Ahh yes the Wife Approval Factor (WAF). If I wasn't married, I would have bought a nice HDTV with the $60+/mo I'd be saving cutting the cord. My wife shot down the idea since there are shows on cable that SHE HAS TO HAVE. The road block is she loves these damn shows on Bravo, Food, and TLC that just don't get on the torrents, Hulu, or Netflix. They are available for purchase on Amazon VOD, which I'd be willing to do for the $10-$15/mo it'd cost, however I just haven't found anything that will meet the WAF.
I think I'd be all set if I could find something that would DVR OTA broadcast and do Amazon VOD all in one easy GUI; bonus if it could do Netflix streaming and also do my ripped DVD library from my home server (not necessary since the PS3 and PBO respectively already do this). One of the HDTVs I'm interested in does Amazon VOD and I could put together a WMC HTPC for very little since I have a lot of parts laying around, but there's the whole horse/cart thing. We apparently need a house (she thinks a HDTV would take up too much space in the appt.) and a new sofa (don't get me started) before we get a HDTV.
One day I'll cut the cord and meet the WAF. NetFlix mail, NetFlix Streaming, Amazon VOD, DVR'd OTA, any buy the occasional TV series on DVD is a dream that I hope to make true.
When has Poole ever said that the cause of anonymity should stand above and beyond the law, or that supporting it necessarily demands that one put anonymity before even the law? Or anything remotely close that resembles "Anonymity > Rule of Law"?
This is a position that you've invented for me. I never stated anonymity was above, beyond, before, or greater than the law or rule of law. I'm using the fact that law enforcement getting information from 4chan as an example of anonymity not existing on his site.
You are misconstruing Poole's advocacy of anonymity with that for absolute anonymity that is above and before everything else. And then you call him a hypocrite for failing to conform to the position you've invented for him. Also known as the straw man fallacy.
Your insistence that anonymity must be placed above the law looks like an attempt to discredit anonymity as nothing more than a haven for criminality, hence you sound like a troll.
It appears we need to break out the Dictionary and define the word "anonymity":
anonymity noun 1: the quality or state of being anonymous 2: one that is anonymous
This leads us to define "anonymous": anonymous adjective 1: of unknown authorship or origin 2: not named or identified 3: lacking individuality, distinction, or recognizably
Based on the definition, one is either anonymous or is not. Having the logs of 4chan provides the author's origin and is an identifiable characteristic, therefore the author is not anonymous. To entertain your arguments, anonymity can't exist when information is used to charge an individual with a crime and an individual that is anonymous can't be charged with a crime since no identifiable information exists as a result of the individual being anonymous. It would be inaccurate to say anonymity is greater/above the law or even the opposite. It would be more accurate to say that anonymity and being able to enforce the law can't exist at the same time; with one existing, the other can not exist. That is the basis of my original statements and question.
I would be interested to have a conversation with Poole on his statements. It would probably result in one of the following: - Poole state that his definitions of anonymity and anonymous are different than the Merriam-Webster Dictionary - Poole admit he's being a bit hypocritical within the definition of anonymity. Yes, 4chan is close to providing anonymity, but it doesn't provide it. - Or the definitions for anonymity and anonymous need to be changed
Why do you think that anonymity should extend to protecting blatantly criminal behavior? What kind of person does it take to even ask that question? By your statements you seem to want 4chan and anonymity in general to be a haven for lawlessness, [snip]
You're putting words into my mouth. I'm questioning Poole saying Zuckerberg has it wrong by doing the opposite of anonymity and Poole being a big proponent of anonymity on the Internet when his site doesn't actually provide anonymity. I think it's great that sickos posting child porn are getting arrested, but that's not part of my question. My point is Poole seems a bit hypocritical in advocating anonymity yet his site, though it may seem provides a level of anonymity, doesn't provide anonymity and isn't in line with what he's saying.
[/snip] as if you have something against the very idea of anonymity. I think you are trolling.
Now you're contradicting yourself. I'm thinking I just got trolled.
If he thinks people should be anonymous on the Internet, why does law enforcement get any of 4chan's logs when something illegal is posted? Putting aside arguments over whether a post was, was not, should be, or should not be illegal, the information was handed over and IMHO that's not anonymity.
I was disappointed to read that the dock actually has a beefier processor for the webtop, which was contrary to what I had thought. I went back to my original info on the Atrix and I think this reviewer doesn't know WTF they're talking about. According to Motorola at CES, all of the processing is done on the phone itself; the desktop dock is just a port port replicator and USB hub and the lapdock serves the same function, but has the actual I/O devices and a battery to power everything and charge the phone. I recommend watching the videos at the following links: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/06/motorola-atrix-4g-hd-multimedia-dock-and-laptop-dock-hands-on/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/09/motorola-atrix-another-look-video/
I any case, I think it's a great idea that will only get better as it matures. I don't see this as killing off the desktop and laptop just yet, but I'd anticipate it would take over marketshare down the road. Personally I could see it replacing my work laptop, but nothing else. Outside of work, most of the stuff I do on my computer can be accomplished within a web browser, media player, or an app from the Market. For anything beyond that, I can RDP into my desktop at home (tunneling over SSH if remote) or a work computer/server (VPN if remote).
My employer provides me with a laptop so I have all of my tools and crap with me if an emergency arises when I'm out of the office. Beyond a big networking issue, I really don't have a need for a laptop when I could have a Webtop on my phone with a laptop-esq dock and a powerful desktop to remote into.
Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?
on
FreeBSD 8.2 Released
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· Score: 3, Informative
I'll bite. ZFS was designed with a different train of thought when it came to the file system and storing files. ZFS lets one do everything from just formatting a single drive with one partition to doing a RAID array with three parity stripes, file system compression, file system encryption, block level deduplication, with file cloning and/or snapshotting to another server with ZFS. The ability to setup an array, selectively apply features (encryption, compression, dedup, etc.) to different directories, mount directories elsewhere in the OS hierarchy, clone, do snapshots, etc. is so easy and only needs a handful of commands.
I use to be a fanboy when it came to hardware RAID with a dedicated RISC processor and RAM. The risk with hardware RAID is if the controller fails, one will probably be in a world of hurt. I didn't like software RAID due to CPU overhead and the damn thing not always working. ZFS has changed that for me. Not only do I not notice CPU overhead, recovery is so easy. I can install an OS on a HDD and then configure three new drives with RAID-Z (ZFS' RAID5 implementation). From there I can replace the OS HDD and start with a fresh OS install; a couple of commands that don't include the paths to the RAIDed HDDs and any backed up config file and my array is back online. All I need are the drives and nothing else. I could even loose a drive and still be fine.
The other beauty is not needing exactly the same drives. Say I have three 1.5TB drives in a RAID-Z and one of the drives fails. Perhaps I can't buy another 1.5TB drive or the 2TB model is cheaper. I can replace the drive with a 2TB unit and ZFS will rebuild the lost 1.5TB. I can either use that 0.5TB for something else or expand the array when the other two drives are replaced with larger drives.
Sure booting from ZFS in FreeBSD isn't perfect, but I don't see a real need for my OS to reside on a drive with ZFS. However when it comes to my storage arrays, ZFS is invaluable.
There's so much to ZFS that considering it just another file system like EXT or UFS is an ignorant assessment. I recommend doing a some research before bashing something you don't understand.
On the topic of outsourcing, IMO it can be cheaper if done right. On paper it always seems like a great idea, but in practice it's not always the best idea financially and/or getting the same or better result in comparison to keeping it in-house. I've worked for companies where they have outsourced a particular department/function to companies where I am the one the job is outsourced to. My observation has been the success of getting projects done (e.g.: programing) or facilitating a role (e.g.: sys admin) rely on a few factors regardless of outsourcing or not.
The first is a golden rule of sorts on doing anything: - Cheap - Quality - Fast You can only pick two; NO exceptions. I've encountered so many upper management types that foolishly think they can get away with having all three. In my experience 9/10 of the time it turns out a lack of quality bites them in the butt sometime down the road when they assumed they somehow managed to achieve all three.
The second is communication. Mostly everyone in at least the US has experienced the pain of being subjected to some company's outsourced customer service and/or tech support that can't effectively communicate with both parties on the same page of understanding one another. I really shouldn't need to explain why communication, understanding one another is so important. Sadly this is something I have to constantly explain to my current boss with events like today where my non-outsourced colleague rebooted a number of production critical servers when he was asked to reboot just one secondary server.
Third is the employee's skill in doing the job. Again, another obvious one, but I've observed that it isn't always on the hiring menu. Additionally I've seen some people that interview well, but couldn't create a "Hello World" HTML page for a web developer position as an example. There's no point in hiring or keeping a hired individual to do a job that they lack the skill to do; even if it's an entry-level position with training, that person should be willing to put for the effort to learn and take notes. I accept that everyone has their own unique skills that can aide or hinder their ability to learn and be proficient with a particular task. However, I firmly believe anyone can learn to do anything as long as they put their mind to it. I barely have any artistic ability and my drawing skills are stick figures at best (XKCD is miles ahead of me); if I were to put forth the effort to learn how to draw and paint, I could become a good artist. I taught an A+ technician certification class at a tech school a while back and I had a retired Marine that served in the Vietnam War as one of my students. One could argue his best skill was killing and blowing stuff up. He worked hard and learned to be a technician and passed CompTIA's certification test without a problem. That leads me to the next point.
Lastly is attitude of the end employee doing the actual work. It boggles my mind how so many managers loose the plot when it comes to employee morale and motivation. Productivity generally is improved when those two are improved and it usually doesn't have to involve spending a bunch of money. The employee's attitude should be getting the work done correctly in a reasonable amount of time. Demanding it is a poor approach. Poisoning an employee will result in poisoning the company in a small manner all the way up to the failure of the company. Employees should be encouraged through actual morale improvements, positive motivation, and incentives for doing more work at the same and/or better quality level.
Outsourcing or keeping things in house can be successful and possibly economical if approached correctly with the appropriate support of upper management.
I wonder what they actually hope to accomplish/gain with this. I agree, Streisand Effect will be going into full force.
Personally, I think I'm done with Sony products. After the rootkit installing CDs and there other antics with the PS3, I don't feel like they actually want to keep me as a customer.
They did a ceremony for that? That's like handing over the keys to the last land-only vehicle and no other vehicle that touches the ground will be made again. Couldn't get in when one could be bought? Sorry. But don't feel completely SOL; there's this new thing called the "flying car" that is meant to replace land-only vehicles and it's so much better. It's not too difficult getting one either. The only problem is there are only a handful of air-roads and you can only get from point A to point B if there are air-roads with the flying car. If there aren't any air-roads at your home and destination, you can't use the flying car. Never mind that in the next subdivision they have an air-road, yours doesn't and there's nothing you can do about it.
Sadly the latest trend I've seen with new DVD releases is the discs are pressed specifically for NetFlix with a bunch of ads/trailers and no special features. They're pretty noticeable by having a gray label on the discs and the newer ones even have NetFlix's logo silk-screened on it. I wouldn't be surprised if it was part of their streaming deals with the studios and the 28 day release wait.
For me, being able to rent the same DVD that's for sale in the store was part of the appeal of NetFlix. The extra content is great. With these content deals to have rental specific DVDs from NetFlix with a bunch of ads and no special features, I'd much rather stream that movie than use up a queue slot and waste time on ads. Sadly, I'm not seeing as big of an impact in their streaming selection as I expected from all of the hype surrounding these deals. If things don't shape up soon, I may end up reducing or ending my subscription and taking that money to RedBox; unless I missed the article where RedBox caved as well.
- Cheap - Quality - Fast You can only pick two; now exceptions.
If your boss doesn't care about morale and turnover, he needs to understand this in the least. He should care about morale and turnover. There are a number of posts above that make great points that I don't need to repeat and some that fit into the above rule.
If I were in that position, I would take that as a sign that it's time to find employment elsewhere.
Third for ConnectBot. You just have to get to learn the key combinations for |, Esc, Crtl+C, Ctrl+D, and whatever character the keyboard doesn't have already and you're all set. It automatically saves new connections and you can configure it to connect to a different port if your server isn't listening on port 22. Also, you can open a localhost connection as well; you'll need to be rooted and have something like BusyBox to do some things, but I haven't had to call BusyBox to ping at least.
You reminded me of another thing we have to remind a whiny user once in a while. The workstations, servers, and networks are paid by the company and therefore are company property. The company chooses what can and can't happen on their property and does maintain a level of liability as well. There is no expectation of privacy as well on company property; if it needs to be private, it should be done elsewhere. We are bound by regulations to retain all e-mails and log as much as possible. If there was a breach and we have everything in place, we get a fine and a stern talking to. If everything is not in place, we are shutdown and everyone is out of a job.
Having internet access and streaming music at work is a privileged, not a right. When it becomes a right, all of the workers in retail, warehouses, restaurants, garages, security, rescue, etc. will have to have access as well and that just seems silly.
Within the network I manage, it boils down to bandwidth, security, and slacking off.
We have two large offices and a few small offices. All of the internet traffic is routed through the WAN to the main office that has a 10Mb link which is shared with our internet facing servers. The other large office acts only as a backup and has a 5Mb internet connection. The WAN links are 3Mb with the exception of the main office having a 6Mb one. Regular business WAN traffic is a steady 1Mb across the board with the usual spikes from file transfers and e-mails with large attachments. Having a small handful of users streaming music isn't a big hit, but if a tenth of the userbase does it, the network would be saturated and business applications would come to a halt. If someone wants to listen to music, there are a number of cheap mp3 and cd players with and without a FM radio.
We handle a lot of sensitive information. Employees sending out that information can be a problem. Web based e-mail and IM is blocked to help prevent that information from easily being sent out. Some external IM services are allowed through the corporate IM client that gateways through our IM server for full logging and heuristics; 3rd party IM clients will not be able to access any IM service.
There was a time when every office had its own unfiltered internet connection. Too many people abused that privileged; machines were frequently infected with 0-day malware and people were goofing off. It is the responsibility of management and HR to make sure there is an appropriate amount of people staffed in each department and things are handled in a way so employees aren't miserable. There are ways to break up the monotony without resorting to slacking off on the internet.
I wish I got this memo when I was deciding my career path at a young age. So many small-medium sized companies out there want a Sys Admin to administrate everything from systems to facilities, including the occasional furniture move, and only pay $40k-$50. A lot of hats to wear with the expectation of being able to handle anything new, keeping everything running, and keep one's cool during crisis management. Trying to make a career out of one of those roles, like e-mail administration, only makes sense if it's going to be for a large company and still won't get much more compensation.
I should have gotten into programing and DB administration; much more profitable and in demand. Yes I could learn to do that type of work now, but it would have been much easier when I was a teenager. Making the time now to do more than just brief reading and dabbling is difficult. I know I haven't marketed my self as well as I could. Perhaps I should find something that pays better and focus in on that or maybe just get into management.
I have to disagree with this assessment. The metrics used by corporations to track a show's viewership are generally based off of the estimations of the Nielsen ratings. Nielsen tracks a very small fraction of people and then multiplies those numbers based off of the population. IMHO, this is inherently flawed. Let's also not forget studios that just don't know how to properly manage and air a good show.
Take Firefly as an example. Great writing, cast, production, and special effects and is something that can appeal to a broad audience. It aired on Fox who has developed a reputation for killing off shows that they don't completely know how to handle and decide to kill it off only a few episodes in. I don't think Fox properly advertised it and they apparently didn't know it was a serial by airing episodes out of order. After the cancellation, there was a lot of vocal fan interest to get it back, but that just wasn't enough to get Fox to pick it back up or at least sell it to someone else.
Mine too. Plus, the Navy spokesperson probably can't represent the activities of the Army.
IIRC, we regularly randomly select a Minuteman ICBM, remove the nuclear payload, replace the payload with a bunch of telemetry and tracking equipment, and launch it off the coast of California into Kwaj's lagoon. This kills two birds with one stone: it tests the missile to see if there might be any defects in the existing stockpile and it also tests the tracking equipment we have in Kwaj. One could argue that it also removes a nuclear weapon from our arsenal to comply with some treaty, though I don't recall what we actually do with the nuclear payload afterwards.
I have had problems with my wrists for over 10 years. I've especially done a lot of abuse to my right wrist as well with all night FPS games, grappling (martial arts), carrying a large serving tray loaded past the brim one handed at a restaurant, and injuring it while hiking among other things. I've had to wear a brace with restrictive splints a few times over the years. I do invest in quality mice that forms my hand well to not aggravate it. However, I really can't give up my Model M; nothing comes close to the tactile feedback, spacing, and key travel. I've tried to use ergonomic keyboards, but I was never able to find a comfortable position.
