The Dallas Morning News, EDS' hometown paper, is carrying the announcement as well. Kinda soft-peddling it, with a rather dismissive note at the bottom about the Bad News:
During a conference call with reporters Tuesday morning, Mr. Rittenmeyer said there will probably be some job cuts as a result of the deal.
But he suggested they might not be extensive, noting that H-P and EDS don't currently overlap in many business areas.
"In terms of job cuts, we are continuing to streamline our workforce at EDS," Mr. Rittenmeyer said. "We've been doing that for some time. There obviously are going to be some changes. We had plans for that this year. We're going to continue to look at automation. We're going to continue to look at quality. Automation makes quality and service better for the client. It's just a natural evolution."
When the choice is between being treated *like* a criminal, versus learning to *be* a criminal in Texas highly successful Criminal Conversion System, I think it's pretty obvious why any judge would choose to give the kid an ankle shackle instead of condemning him to (eventual) death.
Of course, the "choice" is mind-numbingly stupid. Now that the story of the TYC abuses has finally broken, maybe the next legislature will do something about the broken system that turns minor offenders into hardened criminals. Not likely, of course, because nobody ever got voted out of office for putting *too many* men, women, or children in jail.
If you have that much credit card debt, you should seriously consider bankruptcy. I know that sounds scary but in many cases you get to keep the house, most of your assets (including 401k/etc), and the credit card companies get left holding the bag on the irresponsible loans they made.
Well, I'm doing one better. I haven't paid the credit cards since we separated -- with each one, I called while I was still in good standing and said "I can't pay any more, wanna work something out?" and they said "No". As for the house, my ex got it! I pay the bills I consider important (including the one CC left, from my credit union, interest rate 10% even with my awful credit), and the predators who feasted on my ex-wife's indiscretion can suck it.
If you can handle the constant phone calls from people who you owe money to (800notes.com is a Godsend), there's no reason to declare bankruptcy. No point bothering with the predator-approved plan from the local predator-sponsored "non-profit" credit counseling agency, either -- I tried that when I was still in good standing, too. And paying someone 10% of your debt just to answer those calls (yes, I talked to them too) is silly. That's what voicemail is for.:)
I've got it pretty good. With only a two-year degree (in computer-aided drafting!), I'm making significantly more than the first Google link for "computer programmer salary" says I should. I've been working for the same company for 12+ years, with management that knows how to handle the business side of things, a team of subject matter experts that handle the customer side, and all we have to do is code. Topping it all off, it's a vertical-market tax software product, so it's not going anywhere until death & taxes are abolished.
Of course, at 41, I'm halfway between "wow I'm grown up now" and "gee I'm old now", so it's high time for a midlife crisis! I'm pretty sure that someday I'll quit and start my own business. Not something in this industry, though. I love my job, but I'd like to do something a bit more directly beneficial to society. Time will tell what happens, but I'm currently thinking about opening a day care center, and when it's successful, going into politics (though I'll probably have to take practicality over idealism if I want to actually get elected). But I've got sense enough to wait until my kids are out of school before making any big changes.
The one thing I do know is that I'll never get to "retire" in any sort of traditional sense. As Fate would have it, I spent 20 years married to someone who didn't understand the value of living within her means... not surprisingly, I got custody of the credit card bills. I'll be working till I die... heck, if things go as planned, I (or at least my remains) will keep working full time even in the hereafter, thanks to Dr. Gunther von Hagens!
We've had private insurance with no genetic testing for a long time how. How is keeping the second condition going to mandate the end of the first? It's ridiculous.
Did you read the summary? We're not keeping the second condition -- if this bill passes, millions will start getting tested so that we'll know what wonderful surprises await us in our waning years (or months, depending on the results).
The problem, according to the OP, is the same as the one we already have. Healthy people will self-select *out* of the private insurance system. The only people who will buy insurance will be the ones who already know they'll get sick. But again, that's already the case. Young people don't buy health insurance, because they don't get sick as often. Older folks are more interested, because they DO. So we *already* have a broken system.
