Farnsworth: "So what are you doing to protect my constitutional right to bear doomsday devices?" NRA Guy: "Well, first off, we're gonna get rid of that three day waiting period for mad scientists." Farnsworth: "Damn straight! Today the mad scientist can't get a doomsday device, tomorrow it's the mad grad student! Where will it end?!" NRA Guy: "Amen, brother. I don't go anywhere without my mutated anthrax. For duck huntin'."
This story made me think of this. Am I the only one?
King(Armed with shotgun): PULL!
+ a mouse is flung into the air, BANG King shoots and misses +
King: Drifting to the left.... PULL!
+ another mouse is catapulted skyward, BANG King nails it +
King: Fell like a stone.
Just let it die, already. I love Trek. I grew up watching TOS, I saw the first movie the day it hit our local theater, and I watched all the series - as painful as it got. Now, I can't even stand to see the upcoming episode promos for ENT.
But is it really the case that ST has gotten worse? I would agree to some extent it has. But I think what many posters overlook is that we the audience/fans and SF have both matured in our tastes.
After watching Babylon 5 and Firefly and Farscape, can you honestly say even TOS or TNG measures up? We have experienced better writing and stories and , dare I say it, acting, than Trek has offered and now when we see any Trek we judge it by our newer, more refined sense of what SF can be.
To some extent even SG1 is trying to reach up, or at least it was trying prior to Atlantis. I will give it time to work it out, though.
The problem with Trek now is that the writers and producers recognize that better SF has been and continues to be made by others, but instead of doing better jobs themselves they sometimes just superficially copy the themes or ideas of the other shows or even past Trek stories instead of coming up with something original (B5 vs. DS9 , way too much time-travel, etc.)
Let me finish by saying, I think Trek has devolved into a formulaic, techno-babble solution in the last 10 minutes of every episode, gee didn't we all just learn a valuable politically correct lesson, pile of special effects with patterned characters and plot/continuity issues to fill several nit-pickers books.
But I also think that the very reason we recognize it as such, is that we are now smarter SF consumers. Good and even great SF films and TV have shown us what we should expect from the genre, and Trek just has not moved to meet these new, higher expectations.
pfft...end of rant
I was in a similar position just 3 years ago. I was all set. I had the money and had researched it. I found a terrific, experienced doctor that I felt confident in performing the procedure.
At my exam, he determined that my pupils were too large. When fully dilated, like for night vision, my pupils were larger in diameter than the area of the eye the laser machine was able to cover. This machine is built that way.
My doctor was surprised, saying I was the only person he ever met like this, but that maybe as I passed 40 years old later in my life I might be able to have it done since the pupils shrink slightly with age.
He told me in no uncertain terms that he would not perform the procedure at this time, and that I should not try to get it done elsewhere, as my condition would cause a 'halo' effect when my pupils were fully dilated such as at night while driving.
My advice to anyone wanting this procedure is to gather as much info about the procedure, the place you are going to have it done, and the people involved. Take your time and be sure. My own research revealed many problems that can occur if this is botched.
NLG
I recently purchased a Netgear WGT624 v2 so I could have wi-fi at home for my laptop. Does anyone know if this FW/Router also suffers from the same problem? I can't find any info so far, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that ALL Netgear products could have similar exploitable backdoors.
Unfortunately the Big Evil Record Companies(TM) have an assortment of Big Evil Tactics(TM) to use on their targets.
Record Exec 1: Hi, there, you guys wanna' be in our commercials and online marketing promotions?
Band: F*%@-off you evil filth! We are totally anti-big corporation.
Exec 1: Well, we will just see about that. (motions to hired goons, goons grab the band members and hold them down) The case, Bill.
Exec 2: Yeah, here.(opens briefcase and holds for exec 1)
Band: F*%@ you, pig! Torture us if you want, we will never give in to the establishment!
Exec 1: (Takes stacks of ca$h from briefcase and begins pelting the band with them) Ha! It's only a matter of time til you break!
Exec 2: Think of what you could do with all this money. Buy cool cars and clothes! you could even move out of your parent's basements!
