From the article: US computer security firm iDefense discovered the code being circulated from Chinese websites. It said some computers were already being broken into using the new exploit code.
This puts a bit of a different spin on the previous story, in which Taiwan accused China of organizing a cyber-attack. I think this validates the position that Taiwan's government was simply disseminating a little cross-channel FUD... there may indeed be Chinese hackers trying to break into Taiwanese systems, but they're doing it on an ad-hoc basis, not as part of a government-sponsored attack.
Think about it... you're a hacker in mainland China, and you want to attack someone. Do you go after your own government? Only if your family doesn't mind paying for the bullet when you're convicted of espionage. Much safer to hit a country that your government wouldn't mind giving a black eye?
Hackers in China... hey, it looks like China is the new Russia!
I agree that the BBC article is woefully short of details, like how much additional energy was released, and the like. But before rejecting the conclusion out of hand, keep in mind that we're not entirely sure about a lot of "core" facts about our own planetary neighbors:
You need that core in standard formation models before you can accrete the hydrogen and helium gas.
According to this space.com article from 2001, extrasolar gas giants are throwing doubt on the "accretion" model of planet formation:
In the traditional view, Jupiter first formed a rocky core several times the size of Earth, which then attracted a still larger outer envelope of gas. This process is known as "accretion."
If this is the case, the large gaseous planet would have taken a very long time -- current estimates range between 10 million and a billion years -- to develop by the gradual build-up of material.
However, recent observations of distant stars suggest that planets have at most a few million years to gather up as much dust and gas as they can before the protoplanetary disk that feeds them disappears. There simply isn't enough time for massive planets like Jupiter to form.
If these new theories (yes, just theories) are correct, then you have a lot of very dense Hydrogen and Helium held together by its own gravity, not a big, rocky core. This makes the gas giants just small, dirty versions of the sun.
Of course, there are those who go the other way... Iron-core Sun, anyone?
It's a great time to be interested in the sky... fewer and fewer of the questions I got "right" on the middle school science test would be correct today.
Since when does bbc.co.uk get Slashdotted? I'm looking for the usual troll text insertions, but barring that, I think someone's trying their hand at Karma Whoring.
On the other hand, when you're down to Karma: You Will Be A Goldfish With Ich In Your Next Life and your posts start at -1, there's nowhere to go but up!
That's right. There's also SARS patients, grizzly bears, incompetent politicians, no jobs, horrible traffic, we're right next to the Pacific Ocean (which routinely produces typhoons that kill thousands of people), nuclear power plants, deadly blizzards... we even have a place called Death Valley.
Hmmm... maybe I should reconsider. Here in Texas, we have West Nile Virus, alligators (though they leave people alone), incompetentpoliticians (wish they would), jobs that go away when oil prices dip, horrible traffic, we're in Tornado Alley (with a direct hit on downtown Ft. Worth), cement plants, 120-degree weather, and we have a 32,000 square mile region (larger than all of New England) called the Llano Estacado that is so flat, it slopes just 10 feet per mile, and barely gets 12 inches of rain a year.
This is an interesting way of looking for recruits. An individual interview is one thing -- I've seen some real losers get past that process. Google seems to be looking for a way to entice and reward developers who can use their l33t coding sk1llz in a team environment. It's one thing to be able to write good code -- the ability to work with other great coders is valuable indeed.
What we look for when hiring great people: * People with broad knowledge and expertise in many different areas of computer science and mathematics, including distributed systems, operating systems, data mining, information retrieval, machine learning, performance optimization, algorithms, user interface design, statistical inference and information theory, and related areas. * People with world-class programming skills. * People with excellent communication and organizational skills. * People who are passionate about their work and are great colleagues. * People who enjoy working in a high-energy, unstructured environment on very small project teams to build amazing products used by millions of people every day. * People with diverse interests and skills.
What intrigues me personally is that this contest takes place in an online collaborative environment. Does this mean that Google is considering opening up to remote working -- as in, I can live in Dallas and "work" in the Googleplex? As much as I'd love to work at a place like Google, there's no way I'm moving to Cali-fall-into-the-ocean-fornia.