It's also broken because of money. If you have it, you get insurance, but you'll likely be healthier because you have enough money to take care of yourself. If you don't, you can't get insurance even if you want it, and the hospital is stuck with the bill when you die in the ER. That expense doesn't just go away; it's passed on indirectly to those who do have insurance. So fewer people can afford it. So there are more ER visits. So fewer people can afford insurance. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Risk-based health insurance is an outdated model, a relic from an era when Social Darwinism dictated that those who deserve to live will find a way, and those who don't will no longer be society's problem. Our society, however, has decided to reject the notion that it's ok for people to die on the side of the road. The insurance industry needs to change to reflect this new moral choice.
The insurance industry is like an old classic car. It looks great on the outside, but the suspension is shot and the frame has rusted through. Preventing genetic discrimination will prove to be a curve that the old car just can't take. It's time to put it in the garage -- so that we can build a new system that is compatible with our values. Or they can keep driving the old car... right off the cliff.
If we're going to start using the term "grayware" to describe software that falls somewhere between a useful application and a piece of malware, then we need to start using the term "blackware" to refer to malware, and "whiteware" to refer to useful software [...] We could further extend this concept to include whiteware that could be dangerous if misused, such as software that controls a nuclear rocket; such software would be termed "redware." Software that helps the environment would be called "greenware." Now all we need is something for "blueware" and we can use the entire color space to describe a computer program.
To compare Avatar to anything by Miyazaki, and I do mean anything, is to greatly insult the man and his talent.
I'll give you that -- I may have gone a bit too far by putting SpongeBob and Miyazaki on the same measuring stick. That may have been like using George W. Bush and Stephen Hawking as a comparison of intelligence.
However, I think you've rated Avatar too harshly. It *has* a plot, which is more than you can say for just about any animated series generated in the US that I can think of. I'm not sure what part of the production values you're complaining about, but keep in mind that many peoples' impression of anime is that *it* is sorely lacking in production values -- looping the same punch over and over, etc. As for voice acting, I don't know what else we can do short of teaching all Americans enough Japanese to appreciate their much stronger voice acting tradition.
Avatar isn't perfect, and it doesn't hold a candle to "Spirited Away" or "Princess Mononoke" -- or even "Pom Poko". But it's better than the rest, and its success just might encourage other studios to take a chance on animation for kids that doesn't utterly suck.
My first thought was also that the story had something to do with the Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender -- forget the network; think Miyazaki, not SpongeBob. Excellent series in the vast wasteland of American animated TV.
However, it should be noted that Aang, the primary character, is not a Water Bender, but an Air Bender.
(Somehow, the inevitable loss of Karma for this way-off-topic posting seems unusually appropriate.)
Yes, there really is a Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, home of Spaceport America. It used to be called by the less-than-distinctive moniker "Hot Springs". When the town changed its name as a promotional stunt for a popular radio game show in 1950, they liked the new name so much they kept it. New Mexico rocks.
In addition to the many problems cited by the parent, I'd like to point out that anything that doesn't work in a cross-browser environment is a problem.
Saying "This site is designed for Internet Explorer only" is like putting up a sign outside the Wal-Mart parking lot saying "This lot is designed for GM vehicles only". You'll still get plenty of visitors, but is there some good reason for keeping people (and their money) out of your business?
My company is about to move a PC-based system to the Web, and I'm going to be poking around as much as possible to get rid of IE-specific pitfalls. I may not have much luck, though... it's a vertical market app for an environment where "Nobody got fired for buying IBM^WMicrosoft" is very much in effect.
The bad English is sad -- you would think that they'd employ a copy editor.
But that wouldn't do anything to prevent using that image and caption. The image is of something bizarre, a red planet-looking thing with something spouting from the poles. It looks more like a candy in a clear plastic wrapper than an extra-cold star.
And the caption is even worse. Put a picture of a red candy with the caption "Ambiuguous Star", and I'm not thinking astronomy. I'm thinking Katamari. Royal Rainbow!
Then again, Dallas is also one of the cities mentioned as shortening yellow lights in the article:
Dallas, Texas
An investigation by KDFW-TV, a local TV station, found that of the ten cameras that issued the greatest number of tickets in the city, seven were located at intersections where the yellow duration is shorter than the bare minimum recommended by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).
