warehouse there are no "Greeting Card" programs.
20,000 titles.
But nothing to replace The Print Shop, which has been doing business at the same old stand for about twenty-five years.
Page through the catalog as a home user would.
Strip away the programs that are available for Windows, then ask yourself what is left and what is missing. You may not find the answers very comforting.
that new Vista Premium system will have damn good specs for media play.
when fully half your revenues come through sales of the iPod and iTunes you do not drop support for the OS that ships or will ship with 95-98% of the new home PCs and consumer laptops sold world-wide.
probably not, unless you are shopping for guitar strings.
this Linux coversion story is what, four years old now? getting a little long in the tooth, don't you think?
it tempts one to ask where all the Ernie Bells are that haven't migrated to Linux. if the answer is "everywhere" and the answer is "still running Windows," then Ernie Ball has changed very much.
if that's the attitude you bring to the interview, you won't have to worry about being offered the job---even if it came with the extra zero attached to it.
I beg to differ:
"I know what I want to do," [Warren Buffet] said, "and it makes sense to get going." On that spring day his plan was uncertain in some of its details; today it is essentially complete. And it is typical Buffett: rational, original, breaking the mold of how extremely rich people donate money.
Buffett has pledged to gradually give 85% of his Berkshire stock to five foundations. A dominant five-sixths of the shares will go to the world's largest philanthropic organization, the $30 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, whose principals are close friends of Buffett's (a connection that began in 1991, when a mutual friend introduced Buffett and Bill Gates).
The Gateses credit Buffett, says Bill, with having "inspired" their thinking about giving money back to society. Their foundation's activities, internationally famous, are focused on world health -- fighting such diseases as malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis -- and on improving U.S. libraries and high schools. Warren Buffett gives away his fortune
In 2001 the Geographic was reporting:
The Gates Foundation has committed more than U.S. $100 million so far: $50 million to launch a malaria vaccine initiative; $40 million to a malaria research program at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; and $25 million to Medicines for Malaria Venture, a public-private project promoting malaria drug treatments. Bill Gates Fortune Used to Wage War on Malaria
"I could'a been a contender."
Talent as you define it isn't necessarily talent as Microsoft or Google defines it. Talent alone doesn't make you employable. Not everyone gets a shot at the brass ring.
99% of software runs on xp/win2k, very little of it is vista only, and it cannot offer anything exclusive.
There is more than enough that is new in Vista [and in Vista-rated hardware] to make it profitable to program for Vista as the OS gains market share. Features new to Windows Vista
not to spoil the joke, but you don't need to ask this question once you have priced a vehicle equipped for use on a farm.
What kind of user interface isn't user oriented?
The UI the programmer designs for his own use and not for use by others.
if by "crippled" you mean no support for Cable Card 2, no support for a broadcast flag, then what you say is true, and it also true for Vista.
however, if you are Apple and need a product that can successfully compete with Microsoft and Scientific Atlanta in the market for the 400 channel set top box, then you have a problem.
When you add an HD tuner or Blu-Ray drive to your Mac you will discover that the rules for HD content protection are the same.
Vista spends most of its time doing what OSX does most of its time: running applications and maintaining an end-user oriented GUI.
I need access to Windows because I have to test my Java code on Windows.
Yup, me too
But no way Vista is going on any of machines: Mac, PC, or other.
Please explain to me how a programmer writing cross-platform apps in Java (or any other language) avoids testing on Vista.
going into court with revenge or greed as your objective (to be "set up for life") is why judges instinctively resist awards for pain and suffering, etc. too nebulous, too easily abused.
the courts are a very conservative institution.
issues are progressively narrowed, not enlarged as cases proceed to judgment.
"Innocent until proven Guilty" has meaning only in criminal law. In civil law there is simply a finding for the plaintiff or the defendant based on the weight of the evidence.
It doesn't take much to shift the balance against you.
perhaps your dad or grandad can explain to you the basic psychology of a booby trap. if not, take a lesson from Private Snafu.
it is all about greed. it is all about the bait.
in wartime, a pistol, a ration pack, a pair of binoculars.
Then you weren't watching the live cable news feeds, or the follow-up on CNN, which is owned by Turner Broadcasting. The stunt won no friends for CN in Boston.
The notion that all publicity is good publicity is adolescent nonsense.
Tell that to Take Two and Rockstar. Tell it to the Fox executives who bought into the O.J. Simpson deal. Tell that to the Nintendo exec the next time someone dies in a video game stunt.
And even more bad that the two poor schmucks working for the ad agency are still charged with crimes. They should be set free, and whatever moron phoned in a litebrite as a "bomb" (and the corresponding police moron who agreed with him) should be looking at potential liability
The caller sees something in passing, something that is not quite right: a parcel where there should be no parcels, movement where there should be no movement, lights where there should be no lights.
The classic booby trap isn't hidden, it's baited. Cartoons for Victory
Does anybody remember the post-9/11 homeland security debacle with Tom Ridge reccomending people use duct tape and plastic sheeting to protect themselves from terrorists.. and then several people dying by asphyxiating themselves in their own homes?
This has the feel of an urban legend, but something of the sort did happen in Israel:
In mid-March 2003 the Associated Press reported on the demise by suffocation of three Israeli Arabs (a woman and her two teenage sons) in the town of Kfar Kassem, all of whom had spent the night in a room of the family home which had been sealed with plastic sheeting and duct tape against a possible Iraqi chemical missile attack.
Police said the three lost their lives because a coal-fueled heater in an adjacent room sucked oxygen from the room they were sleeping in, which was designed to stop air from entering but allowed air to escape. Around 5 a.m., the husband awoke and realized his wife and their two teens (ages 13 and 14) were not breathing, police said. Their two younger children (ages 3 and 4) survived. Smother of Invention
I'll take the odds that the real or contributing cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning.