But after a year of fired techies you eventually figure out that maybe the problem isn't the staff, it's the damn product.
Don't bet on it. Techies are easily replacable, they react in satisfying ways when you do nasty things to them (like fire them or yell at them), and they have a tendancy to say "Yes boss" when they figure out that saying "Yes boss" is a better survival skill than telling the boss exactly why his stupid idea is, well, stupid. And that's not to mention how technologically clueless many higher-ups are. (Think of Dilbert's pointy-haired boss and remember, Dilbert isn't a comic strip, it's a documentary.)
Contrast that with computers that sit there and just silently, unblinkingly do what you tell them to, whether or not that was what you actually wanted them to do. They don't react at all to tantrums or threats, and besides, it has to do what the boss thinks it should be doing -- the salesman said so!
But I guess it does make the transition from Windows to Linux a lot easier.:P
Yep. Especially if you don't tell them they can customize everything about their desktop, because once they figure that out, there goes their productivity for at least a week.:)
When you're trying to make a system Windows compatible you have to start somewhere. Notepad and Calculator are the first step on the road to . . . um, Freecell and Hearts.
Geez, Wil. Given that the traditional Democratic voter demographic has included "dead people", I don't see what's so unusual about a Republican having a voter demographic that includes "people with email addresses."
I actually don't have much of a problem with ads here because they're often for interesting products, even if I've never bought any of them. I hope someone buys from ThinkGeek, even if I haven't so far.
Now if you start selling toothpaste, beer, cars, soap, soup, condoms, potrzebie or Russian mail-order brides, you'll end up running afoul of my adblocker.
can I get a Slashdot that doesn't have trolls, irrelevancy, karma whoring, spammers or just plain stupid braindead timewasting noise mixed in with the signal?
It would be a much better Slashdot but I can't help thinking it would be very strange to no longer see my own posts.
In my mind a lot of of doing this right would be the scale and the viewpoint. If only three dozen people survive the Apocalypse that's not as interesting as if, say, 10% of humanity survived. In dramatic terms that means there need to be main characters the viewer can identify with, lots of other characters to interact with and lots of interesting things for all of them to do. Of course "I died with everyone I know and cared about and here are these people picking through my remains" is less interesting than "Hey, I could be doing the stuff these people are doing." Done right this goes from a story about people walking across your grave, as it were, to people surviving against incredible odds.
I'm not saying it would be easy, but I think it's possible if you get the right people doing it.
By the way, one of the best post-apocalyptic stories I know of had everybody on Earth dying suddenly with only a couple of survivors. But then "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy" broke so many rules that you can't really use it as an example.:)
Well, wars are depressing, but people make good war movies. If done right you could have one hell of a series about the remnants of humanity trying to piece itself back together.
You also have lots of room to explore. What will we try to recreate? Will we still have baseball and soccer? Will Sun Tzu and von Clausewicz still be relevant? Will we have clean water? Countries? How will we communicate with people in the next town or halfway around the world? What happens to religion? Do we use a near-apocalypse as proof that God exists and has spared us, or as proof that God doesn't exist because He wouldn't have allowed this to happen, or do new mythologies spring up built around the darkest days of the End of the World As We Knew It?
The trick will be in doing it right. Bad sci-fi is easy. Good speculative fiction is all too rare.
Yes, but Showtime has the resources to do something like this and do it right -- and in "do it right" I include "sell it to another non-subscription network after a year so us freeloaders can see it." Similar to what they've done with Stargate SG-1.
Most pay TV content that's any good eventually works its way onto a more accessible medium. Heck, even the lousy stuff eventually ends up on DVD in the hope that someone will buy it.
Oh yeah, and the only explanation for "Legend Of The Rangers" that makes sense is that it was a pilot for a new show. Although if they do decide to go ahead with a new Rangers show I hope it fares better than Crusade did.
I've done the same thing using a Mail::Audit filter that also traps the string 'ks_c_5601' in the subject line, the 'charset' attribute in the 'Type' line, and the body of the mail. It also searches for 'euc' (which traps euc-kr, I believe). By doing this I've reduced my Korean spam intake to zero.
Oddly enough, I got an apology in English from someone because of a piece of Korean spam they sent me. What was odd about it was, I didn't complain about that particular mail!
No, it's not good because I can sue them, it's good because I can filter them. I don't like mosquitos either, but if they're going to be around I want window screens between me and them.
And if you don't see any advantage to people sending you spam, that's good, because there isn't any.
Contact me when you need a beta tester.:) I've considered a similar idea where you play back a sales pitch from a different telemarketer, but this has more possibilities for fun.
There's already a device you can put on your phone line that, when activated, recites the relevant sections of the laws governing telemarketing. And our local phone company (Qwest) says it provides a similar service which, according to their TV ads, identifies telemarketers and recites a message along the lines of, "This number does not accept messages from solicitors. Please hang up now." I haven't checked into it yet.