Indeed -- I noticed that after I saw the links to the real FA (since the original FA was apparently content-free). But parse those statements carefully... the accusation is that cities *decreased* yellow times to increase revenue. In these cases, Dallas appears to have installed cameras where the yellow time was *already* too low. A distinction without a difference, perhaps -- the right thing to do was clearly to fix the problem with yellow times.
But the fact (so far) is that Dallas didn't adjust yellow times to increase revenue. If anything, the story you cited is proof that Dallas may not even know where the yellow-time-adjust potentiometer is located.
It was also interesting that all those citations linked to that theNewspaper.com site... the one that was quick to print news about the 0.3 deficit on yellow, but somehow missed the news that Dallas was turning off cameras instead of decreasing yellows further.
Dallas recently installed red-light cameras. I'll testify that red-light runners were a major problem here, but I didn't support the cameras because of the potential for abuse. There was concern at City Hall, too, especially from the city's most with-it councilperson, Angela Hunt.
To the surprise of just about everyone, the cameras worked! People actually started slowing down in time to stop if the light turned yellow. The city became safer.
But there was an inevitable downside... the cameras' revenue no longer supported their operating cost.
Once again, the unexpected happened. Dallas did NOT tweak yellow light timing to generate more tickets. Instead, they turned off some of the cameras. Apparently, the contract with the third-party camera operator has a clause that reduces the monthly charge from $3,800 per camera to "a fraction" of that cost (blame the Morning News for failing to tell whether that fraction is 1/10 or 9/10). So they're turning some of them off, noting that "most motorists won't realize this and behave as if the cameras are operational."
Which is what we wanted all along.
The city of Dallas is mired in several messes of its own making, resulting in high-profile FBI probes and even a suicide pact between two of its best-known (and most-troubled) behind-the-scenes power brokers. But in this case, the city comes shining through. And the Rangers won a double-header last night, too. Wonders never cease.
More info NOT available from "theNewspaper.com", a self-described "journal of the politics of driving" that never hesitates to pass on a story of red light camera *abuse*. I sent a link to the DMN story, but it never showed up. Agenda much?
I am not the type that needs to do big Excel Solver sheets or Matlab simulations while on the go. Why carry more than twice the weight for what amounts to a bigger power draw and little marginal value?
My sentiments exactly. I've got a dual-core desktop at work (which would be idle 90% of the time if I weren't running two instances of Folding@Home). The most intensive thing I do with my laptop is when I remote-desktop to my work box.
I'm beyond low-end. I got an old PII laptop from Retrobox (now Intechra) for under $150 (it would be worth about $10 now, I think), and put Puppy Linux on it. It's a little clunky, but it does everything I need, and it's half the size and weight of any of the new Vista-capable laptops that sell for $1000+.
From TFA: Independent steering on each of its six pairs of wheels... give the vehicle the ability to raise or lower each individual wheel to keep its chassis level on uneven ground.
I've remotely driven that *exact* sort of vehicle! Well, in simulation, at least. I just can't believe it took from 1982 to now to go from simulator to prototype.
And they still didn't get the forward and vertical blasters! Hokey plows and an ancient drill bit are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.
From TFA: Artificial muscles have been around for years but have essentially hamstrung themselves. Some artificial muscles get so big they tear, developing uneven film thickness and random particles that cause muscle failure.
Grooooooan. I guess I'm dating myself, but I remember when the Discovery Channel had something to do with "science".:(
Slashdot Mirror
Keep in mind a couple of things:
* The kids in the program were on the verge of being sent to the Texas Youth Commission, aka Juvenile Detention.
* Once you're in the TYC, you're likely to be beaten, raped, and held indefinitely.
When the choice is between being treated *like* a criminal, versus learning to *be* a criminal in Texas highly successful Criminal Conversion System, I think it's pretty obvious why any judge would choose to give the kid an ankle shackle instead of condemning him to (eventual) death.