From the MSfreePC.com FAQ page: Q: Is there a deadline for me to make my claim using MSfreePC.com? A: Yes. The MSfreePC program is scheduled to end at the latest March 15, 2004. However, depending on demand levels, the ability to use MSfreePC.com to get an Instant Settlement* could end at ANY time [emphasis theirs], so you'll want to make your claim today! Also, keep in mind that the FREE PC offer is only valid for the first 10,000 claimants who acquire $100 worth of products through the MSfreePC program.
Depending on the robustness of the MSfreePC.com server, "depending on demand levels" may mean that "the ability to use MSfreePC.com" could end about 10 seconds after the story shows up on Slashdot...
If it does get Slashdotted, though, I've still got the FAQ in cache and would be happy to post it.
The Internet has really made petitions more accessable. Look at that picture!
Like everything else in politics, the picture is not all it seems.
Those boxes of printout are a prop. They're no more meaningful than the football-sized American flag flying over the local car dealership, or George W. landing on an aircraft carrier to announce the "end of major hostilities".
From everything I've heard, faxes are effective, as are phone calls. Both are most effective when they 1) happen to match the results of the latest polls and 2) are sent by large campaign donors. Online petitions are pretty much worth no more than the paper they're not printed on.
Don't forget -- the honorable representatives of the people are ready, willing and able to ignore those boxes of "340,000 Signatures (And Growing)" if the opinion they represent will not get them re-elected.
"Frist Psot" was rejected by the Lameness Filter, which was specially audjestd for this story. Note that the Slashdot spell-uncheck program was also adjusted to aollw the correct spellings of the non-scrambled wdors in the story to be let thourgh.
(tihs siht is too mcuh fun! sotp me!)
Re:Does this work for non native speakers?
on
Can You Raed Tihs?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I would have thought that anyone fluent in english (which she is) would be able to read the post without much difficulty.
Actually, since I'm not British, the final word of the canonical scramble threw me off:
Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe. ceehiro.
I read the rest of the text correctly, but I had a devil of a time figuring out the reference to the Miyazaki film Spirited Away, also known as Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi!
Why would you insert chocolate rectally? Like the other reply said, if you eat a shitload of chocolate, it won't burn going in or out. If you eat a shitload of jalapenos, it'll burn when you eat them, it'll burn when you shit them, and (if you eat enough) it'll burn when you piss them.
+1, Most On-Topic Use Of The Word "shitload"
(By the way, I sent your.sig to my wife the first time I saw it. She really likes jalapenos... the first time around, at least.)
As an experiment, try sitting in a place with a fair amount of white noise (such as CPU fans). Now slowly bring your right hand toward your ear with your palm open. The first thing you'll notice is a loss of some higher frequency ambient sounds from the right side. As the hand gets closer, you may notice an increase in reflected noises that originated on your left. Eventually you will be able to judge the distance between your ear and your palm simply by the tone of the noise.
So that explains why all the guys in the computer room were making "Dumbo ears" at each other over lunch!
Me: we can't afford to export our jobs and livelihoods. You: Why? Are we somehow fundametally better than other humans? Are people in India somehow less deserving of a chance at building wealth and success for themselves?
That's a great argument! Even if it's a bit of a troll, but I'll bite.
I don't want to do anything to deprive citizens of any country of their rights to build wealth and success. However, one of the countries whose people are "deserving of a chance at building wealth and success" is the one I'm sitting in now -- no, not that one, I mean the USA.
In the bad old days of the British Empire, the riches of the peoples of other nations were siphoned off for the benefit of the Crown. Today, we still have vestiges of that system in place -- and yes, the US is as culpable as any other imperial power in several cases.
I see so-called "Hardship" visas and overseas outsourcing as an imperial system in reverse. The concept is the same: siphoning off the target country's resources for the benefit of another country. That's not free trade -- that's exploitation. Unfortunately, countries that were once occupied by imperial powers sometimes learned the exploitation game all too well.
If you want to say, "turnabout is fair play," go ahead... but don't pretend it's right.
One more very important point: It's unfortunate the Green Party, if what you say is true, has choses a rather short-sighted stance on this issue.