It's only GOOD if the people who are currently sending you spam adopt the Truste seal. Otherwise you'll have the same amount coming to your inbox, and much more being filtered but still wasting your bandwidth.
Yeah but 99% of current spammers (or their patterns) are already in my filter. I already can't see all the ads for Viagra, lonely hearts clubs, investing tips and get-rich-quick-by-sending-spam schemes, not to mention whatever it is all those people sending me mail in Korean are trying to sell me. If I read this correctly, this will stop ads from people like Chevron, Anheuser-Busch, Wal-Mart and Colonial Penn Insurance, none of whose products or services I use nor would I be likely to just because they decided that it was now OK to start mailing me on a daily basis. (Not to pick on these companies or imply anything about them other than that they're major advertisers, I just don't buy gas or drink beer, my employer provides my insurance and there isn't a Wal-Mart within 20 miles of where I live.)
I can however see one effect of the Truste seal. In Washington state at least, one of the criteria used to judge whether a piece of unsolicited commercial email is illegal is whether there is intent by the sender to disguise his/her identity. This seal will apparently verify that whoever sent the mail is who they claim to be, which would mean you couldn't sue the spammer on that basis.
And in most sexual assault, sexual harrasment and rape cases, the defense will somehow try to convince the jury/judge that, despite all evidence to the contrary, the victim actually asked for it. Think about that when you hear a variation on the theme "Customers actually want unsolicited commercial email."
[The Truste seal] will signal that the e-mail is from a company that has agreed to guidelines based on fair information practice principles, Schiavone said.
This is great! Now all I have to do is put a line in my Mail::Audit filter to look for that seal and automatically ditch any mail that contains it. Or better yet, send a reject notice to the "trusted" sender saying that I didn't ask for it, I don't want it, and if they don't want to be sued for wasting my bandwidth, they'd better not send it to me any more.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, you should get in touch with Bill Gates, since he thinks this will be a big breakthrough.
So this thing could transmit my entire mp3 collection in under a half second.
Most of those gains are due to the following ingeniuos compression scheme:
1. Download Taco's copy of Bobby Vinton's "Melody Of Love".
2. Instruct the client to make 135,275 copies locally.
Ummmmm, yeah. Just look at where it is today. Maybe we'd better pull the plug on the Science Grid now while we still have a chance.
:)
But after a year of fired techies you eventually figure out that maybe the problem isn't the staff, it's the damn product.
Don't bet on it. Techies are easily replacable, they react in satisfying ways when you do nasty things to them (like fire them or yell at them), and they have a tendancy to say "Yes boss" when they figure out that saying "Yes boss" is a better survival skill than telling the boss exactly why his stupid idea is, well, stupid. And that's not to mention how technologically clueless many higher-ups are. (Think of Dilbert's pointy-haired boss and remember, Dilbert isn't a comic strip, it's a documentary.)
Contrast that with computers that sit there and just silently, unblinkingly do what you tell them to, whether or not that was what you actually wanted them to do. They don't react at all to tantrums or threats, and besides, it has to do what the boss thinks it should be doing -- the salesman said so!
But I guess it does make the transition from Windows to Linux a lot easier. :P
:)
Yep. Especially if you don't tell them they can customize everything about their desktop, because once they figure that out, there goes their productivity for at least a week.
When you're trying to make a system Windows compatible you have to start somewhere. Notepad and Calculator are the first step on the road to . . . um, Freecell and Hearts.
Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust
Our game is a hit
But our ads are a bust
Well yes, but perhaps he was inspired by the British class system all the same.
(waits . . . )
(looks . . . )
Or maybe not . . .
Check food prices at your local supermarket.
Hey, this is the Open Source community. We can get 100,000 people to do it for free and then share the results!
As far as I can tell, they were a rival to Microsoft Windows in much the same way that I am a rival for the affections of Natalie Portman.
Geez, Wil. Given that the traditional Democratic voter demographic has included "dead people", I don't see what's so unusual about a Republican having a voter demographic that includes "people with email addresses."
I actually don't have much of a problem with ads here because they're often for interesting products, even if I've never bought any of them. I hope someone buys from ThinkGeek, even if I haven't so far.
Now if you start selling toothpaste, beer, cars, soap, soup, condoms, potrzebie or Russian mail-order brides, you'll end up running afoul of my adblocker.
Well, OK, maybe not the beer.
can I get a Slashdot that doesn't have trolls, irrelevancy, karma whoring, spammers or just plain stupid braindead timewasting noise mixed in with the signal?
It would be a much better Slashdot but I can't help thinking it would be very strange to no longer see my own posts.