Of course, the "choice" is mind-numbingly stupid. Now that the story of the TYC abuses has finally broken, maybe the next legislature will do something about the broken system that turns minor offenders into hardened criminals. Not likely, of course, because nobody ever got voted out of office for putting *too many* men, women, or children in jail.
Disclaimer: I am not a bankruptcy attorney, seek qualified legal advice.
:)
Someone who isn't a lawyer, posting on Slashdot? Oh noes!
Seriously, though, good advice. I'm always weighing the options, so thanks.
If you have that much credit card debt, you should seriously consider bankruptcy. I know that sounds scary but in many cases you get to keep the house, most of your assets (including 401k/etc), and the credit card companies get left holding the bag on the irresponsible loans they made.
:)
Well, I'm doing one better. I haven't paid the credit cards since we separated -- with each one, I called while I was still in good standing and said "I can't pay any more, wanna work something out?" and they said "No". As for the house, my ex got it! I pay the bills I consider important (including the one CC left, from my credit union, interest rate 10% even with my awful credit), and the predators who feasted on my ex-wife's indiscretion can suck it.
If you can handle the constant phone calls from people who you owe money to (800notes.com is a Godsend), there's no reason to declare bankruptcy. No point bothering with the predator-approved plan from the local predator-sponsored "non-profit" credit counseling agency, either -- I tried that when I was still in good standing, too. And paying someone 10% of your debt just to answer those calls (yes, I talked to them too) is silly. That's what voicemail is for.
I've got it pretty good. With only a two-year degree (in computer-aided drafting!), I'm making significantly more than the first Google link for "computer programmer salary" says I should. I've been working for the same company for 12+ years, with management that knows how to handle the business side of things, a team of subject matter experts that handle the customer side, and all we have to do is code. Topping it all off, it's a vertical-market tax software product, so it's not going anywhere until death & taxes are abolished.
Of course, at 41, I'm halfway between "wow I'm grown up now" and "gee I'm old now", so it's high time for a midlife crisis! I'm pretty sure that someday I'll quit and start my own business. Not something in this industry, though. I love my job, but I'd like to do something a bit more directly beneficial to society. Time will tell what happens, but I'm currently thinking about opening a day care center, and when it's successful, going into politics (though I'll probably have to take practicality over idealism if I want to actually get elected). But I've got sense enough to wait until my kids are out of school before making any big changes.
The one thing I do know is that I'll never get to "retire" in any sort of traditional sense. As Fate would have it, I spent 20 years married to someone who didn't understand the value of living within her means... not surprisingly, I got custody of the credit card bills. I'll be working till I die... heck, if things go as planned, I (or at least my remains) will keep working full time even in the hereafter, thanks to Dr. Gunther von Hagens!
It doesn't say what happened to the pig. I have to hope there was a BBQ afterward.
Don't be too nonchalant about the whole thing... don't forget that you (and I) taste like bacon!
We've had private insurance with no genetic testing for a long time how. How is keeping the second condition going to mandate the end of the first? It's ridiculous.
Did you read the summary? We're not keeping the second condition -- if this bill passes, millions will start getting tested so that we'll know what wonderful surprises await us in our waning years (or months, depending on the results).
The problem, according to the OP, is the same as the one we already have. Healthy people will self-select *out* of the private insurance system. The only people who will buy insurance will be the ones who already know they'll get sick. But again, that's already the case. Young people don't buy health insurance, because they don't get sick as often. Older folks are more interested, because they DO. So we *already* have a broken system.
It's also broken because of money. If you have it, you get insurance, but you'll likely be healthier because you have enough money to take care of yourself. If you don't, you can't get insurance even if you want it, and the hospital is stuck with the bill when you die in the ER. That expense doesn't just go away; it's passed on indirectly to those who do have insurance. So fewer people can afford it. So there are more ER visits. So fewer people can afford insurance. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Risk-based health insurance is an outdated model, a relic from an era when Social Darwinism dictated that those who deserve to live will find a way, and those who don't will no longer be society's problem. Our society, however, has decided to reject the notion that it's ok for people to die on the side of the road. The insurance industry needs to change to reflect this new moral choice.