Hold on -- I'm not saying I speak for the Green Party! I was affirming my personal views against discrimination based on ethnicity, which is a tenet of the party's values. Before making any judgements about the US Green Party (or any of its international brethren and sistren), please visit their site -- their Ten Key Values will be an excellent place to start.
According to A. Clarke himself the space elevator was invented by Jurij Artsutanov from St. Petersburg.
I remember the days, before the wall fell, when the running joke was that anything invented in the West was invented years before, in the USSR. "Liquid Paper? That was invented by a little old lady in Leningrad after the Great Patriotic War, when she mixed horse manure with old German shell casings!"
Was that Kruschev (sp?!) that was known for "we did it first"?
It's so sad... here I am in my '30s, and all I know are ISR jokes. Speaking of which... IN SOVIET RUSSIA, Space Elevator goes up YOU!
The Backlash article mentioned a group called TORAW:
It's not hard to find reasons for CIOs to worry. "Do you want to do business with companies that take away jobs for U.S. citizens by outsourcing work to foreign countries?" asks The Organization for the Rights of American Workers (Toraw), a group of displaced, angry American workers laid off by Connecticut insurance and financial services companies.
I'm browsing TORAW's web site now, and they look like an interesting organization. Not focused just on moving jobs offshore, they're also advocating a hard look at "non-immigrant foreign workers" - specifically, H1-B visa holders.
I like that TORAW explicity states that they're not against "permanent green card status immigrants", or against anyone based on ethnicity or country of origin. From what I've read so far, they address my concerns without hitting my Green Party hot buttons. The US should be open to those who want to come, stay, and build a new life -- but we can't afford to export our jobs and livelihoods.
Unfortunately, I can't tell if TORAW membership is available to all concerned Americans. Their membership form is encoded in virus-friendly Microsoft Word format, as are their brochures, and the CIO article notes the local CT connection.
But an organization like this looks like just what we need to keep the IT industry from being the next textile industry.
Great link... I'd subscribe to New Scientist if it weren't $89 a year to the US.
Their article leads off:
The coolest thing in the Universe is now a cloud of sodium atoms in a laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
That reminded me of another cloud of sodium atoms, in a lake on the Oklahoma/Texas border, that wasn't the hottest thing in the Universe but was close enough for the 'researchers'!
My disclaimer is that all I've got is a programming job and an AS in computer-aided drafting, but here goes:
Is absolute zero really an unreachable limit because of uncertainty? Or is it like the example in a previous Slashdot article where Apollo never passes the tortoise, because he must first close half the distance, then half the remaining distance, then half that distance, etc... and never actually passes the turtle.
And what if we're dealing with non-quantum masses? I don't know where any particular electron is, but I do know where I can find the mass of electrons, protons, and neutrons that make up my fingernail are when I'm typing. Most of the time, that is.
Thank you to all for your help! Here's my action plan:
* I know I didn't have any unknown outstanding debts on my record in April, but there are some medical bills that may have been added since then. I'll get a new credit report and see what's been going on lately. I used myFICO once before, but their price seems to have gone up... I'll have to look for an alternative. Fortunately, I've been turned down enough times while looking for new home financing, that I should be able to get a free report.:)
* If nothing shows up there, I'll follow up on the company name that this AC managed to get out of the 800 number. NCO Credit Services has three numbers and several emails listed on their "Contacts" page... someone should be able to tell me if they have a gruff-voiced robot that calls and leaves "non solicitation messages".
* Once I feel like I have a clue who's calling, I'll be more comfortable telling them who I am. Your information has been very valuable, especially the part about collection agencies in the US being barred from costing me money when they collect. That implies that these folks *will* care that they're calling on a cell phone.
Thanks again, everyone, for your help. Good luck, and God bless!
Look at what Title 9 did to mens sports for example.
A very interesting example. Before Title 9, my volleyball-playing daughter would have had almost no chance at pursuing her athletic interests at the college of her choice, since all interest and funds were directed to mens' sports.
Now, after many years, we have colleges complaining that the mens' lacrosse team doesn't have enough funds because of Title 9. So it's better to have multiple fringe sports for men and no sports for women, than to have a few fringe sports for men and a few mainstream sports for women?