Exec 1: (Still raining down the Benjamins) Give yourself to the dark side...there is no escape!
Band: Okay, oh, God, just stop it. We'll do it.
Obviously, this sort of treatment is in violation of the Geneva convention.
I tend to think that destruction of SCO is inevitable anyway, and SCO knows it...
Inevitable, yes. Imminent, no. Had they done the BoA, it would have been a matter of 3-4 weeks. Seriously, the power that BoA, and more importantly, the people at the top of BoA can wield is astonishing. With SCO's present delay-based strategies, SCO gets to kite the stock and keep riding for many more months. I will grant that perhaps their "MSFT pipe-line advisors" may have been the ones to quash it and not the Boies-boys.
AOL members attempting to visit a blocked Web page receive an error message that says a connection to the page could not be made,
Some crackpot AOLer will sue them for blocking a site he wants to buy crap from. Then the Crap-Merchant will sue them under some Federal law or other. And win or lose, the attention it brings will bring out the politicians(shudder).
Since this only affects AOL members at this point, I say "Hooray for AOL!" But how long until AOL blocks ALL of the traffic on their network - whether it originates from one of their members or from somewhere else - to these sites?
How will non-AOL members like it when they are blocked? First they will complain to their own ISP, and maybe AOL directly, then their ISP might complain to AOL, loudly, then here come the Feds to start "regulating" the internet. This is going to eventually lead to no good.
/begin tinfoil hat rant
We all know that there are a lot of people, in the government and outside of it, that want to see stronger federal regulation of the internet. This will be the excuse they use to pass strict "Patriot Act" style regulation. "Hey, we just want to stop spam, and, uh, viruses too...yeah,...and kiddie-porn...well, and there are a few other items on the list,...er...no you can't see a copy now, we are still working on it...but they are ALL BAD...trust us, we know what is best for you...and if you are against this then you must be a terrorist." /end tinfoil hat rant
They need to make as much noise and annoy as many as possible, and they need to do it now. The bigger and more controversial the opponent, the better.
You are mostly right, they need to make noise to pump the stock price again. However, there are some targets which we know they chose not to pursue. Bank of America, for one. Why go after Daimler/Chrysler instead? This is complex, and forgive the tin-foil hat sound of it.
BoA is big. More importntly BoA is VERY influential in the Banking and Investment Banking industry. Think it through. BoA has ties to virtually every financial institution on the planet of somekind and could very easily use its influence to ruin SCO in a heartbeat. A few phone calls from some BoA execs and suddenly SCO's line of credit dries up and loans are called-in. Even better, the Mortgages and auto loans, whatever debts, of SCO execs are called and there are suddenly no other banks anywhere willing to lend them money.
Not only that, but BayStar has all its credit affected also, as well as its execs. Sure all these SCO-scum and BayStar-bitches are probably rich enough to handle it, but it is going to hurt and hurt bad. Most Americans, even Donald Trump, are so heavily "leveraged" that if something like this were to occur it would destroy them. It would most certainly destroy SCO, et al.
SCO's lawyers probably realized this at the last minute and convinced Darl that BoA and any other super-sized Bank was capable of playing hardball at a level SCO can't survive. Otherwise, why change targets instead of just tactics? SCO could have just amended that letter to BoA to sue them just like Daim\Chrysler instead of trying to get the court to seize, effectively, all their computers. Answer: SCO isn't suing BoA because they are scared of what BoA could do to them. If not, why announce the Fed-suit instead of going back after BoA? A company that everyone now knows(thanks to MS-Word fun) was an initial target. Answer: Not even the Feds scare them as bad, as this headline proves.
Make a list of the alerts and other business related items which get sent to your cell phone. Include how long it takes you to receive/respond to these alerts using the cell phone.
Now make a list of alternative methods(email, pager, whatever) and the response times you will have for problems - don't forget to detail after-hours and weekends to show clearly what will happen.
Our Tech manager did this and he also suggested using BlackBerry devices. The upper management bought a large number of them for select employees to use and that was fine for us.