The key I have found for my condition and topics on CTS, RTS, and the like is to have your arms strait with your wrists. If there is one thing you take away, do whatever it takes to keep your wrists strait with you arms. There are a combination of things I do that let me do this with a regular keyboard: 1. The keyboard is at least one foot away from the edge of the desk. This makes me stretch out my arms and make them straighter with my wrists. 2. Depending on the angle my arms and wrists are with my keyboard, I adjust my fingers accordingly so they are still on the home row. As a reference, I position everything so my thumb can comfortably strike the spacebar with the edge of the bar making contact halfway between the tip and first knuckle of the outside part of my thumb. 3. Recline my chair to stretch out my arms my arms further to get them closer to a right-angle with my keyboard. I know that this isn't the healthiest approach for the rest of my body nor is it the most professional looking, however it's a small price to pay for being able to use my right hand in daily life without pain, a brace, and drugs.
I know desk space can be at a premium and having the keyboard so far away seem impossible. Get creative with the space and resources you have to achieve a better typing environment. Sometimes HR can be helpful in requisitioning monitor stands to eek out those last six inches or they may just stick you with a useless ergonomic keyboard or worse, a full ergonomic desk and chair; either I wasn't comfortable at all or I kept falling off.
At one company I had a very small cube with a desk that was <=1.5ft. deep. I got a measuring tape and measured out the dimensions needed to elevate my monitors to a comfortable height and would span the width of my little desk. I went to Home Depot and found a laminated board that was sturdy and deep enough; they were nice enough to cut off the ends to my measurements so it would fit width wise and there would be posts on each end to hold it up to the height I needed. For less than the cost of lunch at Taco Bell, I had a solution my employer would never come up with and I didn't even have to use any tools, just some physics and gravity.
How does one's bill point to how much one makes? All the bills I get in the mail are my utility and cell phone bills. I suppose if one is throwing away bank statements and/or credit card bills. However, if one is throwing away those documents, most companies these days offer the option to stop wasting money on paper and postage and will just e-mail it.
I could see it being obvious if the guy down the street has some hot new car every year, walks around in a fur coat, and has a bottle of Dom Pérignon in his hand frequently. Just because someone is making a ton of money, doesn't mean they have to flaunt it.
The only person that should know how much one makes, is their spouse and HR. With the exception of executives that work for a publicly traded company, nobody in the company should be letting that information loose. It's foolish to tell anyone how much one makes. And as for the spouse, part of finding the right person is making sure they understand that information is not be given out.
My uncle worked for a typical number of years. He had three kids, always drove some POS car, and had reasonable living arrangements for his family. Most people would assume he was like a typical American that was a couple of paychecks away from bankruptcy. Reality is, he retired with over a million in the bank. He managed his money well with good investments, spending it appropriately on things that were needed and even did nice family vacations, and didn't spend it on stuff that wasn't needed. He still manages his money well till this day. The money he packed away paid for a nice house and regular living expenses. Him and his wife do little side jobs here and there and that money is used to go on vacations. AFAIK, nobody is asking them for money or even thinking poorly of them. If anything for me, they're an inspiration of properly stewarding one's money.
I assume there's going to be an AMD Radeon sticker next to the Intel Inside sticker. I can't wait to sort out the confused people around me thinking there are two physical CPUs, one from each manufacturer, in that computer. In addition to consolidating its brand presence,I suppose they think this will reduce confusion when IMHO it will create more confusion for a while.
This is why we still deploy computers with XP and Office 2003 at the company I work for. On occasion I have to argue against deploying the latest version of Windows or Office. Some have suggested we contract a trainer and do classes for everyone. I have to pull out my former trainer card and give them a reality check that mostly everyone is either going to not pay attention or sleep through the class; then they're going to whine that it's SO different when they actually have to use it and IT will have to do individual training. We've got enough on our plate with daily issues, maintenance, lack of competent IT staff, and this stupid "merger" that hand holding the whole time they're "working" isn't feasible since they forget how to do it the moment we walk away.
Perhaps if Microsoft had released something between XP and Vista, people would be more use to the slight GUI changes every few years. I'd love have an option in Office 2007+ to be able to switch the Ribbon bar back to the old menu layout.
I thought this was a known fact Network Solutions' parked pages served malware in one form or another. Back in July of last year I got some questions from an executive why the domain the company recently registered for was being blocked by the corporate web content filter. Turns out the Network Solutions parked page had an iframe that was serving malware from kolmic.com. I explained it and provided the parked page's html code with the offending code highlighted.
Doing some Google searches showed that I wasn't the only one that had noticed this.
I really hope you're not serious. Chip & PIN plus the liability on the card holder if there is fraud with a Chip & PIN transaction is just a monumental bad idea. It's not 1000x more secure and it has been compromised. Please do some Googling for news on Chip & PIN fraud in the UK. Beyond the actual negligence ones where the fraudster has the actual card and knows the PIN, there's skimming going on.
I'd probably pay in cash exclusively the day my bank issues me a "Chip & PIN" card here in the US. I've had enough smoke blow up my butt about how awesome something is and I don't have to worry one bit, but the moment things go south, I get run over by a bus. I wouldn't put it past the banks here in the US to pull the same "well you must have given your PIN to someone, so the liability is on you" nonsense.
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Ahh yes the Wife Approval Factor (WAF). If I wasn't married, I would have bought a nice HDTV with the $60+/mo I'd be saving cutting the cord. My wife shot down the idea since there are shows on cable that SHE HAS TO HAVE. The road block is she loves these damn shows on Bravo, Food, and TLC that just don't get on the torrents, Hulu, or Netflix. They are available for purchase on Amazon VOD, which I'd be willing to do for the $10-$15/mo it'd cost, however I just haven't found anything that will meet the WAF.