Back to the NASA vision bill. To make this bill equivalent to Title 9, you have to have a target in mind for those funds. Womens' sports "took" money from mens' sports... lets have space exploration "take" money from some other department that receives entirely too much attention and funding.
I wonder how big a space station you could build for $87 Billion Bucks?
From the article: AT&T plans to retire 270 legacy systems across the world by the end of 2005. Approximately 130 legacy systems were retired over the past 18 months, with another 140 systems slated for phase out over the next two years.
The article didn't define exactly what "legacy systems" were (switches? entire local networks?), but that sure sounds like a lot of high technology that's heading for the dustbin. We're talking technology that's currently in use creating a mobile communications system that would have been unimaginable just 15 years ago.
Will it all be scrapped out? Will barges full of misc parts be shipped to third-world scavenging companies to recover the precious metals? Or is there some way to move the equipment to areas that need it -- Afghanistan and Iraq come to mind right away, but I'd think that under-served (and under-reported) countries like Somalia and the rest of Africa could make use of this supposedly outdated hardware.
Of course, we're back to the same old question -- when it costs more to recycle than to dump, how do you justify doing the Right Thing to shareholders whose only interest is in doing the Profitable Thing?
To get around this, maybe you can use one of those e-mail services that will let you get your POP messages and view them through a Web page
Actually, the only email I receive via Eudora is the mail sent to my public email addresses. Thanks to the generosity of the dixie-chicks.com host, that mail is filtered by Postini -- otherwise, it would be completely useless due to spam.
My real email address -- the one I use to communicate with people I know personally -- is online, hosted by Neologism Productions, a high-quality, low-cost mom-and-pop operation out of Plano, Texas.
I seldom have any spam problems there, even without filtering, though I get hit by an occasional dictionary/common-name attack. I inadvertently viewed a spam message sent to an alias, triggered a web bug, and started receiving 2-3 spams a day to that alias. That alias, sadly, is no more...
Slashdot Mirror
From the article:
US computer security firm iDefense discovered the code being circulated from Chinese websites. It said some computers were already being broken into using the new exploit code.
This puts a bit of a different spin on the previous story, in which Taiwan accused China of organizing a cyber-attack. I think this validates the position that Taiwan's government was simply disseminating a little cross-channel FUD... there may indeed be Chinese hackers trying to break into Taiwanese systems, but they're doing it on an ad-hoc basis, not as part of a government-sponsored attack.
Think about it... you're a hacker in mainland China, and you want to attack someone. Do you go after your own government? Only if your family doesn't mind paying for the bullet when you're convicted of espionage. Much safer to hit a country that your government wouldn't mind giving a black eye?
Hackers in China... hey, it looks like China is the new Russia!
Karma to burn on an off-topic post... did anyone else read "Lunar Composition Examined By X-Ray" as:
Linux Composition Examined By X-Ray
and think it was a story about yet another attempt to find out what code SCO thinks they have a right to charge for?
-1, Offtopic; -1, Redundant; -1, Cliche... but I just had to say it.
I agree that the BBC article is woefully short of details, like how much additional energy was released, and the like. But before rejecting the conclusion out of hand, keep in mind that we're not entirely sure about a lot of "core" facts about our own planetary neighbors:
You need that core in standard formation models before you can accrete the hydrogen and helium gas.
According to this space.com article from 2001, extrasolar gas giants are throwing doubt on the "accretion" model of planet formation:
In the traditional view, Jupiter first formed a rocky core several times the size of Earth, which then attracted a still larger outer envelope of gas. This process is known as "accretion."
If this is the case, the large gaseous planet would have taken a very long time -- current estimates range between 10 million and a billion years -- to develop by the gradual build-up of material.
However, recent observations of distant stars suggest that planets have at most a few million years to gather up as much dust and gas as they can before the protoplanetary disk that feeds them disappears. There simply isn't enough time for massive planets like Jupiter to form.
If these new theories (yes, just theories) are correct, then you have a lot of very dense Hydrogen and Helium held together by its own gravity, not a big, rocky core. This makes the gas giants just small, dirty versions of the sun.
Of course, there are those who go the other way... Iron-core Sun, anyone?