Side story...One previous employer actually wanted me to buy a cell phone for work. I flatly refused, stating that the company should provide whatever tools/items I need to do my job. After being threatened with termination, I got one and started submitting my cell phone bills each month on the expense reports. After paying for it without realizing it for over one year, I got chewed out by one of the accounting staff. I wasn't hiding it, it said "Cell Phone" and a full copy of my bill was stapled to each one, and it was signed-off by my manager(always read before you sign:) ) I sent my boss an email detailing the business uses of my cell phone and the response times to problems along with how long it would have been without one. I included examples from the past year and said that if the company doesn't care to reimburse me then service will not be as good. I BCC'ed his boss and his boss's boss as well as the head of accounting. My manager wasn't mad, but not only did they decide to get me a phone, they got one for him and a bunch of other people also -some business contract for a large lot of phones knocked the per-phone cost down, or so said the accounting dorks.
I haven't seen much TurboLinux here in the USA for about 3 years now. I still have an old ISO CD of it around, but it was klunky(3 years is a long time ago in Linux-years).
This was a bit confusing to me that HP would start pushing different distros in different parts of the world. Must be a marketing thing? They have a deal with Mandrake, and are increasing the push on it here in the USA and abroad. Now they also are offering TurboLinux, and I think you can get servers from them with Red Hat as well.
Makes me wonder just what their overall Linux strategy is...maybe to just "spray-n-pray",ie; blasting the market with as many solutions as possible hoping to hit with something.
I just hope this doesn't signal a move away from Mandrake. They have a great distro that continues to be at the forefront of features and UI/GUI develoopment for the desktop.
It could just be a response to Novell/SuSe. Talk about potential, they could have a bunch of server and client Linux solutions rolling soon that could really grab some market share. That is, if Novell doesn't fsck it up somehow or fail to put enough $ and time into it for it to develop.
The Space Merchants by Frederick Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth
also the sequel The Merchant's War by Frederick Pohl
Reading these will make you want to strangle an advertising executive.
My previous boss loved meetings because she never wanted to have to do any real work. A meeting was a place for her to gossip, chat, eat and waste other people's time. Anyone she didn't like would get chewed out or have crappy assignments piled-on during meetings.
It is my belief that most meetings really are time-wasters, existing only to reinforce the self-importance of those in charge.
When my boss was told to start rotating the chair for the Employee-of-the-Month selection committee between us supervisors, I ran them with an iron fist when it was my turn. Since I was also expected to complete all of my usual duties as well(salaried means no overtime), I interrupted anyone who got off-topic and brought them back to what we were doing. I may not have made friends that way, but I cut 3 two-hour donut-fests a month down to two separate 30 minute meetings per month.
When her boss found out from another department head who sat in on the meetings how I had taken charge, he decided he liked my methods and promoted me to another department. He apparently also told my now old boss to cut out all non-essential meetings and keep any meeting she had down to a half hour. Was she PISSED.:)
A friend and I were in Best Buy today and I gave the new AMD64 equipped emachines laptop the once over. Very nice, I nearly drooled. It was tagged at $1599, with some rebates knocking off 150 or 200(don't recall which). Seemed nice.
But... comes with WinXP Home(if I have to have Win, let it be Pro). When some non-beta 64bit OS's are out I can see getting one of these to play with...also, the battery life on these things is only about 1 hour 20 minutes. Jeez, I can't even watch a dvd with that!...not that I would set it on my lap. When I first walked up to it I lifted the front up a bit and slid my hand along the bottom(get your mind out of the gutter!). It was very hot to the left of center. Much hotter than an idle laptop should ever be. AMD really needs to work on the power consumption and heat issues before I will shell out a grand plus for this tech, especially with no final stable 64bit OS here yet. Yeah, don't bother telling me "XYZ Linux distro is 64 ready.", 'cuz it ain't. Wait til June/July. That is about when some decent stable OS's should be available.