I think I'd be all set if I could find something that would DVR OTA broadcast and do Amazon VOD all in one easy GUI; bonus if it could do Netflix streaming and also do my ripped DVD library from my home server (not necessary since the PS3 and PBO respectively already do this). One of the HDTVs I'm interested in does Amazon VOD and I could put together a WMC HTPC for very little since I have a lot of parts laying around, but there's the whole horse/cart thing. We apparently need a house (she thinks a HDTV would take up too much space in the appt.) and a new sofa (don't get me started) before we get a HDTV.
One day I'll cut the cord and meet the WAF. NetFlix mail, NetFlix Streaming, Amazon VOD, DVR'd OTA, any buy the occasional TV series on DVD is a dream that I hope to make true.
Ditto. I'm starting to run out of companies I'm willing to buy from. Too many companies are either going on my shit-list or are known to put out crap.
Damn you Samsung, I was going to buy some HDDs from you.
When has Poole ever said that the cause of anonymity should stand above and beyond the law, or that supporting it necessarily demands that one put anonymity before even the law? Or anything remotely close that resembles "Anonymity > Rule of Law"?
This is a position that you've invented for me. I never stated anonymity was above, beyond, before, or greater than the law or rule of law. I'm using the fact that law enforcement getting information from 4chan as an example of anonymity not existing on his site.
You are misconstruing Poole's advocacy of anonymity with that for absolute anonymity that is above and before everything else. And then you call him a hypocrite for failing to conform to the position you've invented for him. Also known as the straw man fallacy.
Your insistence that anonymity must be placed above the law looks like an attempt to discredit anonymity as nothing more than a haven for criminality, hence you sound like a troll.
It appears we need to break out the Dictionary and define the word "anonymity":
anonymity noun
1: the quality or state of being anonymous
2: one that is anonymous
This leads us to define "anonymous":
anonymous adjective
1: of unknown authorship or origin
2: not named or identified
3: lacking individuality, distinction, or recognizably
Based on the definition, one is either anonymous or is not. Having the logs of 4chan provides the author's origin and is an identifiable characteristic, therefore the author is not anonymous. To entertain your arguments, anonymity can't exist when information is used to charge an individual with a crime and an individual that is anonymous can't be charged with a crime since no identifiable information exists as a result of the individual being anonymous. It would be inaccurate to say anonymity is greater/above the law or even the opposite. It would be more accurate to say that anonymity and being able to enforce the law can't exist at the same time; with one existing, the other can not exist. That is the basis of my original statements and question.
I would be interested to have a conversation with Poole on his statements. It would probably result in one of the following:
- Poole state that his definitions of anonymity and anonymous are different than the Merriam-Webster Dictionary
- Poole admit he's being a bit hypocritical within the definition of anonymity. Yes, 4chan is close to providing anonymity, but it doesn't provide it.
- Or the definitions for anonymity and anonymous need to be changed
Why do you think that anonymity should extend to protecting blatantly criminal behavior? What kind of person does it take to even ask that question? By your statements you seem to want 4chan and anonymity in general to be a haven for lawlessness, [snip]
You're putting words into my mouth. I'm questioning Poole saying Zuckerberg has it wrong by doing the opposite of anonymity and Poole being a big proponent of anonymity on the Internet when his site doesn't actually provide anonymity. I think it's great that sickos posting child porn are getting arrested, but that's not part of my question. My point is Poole seems a bit hypocritical in advocating anonymity yet his site, though it may seem provides a level of anonymity, doesn't provide anonymity and isn't in line with what he's saying.
[/snip] as if you have something against the very idea of anonymity. I think you are trolling.
Now you're contradicting yourself. I'm thinking I just got trolled.
If he thinks people should be anonymous on the Internet, why does law enforcement get any of 4chan's logs when something illegal is posted? Putting aside arguments over whether a post was, was not, should be, or should not be illegal, the information was handed over and IMHO that's not anonymity.
Not trying to troll; it just seems a bit off.
I was disappointed to read that the dock actually has a beefier processor for the webtop, which was contrary to what I had thought. I went back to my original info on the Atrix and I think this reviewer doesn't know WTF they're talking about. According to Motorola at CES, all of the processing is done on the phone itself; the desktop dock is just a port port replicator and USB hub and the lapdock serves the same function, but has the actual I/O devices and a battery to power everything and charge the phone. I recommend watching the videos at the following links:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/06/motorola-atrix-4g-hd-multimedia-dock-and-laptop-dock-hands-on/
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/09/motorola-atrix-another-look-video/
I any case, I think it's a great idea that will only get better as it matures. I don't see this as killing off the desktop and laptop just yet, but I'd anticipate it would take over marketshare down the road. Personally I could see it replacing my work laptop, but nothing else. Outside of work, most of the stuff I do on my computer can be accomplished within a web browser, media player, or an app from the Market. For anything beyond that, I can RDP into my desktop at home (tunneling over SSH if remote) or a work computer/server (VPN if remote).
My employer provides me with a laptop so I have all of my tools and crap with me if an emergency arises when I'm out of the office. Beyond a big networking issue, I really don't have a need for a laptop when I could have a Webtop on my phone with a laptop-esq dock and a powerful desktop to remote into.
I'll bite. ZFS was designed with a different train of thought when it came to the file system and storing files. ZFS lets one do everything from just formatting a single drive with one partition to doing a RAID array with three parity stripes, file system compression, file system encryption, block level deduplication, with file cloning and/or snapshotting to another server with ZFS. The ability to setup an array, selectively apply features (encryption, compression, dedup, etc.) to different directories, mount directories elsewhere in the OS hierarchy, clone, do snapshots, etc. is so easy and only needs a handful of commands.