It's a great time to be interested in the sky... fewer and fewer of the questions I got "right" on the middle school science test would be correct today.
Since when does bbc.co.uk get Slashdotted? I'm looking for the usual troll text insertions, but barring that, I think someone's trying their hand at Karma Whoring.
On the other hand, when you're down to Karma: You Will Be A Goldfish With Ich In Your Next Life and your posts start at -1, there's nowhere to go but up!
That's right. There's also SARS patients, grizzly bears, incompetent politicians, no jobs, horrible traffic, we're right next to the Pacific Ocean (which routinely produces typhoons that kill thousands of people), nuclear power plants, deadly blizzards... we even have a place called Death Valley.
Hmmm... maybe I should reconsider. Here in Texas, we have West Nile Virus, alligators (though they leave people alone), incompetent politicians (wish they would), jobs that go away when oil prices dip, horrible traffic, we're in Tornado Alley (with a direct hit on downtown Ft. Worth), cement plants, 120-degree weather, and we have a 32,000 square mile region (larger than all of New England) called the Llano Estacado that is so flat, it slopes just 10 feet per mile, and barely gets 12 inches of rain a year.
Screw it all, I'm moving to Barbados!
Sounds like to win any money you have to travel, so keep that in mind when you sign up.
But like you said, they're paying for the transportation to Mountain View, plus hotel accomodations... I think I can deal with the other expenses.
Here's what Google values, from their Job Opportunities page:What intrigues me personally is that this contest takes place in an online collaborative environment. Does this mean that Google is considering opening up to remote working -- as in, I can live in Dallas and "work" in the Googleplex? As much as I'd love to work at a place like Google, there's no way I'm moving to Cali-fall-into-the-ocean-fornia.
From the MSfreePC.com FAQ page:
Q: Is there a deadline for me to make my claim using MSfreePC.com?
A: Yes. The MSfreePC program is scheduled to end at the latest March 15, 2004. However, depending on demand levels, the ability to use MSfreePC.com to get an Instant Settlement* could end at ANY time [emphasis theirs], so you'll want to make your claim today! Also, keep in mind that the FREE PC offer is only valid for the first 10,000 claimants who acquire $100 worth of products through the MSfreePC program.
Depending on the robustness of the MSfreePC.com server, "depending on demand levels" may mean that "the ability to use MSfreePC.com" could end about 10 seconds after the story shows up on Slashdot...
If it does get Slashdotted, though, I've still got the FAQ in cache and would be happy to post it.
The Internet has really made petitions more accessable. Look at that picture!
Like everything else in politics, the picture is not all it seems.
Those boxes of printout are a prop. They're no more meaningful than the football-sized American flag flying over the local car dealership, or George W. landing on an aircraft carrier to announce the "end of major hostilities".
From everything I've heard, faxes are effective, as are phone calls. Both are most effective when they 1) happen to match the results of the latest polls and 2) are sent by large campaign donors. Online petitions are pretty much worth no more than the paper they're not printed on.
Don't forget -- the honorable representatives of the people are ready, willing and able to ignore those boxes of "340,000 Signatures (And Growing)" if the opinion they represent will not get them re-elected.
But, maybe, if we try really hard, we can Slashdot the Slashdot T-Shirts about Slashdotting
Been there, done that, got the T-Shirt.
Yeah, I figured out "cheerio" after a while. Here in the US, though, the closest cultural analogues are this and this.
"Frist Psot" was rejected by the Lameness Filter, which was specially audjestd for this story. Note that the Slashdot spell-uncheck program was also adjusted to aollw the correct spellings of the non-scrambled wdors in the story to be let thourgh.
(tihs siht is too mcuh fun! sotp me!)
I would have thought that anyone fluent in english (which she is) would be able to read the post without much difficulty.
Actually, since I'm not British, the final word of the canonical scramble threw me off:
Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe. ceehiro.
I read the rest of the text correctly, but I had a devil of a time figuring out the reference to the Miyazaki film Spirited Away, also known as Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi !
Why would you insert chocolate rectally? Like the other reply said, if you eat a shitload of chocolate, it won't burn going in or out. If you eat a shitload of jalapenos, it'll burn when you eat them, it'll burn when you shit them, and (if you eat enough) it'll burn when you piss them.