The insurance industry is like an old classic car. It looks great on the outside, but the suspension is shot and the frame has rusted through. Preventing genetic discrimination will prove to be a curve that the old car just can't take. It's time to put it in the garage -- so that we can build a new system that is compatible with our values. Or they can keep driving the old car... right off the cliff.
If we're going to start using the term "grayware" to describe software that falls somewhere between a useful application and a piece of malware, then we need to start using the term "blackware" to refer to malware, and "whiteware" to refer to useful software [...] We could further extend this concept to include whiteware that could be dangerous if misused, such as software that controls a nuclear rocket; such software would be termed "redware." Software that helps the environment would be called "greenware." Now all we need is something for "blueware" and we can use the entire color space to describe a computer program.
Don't be silly. This is a highly technical forum.
You have to include hex codes.
blackware = 0x000000
grayware = 0x808080
light gray ware = 0xC0C0C0
off-white ware = 0xE0E0E0
whiteware w/black polka dots = 0xFFFFFF + (0x000000 * $chance_of_exploit)
whiteware = 0xFFFFFF
redware = 0xFF0000
greenware = 0x00FF00
blueware = 0x0000FF
And of course:
tupperware = Varies by kitchen
underware = 0xyoudontwannaknow
To compare Avatar to anything by Miyazaki, and I do mean anything, is to greatly insult the man and his talent.
I'll give you that -- I may have gone a bit too far by putting SpongeBob and Miyazaki on the same measuring stick. That may have been like using George W. Bush and Stephen Hawking as a comparison of intelligence.
However, I think you've rated Avatar too harshly. It *has* a plot, which is more than you can say for just about any animated series generated in the US that I can think of. I'm not sure what part of the production values you're complaining about, but keep in mind that many peoples' impression of anime is that *it* is sorely lacking in production values -- looping the same punch over and over, etc. As for voice acting, I don't know what else we can do short of teaching all Americans enough Japanese to appreciate their much stronger voice acting tradition.
Avatar isn't perfect, and it doesn't hold a candle to "Spirited Away" or "Princess Mononoke" -- or even "Pom Poko". But it's better than the rest, and its success just might encourage other studios to take a chance on animation for kids that doesn't utterly suck.
Maybe he was lured over to the fire nation.
My first thought was also that the story had something to do with the Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender -- forget the network; think Miyazaki, not SpongeBob. Excellent series in the vast wasteland of American animated TV.
However, it should be noted that Aang, the primary character, is not a Water Bender, but an Air Bender.
(Somehow, the inevitable loss of Karma for this way-off-topic posting seems unusually appropriate.)
Yes, there really is a Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, home of Spaceport America. It used to be called by the less-than-distinctive moniker "Hot Springs". When the town changed its name as a promotional stunt for a popular radio game show in 1950, they liked the new name so much they kept it. New Mexico rocks.
In addition to the many problems cited by the parent, I'd like to point out that anything that doesn't work in a cross-browser environment is a problem.
Saying "This site is designed for Internet Explorer only" is like putting up a sign outside the Wal-Mart parking lot saying "This lot is designed for GM vehicles only". You'll still get plenty of visitors, but is there some good reason for keeping people (and their money) out of your business?
My company is about to move a PC-based system to the Web, and I'm going to be poking around as much as possible to get rid of IE-specific pitfalls. I may not have much luck, though... it's a vertical market app for an environment where "Nobody got fired for buying IBM^WMicrosoft" is very much in effect.
The bad English is sad -- you would think that they'd employ a copy editor.
But that wouldn't do anything to prevent using that image and caption. The image is of something bizarre, a red planet-looking thing with something spouting from the poles. It looks more like a candy in a clear plastic wrapper than an extra-cold star.
And the caption is even worse. Put a picture of a red candy with the caption "Ambiuguous Star", and I'm not thinking astronomy. I'm thinking Katamari. Royal Rainbow!