I use to be a fanboy when it came to hardware RAID with a dedicated RISC processor and RAM. The risk with hardware RAID is if the controller fails, one will probably be in a world of hurt. I didn't like software RAID due to CPU overhead and the damn thing not always working. ZFS has changed that for me. Not only do I not notice CPU overhead, recovery is so easy. I can install an OS on a HDD and then configure three new drives with RAID-Z (ZFS' RAID5 implementation). From there I can replace the OS HDD and start with a fresh OS install; a couple of commands that don't include the paths to the RAIDed HDDs and any backed up config file and my array is back online. All I need are the drives and nothing else. I could even loose a drive and still be fine.
The other beauty is not needing exactly the same drives. Say I have three 1.5TB drives in a RAID-Z and one of the drives fails. Perhaps I can't buy another 1.5TB drive or the 2TB model is cheaper. I can replace the drive with a 2TB unit and ZFS will rebuild the lost 1.5TB. I can either use that 0.5TB for something else or expand the array when the other two drives are replaced with larger drives.
Sure booting from ZFS in FreeBSD isn't perfect, but I don't see a real need for my OS to reside on a drive with ZFS. However when it comes to my storage arrays, ZFS is invaluable.
There's so much to ZFS that considering it just another file system like EXT or UFS is an ignorant assessment. I recommend doing a some research before bashing something you don't understand.
On the topic of outsourcing, IMO it can be cheaper if done right. On paper it always seems like a great idea, but in practice it's not always the best idea financially and/or getting the same or better result in comparison to keeping it in-house. I've worked for companies where they have outsourced a particular department/function to companies where I am the one the job is outsourced to. My observation has been the success of getting projects done (e.g.: programing) or facilitating a role (e.g.: sys admin) rely on a few factors regardless of outsourcing or not.
The first is a golden rule of sorts on doing anything:
- Cheap
- Quality
- Fast
You can only pick two; NO exceptions. I've encountered so many upper management types that foolishly think they can get away with having all three. In my experience 9/10 of the time it turns out a lack of quality bites them in the butt sometime down the road when they assumed they somehow managed to achieve all three.
The second is communication. Mostly everyone in at least the US has experienced the pain of being subjected to some company's outsourced customer service and/or tech support that can't effectively communicate with both parties on the same page of understanding one another. I really shouldn't need to explain why communication, understanding one another is so important. Sadly this is something I have to constantly explain to my current boss with events like today where my non-outsourced colleague rebooted a number of production critical servers when he was asked to reboot just one secondary server.
Third is the employee's skill in doing the job. Again, another obvious one, but I've observed that it isn't always on the hiring menu. Additionally I've seen some people that interview well, but couldn't create a "Hello World" HTML page for a web developer position as an example. There's no point in hiring or keeping a hired individual to do a job that they lack the skill to do; even if it's an entry-level position with training, that person should be willing to put for the effort to learn and take notes. I accept that everyone has their own unique skills that can aide or hinder their ability to learn and be proficient with a particular task. However, I firmly believe anyone can learn to do anything as long as they put their mind to it. I barely have any artistic ability and my drawing skills are stick figures at best (XKCD is miles ahead of me); if I were to put forth the effort to learn how to draw and paint, I could become a good artist. I taught an A+ technician certification class at a tech school a while back and I had a retired Marine that served in the Vietnam War as one of my students. One could argue his best skill was killing and blowing stuff up. He worked hard and learned to be a technician and passed CompTIA's certification test without a problem. That leads me to the next point.
Lastly is attitude of the end employee doing the actual work. It boggles my mind how so many managers loose the plot when it comes to employee morale and motivation. Productivity generally is improved when those two are improved and it usually doesn't have to involve spending a bunch of money. The employee's attitude should be getting the work done correctly in a reasonable amount of time. Demanding it is a poor approach. Poisoning an employee will result in poisoning the company in a small manner all the way up to the failure of the company. Employees should be encouraged through actual morale improvements, positive motivation, and incentives for doing more work at the same and/or better quality level.
Outsourcing or keeping things in house can be successful and possibly economical if approached correctly with the appropriate support of upper management.
I wonder what they actually hope to accomplish/gain with this. I agree, Streisand Effect will be going into full force.
Personally, I think I'm done with Sony products. After the rootkit installing CDs and there other antics with the PS3, I don't feel like they actually want to keep me as a customer.
They did a ceremony for that? That's like handing over the keys to the last land-only vehicle and no other vehicle that touches the ground will be made again. Couldn't get in when one could be bought? Sorry. But don't feel completely SOL; there's this new thing called the "flying car" that is meant to replace land-only vehicles and it's so much better. It's not too difficult getting one either. The only problem is there are only a handful of air-roads and you can only get from point A to point B if there are air-roads with the flying car. If there aren't any air-roads at your home and destination, you can't use the flying car. Never mind that in the next subdivision they have an air-road, yours doesn't and there's nothing you can do about it.
Sadly the latest trend I've seen with new DVD releases is the discs are pressed specifically for NetFlix with a bunch of ads/trailers and no special features. They're pretty noticeable by having a gray label on the discs and the newer ones even have NetFlix's logo silk-screened on it. I wouldn't be surprised if it was part of their streaming deals with the studios and the 28 day release wait.