.sig to my wife the first time I saw it. She really likes jalapenos... the first time around, at least.)
+1, Most On-Topic Use Of The Word "shitload"
(By the way, I sent your
As an experiment, try sitting in a place with a fair amount of white noise (such as CPU fans). Now slowly bring your right hand toward your ear with your palm open. The first thing you'll notice is a loss of some higher frequency ambient sounds from the right side. As the hand gets closer, you may notice an increase in reflected noises that originated on your left. Eventually you will be able to judge the distance between your ear and your palm simply by the tone of the noise.
So that explains why all the guys in the computer room were making "Dumbo ears" at each other over lunch!
Me: we can't afford to export our jobs and livelihoods.
You: Why? Are we somehow fundametally better than other humans? Are people in India somehow less deserving of a chance at building wealth and success for themselves?
That's a great argument! Even if it's a bit of a troll, but I'll bite.
I don't want to do anything to deprive citizens of any country of their rights to build wealth and success. However, one of the countries whose people are "deserving of a chance at building wealth and success" is the one I'm sitting in now -- no, not that one, I mean the USA.
In the bad old days of the British Empire, the riches of the peoples of other nations were siphoned off for the benefit of the Crown. Today, we still have vestiges of that system in place -- and yes, the US is as culpable as any other imperial power in several cases.
I see so-called "Hardship" visas and overseas outsourcing as an imperial system in reverse. The concept is the same: siphoning off the target country's resources for the benefit of another country. That's not free trade -- that's exploitation. Unfortunately, countries that were once occupied by imperial powers sometimes learned the exploitation game all too well.
If you want to say, "turnabout is fair play," go ahead... but don't pretend it's right.
One more very important point:
It's unfortunate the Green Party, if what you say is true, has choses a rather short-sighted stance on this issue.
Hold on -- I'm not saying I speak for the Green Party! I was affirming my personal views against discrimination based on ethnicity, which is a tenet of the party's values. Before making any judgements about the US Green Party (or any of its international brethren and sistren), please visit their site -- their Ten Key Values will be an excellent place to start.
According to A. Clarke himself the space elevator was invented by Jurij Artsutanov from St. Petersburg.
I remember the days, before the wall fell, when the running joke was that anything invented in the West was invented years before, in the USSR. "Liquid Paper? That was invented by a little old lady in Leningrad after the Great Patriotic War, when she mixed horse manure with old German shell casings!"
Was that Kruschev (sp?!) that was known for "we did it first"?
It's so sad... here I am in my '30s, and all I know are ISR jokes.
Speaking of which... IN SOVIET RUSSIA, Space Elevator goes up YOU!
The Backlash article mentioned a group called TORAW:
It's not hard to find reasons for CIOs to worry. "Do you want to do business with companies that take away jobs for U.S. citizens by outsourcing work to foreign countries?" asks The Organization for the Rights of American Workers (Toraw), a group of displaced, angry American workers laid off by Connecticut insurance and financial services companies.
I'm browsing TORAW's web site now, and they look like an interesting organization. Not focused just on moving jobs offshore, they're also advocating a hard look at "non-immigrant foreign workers" - specifically, H1-B visa holders.
I like that TORAW explicity states that they're not against "permanent green card status immigrants", or against anyone based on ethnicity or country of origin. From what I've read so far, they address my concerns without hitting my Green Party hot buttons. The US should be open to those who want to come, stay, and build a new life -- but we can't afford to export our jobs and livelihoods.
Unfortunately, I can't tell if TORAW membership is available to all concerned Americans. Their membership form is encoded in virus-friendly Microsoft Word format, as are their brochures, and the CIO article notes the local CT connection.
But an organization like this looks like just what we need to keep the IT industry from being the next textile industry.
Their article leads off:That reminded me of another cloud of sodium atoms, in a lake on the Oklahoma/Texas border, that wasn't the hottest thing in the Universe but was close enough for the 'researchers'!
My disclaimer is that all I've got is a programming job and an AS in computer-aided drafting, but here goes:
Is absolute zero really an unreachable limit because of uncertainty? Or is it like the example in a previous Slashdot article where Apollo never passes the tortoise, because he must first close half the distance, then half the remaining distance, then half that distance, etc... and never actually passes the turtle.