Don't you hate it when that happens? :)
:)
In my mind a lot of of doing this right would be the scale and the viewpoint. If only three dozen people survive the Apocalypse that's not as interesting as if, say, 10% of humanity survived. In dramatic terms that means there need to be main characters the viewer can identify with, lots of other characters to interact with and lots of interesting things for all of them to do. Of course "I died with everyone I know and cared about and here are these people picking through my remains" is less interesting than "Hey, I could be doing the stuff these people are doing." Done right this goes from a story about people walking across your grave, as it were, to people surviving against incredible odds.
I'm not saying it would be easy, but I think it's possible if you get the right people doing it.
By the way, one of the best post-apocalyptic stories I know of had everybody on Earth dying suddenly with only a couple of survivors. But then "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy" broke so many rules that you can't really use it as an example.
Well, wars are depressing, but people make good war movies. If done right you could have one hell of a series about the remnants of humanity trying to piece itself back together.
You also have lots of room to explore. What will we try to recreate? Will we still have baseball and soccer? Will Sun Tzu and von Clausewicz still be relevant? Will we have clean water? Countries? How will we communicate with people in the next town or halfway around the world? What happens to religion? Do we use a near-apocalypse as proof that God exists and has spared us, or as proof that God doesn't exist because He wouldn't have allowed this to happen, or do new mythologies spring up built around the darkest days of the End of the World As We Knew It?
The trick will be in doing it right. Bad sci-fi is easy. Good speculative fiction is all too rare.
Yes, but Showtime has the resources to do something like this and do it right -- and in "do it right" I include "sell it to another non-subscription network after a year so us freeloaders can see it." Similar to what they've done with Stargate SG-1.
Most pay TV content that's any good eventually works its way onto a more accessible medium. Heck, even the lousy stuff eventually ends up on DVD in the hope that someone will buy it.
Oh yeah, and the only explanation for "Legend Of The Rangers" that makes sense is that it was a pilot for a new show. Although if they do decide to go ahead with a new Rangers show I hope it fares better than Crusade did.
I've done the same thing using a Mail::Audit filter that also traps the string 'ks_c_5601' in the subject line, the 'charset' attribute in the 'Type' line, and the body of the mail. It also searches for 'euc' (which traps euc-kr, I believe). By doing this I've reduced my Korean spam intake to zero.
Oddly enough, I got an apology in English from someone because of a piece of Korean spam they sent me. What was odd about it was, I didn't complain about that particular mail!
Somebody, post a marriage proposal on Freenet and see who replies. :)
No, it's not good because I can sue them, it's good because I can filter them. I don't like mosquitos either, but if they're going to be around I want window screens between me and them.
And if you don't see any advantage to people sending you spam, that's good, because there isn't any.
Isn't Google great?
You find such wonderful stuff!
Contact me when you need a beta tester. :) I've considered a similar idea where you play back a sales pitch from a different telemarketer, but this has more possibilities for fun.
There's already a device you can put on your phone line that, when activated, recites the relevant sections of the laws governing telemarketing. And our local phone company (Qwest) says it provides a similar service which, according to their TV ads, identifies telemarketers and recites a message along the lines of, "This number does not accept messages from solicitors. Please hang up now." I haven't checked into it yet.
It's only GOOD if the people who are currently sending you spam adopt the Truste seal. Otherwise you'll have the same amount coming to your inbox, and much more being filtered but still wasting your bandwidth.
Yeah but 99% of current spammers (or their patterns) are already in my filter. I already can't see all the ads for Viagra, lonely hearts clubs, investing tips and get-rich-quick-by-sending-spam schemes, not to mention whatever it is all those people sending me mail in Korean are trying to sell me. If I read this correctly, this will stop ads from people like Chevron, Anheuser-Busch, Wal-Mart and Colonial Penn Insurance, none of whose products or services I use nor would I be likely to just because they decided that it was now OK to start mailing me on a daily basis. (Not to pick on these companies or imply anything about them other than that they're major advertisers, I just don't buy gas or drink beer, my employer provides my insurance and there isn't a Wal-Mart within 20 miles of where I live.)
I can however see one effect of the Truste seal. In Washington state at least, one of the criteria used to judge whether a piece of unsolicited commercial email is illegal is whether there is intent by the sender to disguise his/her identity. This seal will apparently verify that whoever sent the mail is who they claim to be, which would mean you couldn't sue the spammer on that basis.
And in most sexual assault, sexual harrasment and rape cases, the defense will somehow try to convince the jury/judge that, despite all evidence to the contrary, the victim actually asked for it. Think about that when you hear a variation on the theme "Customers actually want unsolicited commercial email."
[The Truste seal] will signal that the e-mail is from a company that has agreed to guidelines based on fair information practice principles, Schiavone said.
This is great! Now all I have to do is put a line in my Mail::Audit filter to look for that seal and automatically ditch any mail that contains it. Or better yet, send a reject notice to the "trusted" sender saying that I didn't ask for it, I don't want it, and if they don't want to be sued for wasting my bandwidth, they'd better not send it to me any more.