For me, being able to rent the same DVD that's for sale in the store was part of the appeal of NetFlix. The extra content is great. With these content deals to have rental specific DVDs from NetFlix with a bunch of ads and no special features, I'd much rather stream that movie than use up a queue slot and waste time on ads. Sadly, I'm not seeing as big of an impact in their streaming selection as I expected from all of the hype surrounding these deals. If things don't shape up soon, I may end up reducing or ending my subscription and taking that money to RedBox; unless I missed the article where RedBox caved as well.
- Cheap
- Quality
- Fast
You can only pick two; now exceptions.
If your boss doesn't care about morale and turnover, he needs to understand this in the least. He should care about morale and turnover. There are a number of posts above that make great points that I don't need to repeat and some that fit into the above rule.
If I were in that position, I would take that as a sign that it's time to find employment elsewhere.
Third for ConnectBot. You just have to get to learn the key combinations for |, Esc, Crtl+C, Ctrl+D, and whatever character the keyboard doesn't have already and you're all set. It automatically saves new connections and you can configure it to connect to a different port if your server isn't listening on port 22. Also, you can open a localhost connection as well; you'll need to be rooted and have something like BusyBox to do some things, but I haven't had to call BusyBox to ping at least.
You reminded me of another thing we have to remind a whiny user once in a while. The workstations, servers, and networks are paid by the company and therefore are company property. The company chooses what can and can't happen on their property and does maintain a level of liability as well. There is no expectation of privacy as well on company property; if it needs to be private, it should be done elsewhere. We are bound by regulations to retain all e-mails and log as much as possible. If there was a breach and we have everything in place, we get a fine and a stern talking to. If everything is not in place, we are shutdown and everyone is out of a job.
Having internet access and streaming music at work is a privileged, not a right. When it becomes a right, all of the workers in retail, warehouses, restaurants, garages, security, rescue, etc. will have to have access as well and that just seems silly.
Within the network I manage, it boils down to bandwidth, security, and slacking off.
We have two large offices and a few small offices. All of the internet traffic is routed through the WAN to the main office that has a 10Mb link which is shared with our internet facing servers. The other large office acts only as a backup and has a 5Mb internet connection. The WAN links are 3Mb with the exception of the main office having a 6Mb one. Regular business WAN traffic is a steady 1Mb across the board with the usual spikes from file transfers and e-mails with large attachments. Having a small handful of users streaming music isn't a big hit, but if a tenth of the userbase does it, the network would be saturated and business applications would come to a halt. If someone wants to listen to music, there are a number of cheap mp3 and cd players with and without a FM radio.
We handle a lot of sensitive information. Employees sending out that information can be a problem. Web based e-mail and IM is blocked to help prevent that information from easily being sent out. Some external IM services are allowed through the corporate IM client that gateways through our IM server for full logging and heuristics; 3rd party IM clients will not be able to access any IM service.
There was a time when every office had its own unfiltered internet connection. Too many people abused that privileged; machines were frequently infected with 0-day malware and people were goofing off. It is the responsibility of management and HR to make sure there is an appropriate amount of people staffed in each department and things are handled in a way so employees aren't miserable. There are ways to break up the monotony without resorting to slacking off on the internet.
I wish I got this memo when I was deciding my career path at a young age. So many small-medium sized companies out there want a Sys Admin to administrate everything from systems to facilities, including the occasional furniture move, and only pay $40k-$50. A lot of hats to wear with the expectation of being able to handle anything new, keeping everything running, and keep one's cool during crisis management. Trying to make a career out of one of those roles, like e-mail administration, only makes sense if it's going to be for a large company and still won't get much more compensation.
I should have gotten into programing and DB administration; much more profitable and in demand. Yes I could learn to do that type of work now, but it would have been much easier when I was a teenager. Making the time now to do more than just brief reading and dabbling is difficult. I know I haven't marketed my self as well as I could. Perhaps I should find something that pays better and focus in on that or maybe just get into management.
I have to disagree with this assessment. The metrics used by corporations to track a show's viewership are generally based off of the estimations of the Nielsen ratings. Nielsen tracks a very small fraction of people and then multiplies those numbers based off of the population. IMHO, this is inherently flawed. Let's also not forget studios that just don't know how to properly manage and air a good show.
Take Firefly as an example. Great writing, cast, production, and special effects and is something that can appeal to a broad audience. It aired on Fox who has developed a reputation for killing off shows that they don't completely know how to handle and decide to kill it off only a few episodes in. I don't think Fox properly advertised it and they apparently didn't know it was a serial by airing episodes out of order. After the cancellation, there was a lot of vocal fan interest to get it back, but that just wasn't enough to get Fox to pick it back up or at least sell it to someone else.
Mine too. Plus, the Navy spokesperson probably can't represent the activities of the Army.
IIRC, we regularly randomly select a Minuteman ICBM, remove the nuclear payload, replace the payload with a bunch of telemetry and tracking equipment, and launch it off the coast of California into Kwaj's lagoon. This kills two birds with one stone: it tests the missile to see if there might be any defects in the existing stockpile and it also tests the tracking equipment we have in Kwaj. One could argue that it also removes a nuclear weapon from our arsenal to comply with some treaty, though I don't recall what we actually do with the nuclear payload afterwards.
I have had problems with my wrists for over 10 years. I've especially done a lot of abuse to my right wrist as well with all night FPS games, grappling (martial arts), carrying a large serving tray loaded past the brim one handed at a restaurant, and injuring it while hiking among other things. I've had to wear a brace with restrictive splints a few times over the years. I do invest in quality mice that forms my hand well to not aggravate it. However, I really can't give up my Model M; nothing comes close to the tactile feedback, spacing, and key travel. I've tried to use ergonomic keyboards, but I was never able to find a comfortable position.