And what if we're dealing with non-quantum masses? I don't know where any particular electron is, but I do know where I can find the mass of electrons, protons, and neutrons that make up my fingernail are when I'm typing. Most of the time, that is.
Thank you to all for your help! Here's my action plan:
:)
* I know I didn't have any unknown outstanding debts on my record in April, but there are some medical bills that may have been added since then. I'll get a new credit report and see what's been going on lately. I used myFICO once before, but their price seems to have gone up... I'll have to look for an alternative. Fortunately, I've been turned down enough times while looking for new home financing, that I should be able to get a free report.
* If nothing shows up there, I'll follow up on the company name that this AC managed to get out of the 800 number. NCO Credit Services has three numbers and several emails listed on their "Contacts" page... someone should be able to tell me if they have a gruff-voiced robot that calls and leaves "non solicitation messages".
* Once I feel like I have a clue who's calling, I'll be more comfortable telling them who I am. Your information has been very valuable, especially the part about collection agencies in the US being barred from costing me money when they collect. That implies that these folks *will* care that they're calling on a cell phone.
Thanks again, everyone, for your help. Good luck, and God bless!
Look at what Title 9 did to mens sports for example.
A very interesting example. Before Title 9, my volleyball-playing daughter would have had almost no chance at pursuing her athletic interests at the college of her choice, since all interest and funds were directed to mens' sports.
Now, after many years, we have colleges complaining that the mens' lacrosse team doesn't have enough funds because of Title 9. So it's better to have multiple fringe sports for men and no sports for women, than to have a few fringe sports for men and a few mainstream sports for women?
Back to the NASA vision bill. To make this bill equivalent to Title 9, you have to have a target in mind for those funds. Womens' sports "took" money from mens' sports... lets have space exploration "take" money from some other department that receives entirely too much attention and funding.
I wonder how big a space station you could build for $87 Billion Bucks?
Step 1: What they need to do is say there are terrorists with WMD massing on the moon. Then NASA can get $87 million too.
Step 2: Of course I meant to add the Dr. evil laugh after the $87 million.
Step 3: Crap! Two posts and I still got it wrong. It's 87 Billion.
Actually, I think it's funnier if you add the Dr. Evil laugh after $87 Million Dollars.
Of course, it needs to be followed by the laughter of the world leaders gathered around the teleconference table to have the full effect.
I know, I know, if you have to explain the joke...
From the article:
AT&T plans to retire 270 legacy systems across the world by the end of 2005. Approximately 130 legacy systems were retired over the past 18 months, with another 140 systems slated for phase out over the next two years.
The article didn't define exactly what "legacy systems" were (switches? entire local networks?), but that sure sounds like a lot of high technology that's heading for the dustbin. We're talking technology that's currently in use creating a mobile communications system that would have been unimaginable just 15 years ago.
Will it all be scrapped out? Will barges full of misc parts be shipped to third-world scavenging companies to recover the precious metals? Or is there some way to move the equipment to areas that need it -- Afghanistan and Iraq come to mind right away, but I'd think that under-served (and under-reported) countries like Somalia and the rest of Africa could make use of this supposedly outdated hardware.
Of course, we're back to the same old question -- when it costs more to recycle than to dump, how do you justify doing the Right Thing to shareholders whose only interest is in doing the Profitable Thing?
To get around this, maybe you can use one of those e-mail services that will let you get your POP messages and view them through a Web page
Actually, the only email I receive via Eudora is the mail sent to my public email addresses. Thanks to the generosity of the dixie-chicks.com host, that mail is filtered by Postini -- otherwise, it would be completely useless due to spam.
My real email address -- the one I use to communicate with people I know personally -- is online, hosted by Neologism Productions, a high-quality, low-cost mom-and-pop operation out of Plano, Texas.
I seldom have any spam problems there, even without filtering, though I get hit by an occasional dictionary/common-name attack. I inadvertently viewed a spam message sent to an alias, triggered a web bug, and started receiving 2-3 spams a day to that alias. That alias, sadly, is no more...