Indeed -- I noticed that after I saw the links to the real FA (since the original FA was apparently content-free). But parse those statements carefully... the accusation is that cities *decreased* yellow times to increase revenue. In these cases, Dallas appears to have installed cameras where the yellow time was *already* too low. A distinction without a difference, perhaps -- the right thing to do was clearly to fix the problem with yellow times.
But the fact (so far) is that Dallas didn't adjust yellow times to increase revenue. If anything, the story you cited is proof that Dallas may not even know where the yellow-time-adjust potentiometer is located.
It was also interesting that all those citations linked to that theNewspaper.com site... the one that was quick to print news about the 0.3 deficit on yellow, but somehow missed the news that Dallas was turning off cameras instead of decreasing yellows further.
Dallas recently installed red-light cameras. I'll testify that red-light runners were a major problem here, but I didn't support the cameras because of the potential for abuse. There was concern at City Hall, too, especially from the city's most with-it councilperson, Angela Hunt.
To the surprise of just about everyone, the cameras worked! People actually started slowing down in time to stop if the light turned yellow. The city became safer.
But there was an inevitable downside... the cameras' revenue no longer supported their operating cost.
Once again, the unexpected happened. Dallas did NOT tweak yellow light timing to generate more tickets. Instead, they turned off some of the cameras. Apparently, the contract with the third-party camera operator has a clause that reduces the monthly charge from $3,800 per camera to "a fraction" of that cost (blame the Morning News for failing to tell whether that fraction is 1/10 or 9/10). So they're turning some of them off, noting that "most motorists won't realize this and behave as if the cameras are operational."
Which is what we wanted all along.
The city of Dallas is mired in several messes of its own making, resulting in high-profile FBI probes and even a suicide pact between two of its best-known (and most-troubled) behind-the-scenes power brokers. But in this case, the city comes shining through. And the Rangers won a double-header last night, too. Wonders never cease.
More info available from the Dallas Morning News article.
More info NOT available from "theNewspaper.com", a self-described "journal of the politics of driving" that never hesitates to pass on a story of red light camera *abuse*. I sent a link to the DMN story, but it never showed up. Agenda much?
I am not the type that needs to do big Excel Solver sheets or Matlab simulations while on the go. Why carry more than twice the weight for what amounts to a bigger power draw and little marginal value?
My sentiments exactly. I've got a dual-core desktop at work (which would be idle 90% of the time if I weren't running two instances of Folding@Home). The most intensive thing I do with my laptop is when I remote-desktop to my work box.
I'm beyond low-end. I got an old PII laptop from Retrobox (now Intechra) for under $150 (it would be worth about $10 now, I think), and put Puppy Linux on it. It's a little clunky, but it does everything I need, and it's half the size and weight of any of the new Vista-capable laptops that sell for $1000+.
So if San is the technology, the drive that implements it would be called Chihiro, right?
Oh, that was Sen . My bad, sorry.
(Well, it makes as much sense as anything. It's not like I'm going to bother reading TFA when it's clearly marked "hype".)
I can't believe we both hit the "submit" button at nearly the same time, on the same meme.
And that you beat me, you bastard.
Be safe, head for the bunker on 4/1 and just assume everything you hear is a lie. Everything.
Does that mean there *won't* be cake?
Dammit.
i LOL'd.
From TFA:
Independent steering on each of its six pairs of wheels... give the vehicle the ability to raise or lower each individual wheel to keep its chassis level on uneven ground.
I've remotely driven that *exact* sort of vehicle! Well, in simulation, at least. I just can't believe it took from 1982 to now to go from simulator to prototype.
And they still didn't get the forward and vertical blasters! Hokey plows and an ancient drill bit are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.
From TFA:
:(
Artificial muscles have been around for years but have essentially hamstrung themselves. Some artificial muscles get so big they tear, developing uneven film thickness and random particles that cause muscle failure.
Grooooooan. I guess I'm dating myself, but I remember when the Discovery Channel had something to do with "science".
(I know, I know... it's due to the time zones...)
Perhaps that's the real reason he moved to Sri Lanka? So he could be ahead of our time, as well as his own?
WTF?
Don't you mean, "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot"?
I wonder what he uses those arms for (one at a time.)
Typing.