The key I have found for my condition and topics on CTS, RTS, and the like is to have your arms strait with your wrists. If there is one thing you take away, do whatever it takes to keep your wrists strait with you arms. There are a combination of things I do that let me do this with a regular keyboard:
1. The keyboard is at least one foot away from the edge of the desk. This makes me stretch out my arms and make them straighter with my wrists.
2. Depending on the angle my arms and wrists are with my keyboard, I adjust my fingers accordingly so they are still on the home row. As a reference, I position everything so my thumb can comfortably strike the spacebar with the edge of the bar making contact halfway between the tip and first knuckle of the outside part of my thumb.
3. Recline my chair to stretch out my arms my arms further to get them closer to a right-angle with my keyboard. I know that this isn't the healthiest approach for the rest of my body nor is it the most professional looking, however it's a small price to pay for being able to use my right hand in daily life without pain, a brace, and drugs.
I know desk space can be at a premium and having the keyboard so far away seem impossible. Get creative with the space and resources you have to achieve a better typing environment. Sometimes HR can be helpful in requisitioning monitor stands to eek out those last six inches or they may just stick you with a useless ergonomic keyboard or worse, a full ergonomic desk and chair; either I wasn't comfortable at all or I kept falling off.
At one company I had a very small cube with a desk that was <=1.5ft. deep. I got a measuring tape and measured out the dimensions needed to elevate my monitors to a comfortable height and would span the width of my little desk. I went to Home Depot and found a laminated board that was sturdy and deep enough; they were nice enough to cut off the ends to my measurements so it would fit width wise and there would be posts on each end to hold it up to the height I needed. For less than the cost of lunch at Taco Bell, I had a solution my employer would never come up with and I didn't even have to use any tools, just some physics and gravity.
How does one's bill point to how much one makes? All the bills I get in the mail are my utility and cell phone bills. I suppose if one is throwing away bank statements and/or credit card bills. However, if one is throwing away those documents, most companies these days offer the option to stop wasting money on paper and postage and will just e-mail it.
I could see it being obvious if the guy down the street has some hot new car every year, walks around in a fur coat, and has a bottle of Dom Pérignon in his hand frequently. Just because someone is making a ton of money, doesn't mean they have to flaunt it.
The only person that should know how much one makes, is their spouse and HR. With the exception of executives that work for a publicly traded company, nobody in the company should be letting that information loose. It's foolish to tell anyone how much one makes. And as for the spouse, part of finding the right person is making sure they understand that information is not be given out.
My uncle worked for a typical number of years. He had three kids, always drove some POS car, and had reasonable living arrangements for his family. Most people would assume he was like a typical American that was a couple of paychecks away from bankruptcy. Reality is, he retired with over a million in the bank. He managed his money well with good investments, spending it appropriately on things that were needed and even did nice family vacations, and didn't spend it on stuff that wasn't needed. He still manages his money well till this day. The money he packed away paid for a nice house and regular living expenses. Him and his wife do little side jobs here and there and that money is used to go on vacations. AFAIK, nobody is asking them for money or even thinking poorly of them. If anything for me, they're an inspiration of properly stewarding one's money.
I assume there's going to be an AMD Radeon sticker next to the Intel Inside sticker. I can't wait to sort out the confused people around me thinking there are two physical CPUs, one from each manufacturer, in that computer. In addition to consolidating its brand presence,I suppose they think this will reduce confusion when IMHO it will create more confusion for a while.
This is why we still deploy computers with XP and Office 2003 at the company I work for. On occasion I have to argue against deploying the latest version of Windows or Office. Some have suggested we contract a trainer and do classes for everyone. I have to pull out my former trainer card and give them a reality check that mostly everyone is either going to not pay attention or sleep through the class; then they're going to whine that it's SO different when they actually have to use it and IT will have to do individual training. We've got enough on our plate with daily issues, maintenance, lack of competent IT staff, and this stupid "merger" that hand holding the whole time they're "working" isn't feasible since they forget how to do it the moment we walk away.
Perhaps if Microsoft had released something between XP and Vista, people would be more use to the slight GUI changes every few years. I'd love have an option in Office 2007+ to be able to switch the Ribbon bar back to the old menu layout.
I thought this was a known fact Network Solutions' parked pages served malware in one form or another. Back in July of last year I got some questions from an executive why the domain the company recently registered for was being blocked by the corporate web content filter. Turns out the Network Solutions parked page had an iframe that was serving malware from kolmic.com. I explained it and provided the parked page's html code with the offending code highlighted.
Doing some Google searches showed that I wasn't the only one that had noticed this.
I really hope you're not serious. Chip & PIN plus the liability on the card holder if there is fraud with a Chip & PIN transaction is just a monumental bad idea. It's not 1000x more secure and it has been compromised. Please do some Googling for news on Chip & PIN fraud in the UK. Beyond the actual negligence ones where the fraudster has the actual card and knows the PIN, there's skimming going on.
A couple of terminals only need a paperclip to make the connection of the decrypted information and didn't trigger any of the tamper-proof mechanisms nor is it really noticeable:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/27/credit_card_reader_security_pants/
http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2008/02/26/chip-pin-terminals-vulnerable-to-simple-attacks/
On a more recent note, this year arrests were made in UK of a skimmer gang. Articles can be found on Google:
http://www.google.com/search?q=chip+pin+gang
I'd probably pay in cash exclusively the day my bank issues me a "Chip & PIN" card here in the US. I've had enough smoke blow up my butt about how awesome something is and I don't have to worry one bit, but the moment things go south, I get run over by a bus. I wouldn't put it past the banks here in the US to pull the same "well you must have given your PIN to someone, so the liability is on you" nonsense.