*cough* HP *cough* Hey, they already have a deal with Mandrake for putting the distro on laptops in Asia as well as you can get a Mandrake CD set with some of their lower-cost pc offerings. They are still shilling RH-EL for the servers, but a deal with Mandrake could replace that with MDK Corp Server.
As someone who has been there since 8.1, I love the distro and see its potential. Come on HP, go for it!
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't know SCO employees posted here!
Farnsworth: "So what are you doing to protect my constitutional right to bear doomsday devices?"
NRA Guy: "Well, first off, we're gonna get rid of that three day waiting period for mad scientists."
Farnsworth: "Damn straight! Today the mad scientist can't get a doomsday device, tomorrow it's the mad grad student! Where will it end?!"
NRA Guy: "Amen, brother. I don't go anywhere without my mutated anthrax. For duck huntin'."
This story made me think of this. Am I the only one?
Finally, a place to put my left-over "Type R" stickers.
Where do you hook up the NOS? Does it come with cold-cathode lighting?
Can't wait to show it off to my friend with the "Ferrari" laptop!
"Hanging's too good for him!
Burning's too good for him!
He ought to be chopped into little pieces and buried alive!"
Bah! Your scientists have obviously been smoking human horn. We hold both Intra-galactic and Inter-galactic patents and copyrights to all the oxygen.
Therefore, we are legally enjoining you from enforcing such bogus claims.
All Your Air Are Belonging To Us,
Zordon
Supreme Ruler of Omicron-Persei 8
Oh, so you're from Glasgow?
King(Armed with shotgun): PULL! ... PULL!
+ a mouse is flung into the air, BANG King shoots and misses +
King: Drifting to the left.
+ another mouse is catapulted skyward, BANG King nails it +
King: Fell like a stone.
Marge(to Homer): What is it with you and Robots?
But is it really the case that ST has gotten worse? I would agree to some extent it has. But I think what many posters overlook is that we the audience/fans and SF have both matured in our tastes.
After watching Babylon 5 and Firefly and Farscape, can you honestly say even TOS or TNG measures up? We have experienced better writing and stories and , dare I say it, acting, than Trek has offered and now when we see any Trek we judge it by our newer, more refined sense of what SF can be.
To some extent even SG1 is trying to reach up, or at least it was trying prior to Atlantis. I will give it time to work it out, though.
The problem with Trek now is that the writers and producers recognize that better SF has been and continues to be made by others, but instead of doing better jobs themselves they sometimes just superficially copy the themes or ideas of the other shows or even past Trek stories instead of coming up with something original (B5 vs. DS9 , way too much time-travel, etc.)
Let me finish by saying, I think Trek has devolved into a formulaic, techno-babble solution in the last 10 minutes of every episode, gee didn't we all just learn a valuable politically correct lesson, pile of special effects with patterned characters and plot/continuity issues to fill several nit-pickers books.
But I also think that the very reason we recognize it as such, is that we are now smarter SF consumers. Good and even great SF films and TV have shown us what we should expect from the genre, and Trek just has not moved to meet these new, higher expectations. pfft...end of rant
At my exam, he determined that my pupils were too large. When fully dilated, like for night vision, my pupils were larger in diameter than the area of the eye the laser machine was able to cover. This machine is built that way.
My doctor was surprised, saying I was the only person he ever met like this, but that maybe as I passed 40 years old later in my life I might be able to have it done since the pupils shrink slightly with age.
He told me in no uncertain terms that he would not perform the procedure at this time, and that I should not try to get it done elsewhere, as my condition would cause a 'halo' effect when my pupils were fully dilated such as at night while driving.
My advice to anyone wanting this procedure is to gather as much info about the procedure, the place you are going to have it done, and the people involved. Take your time and be sure. My own research revealed many problems that can occur if this is botched. NLG
I recently purchased a Netgear WGT624 v2 so I could have wi-fi at home for my laptop. Does anyone know if this FW/Router also suffers from the same problem? I can't find any info so far, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that ALL Netgear products could have similar exploitable backdoors.
Record Exec 1: Hi, there, you guys wanna' be in our commercials and online marketing promotions?
Band: F*%@-off you evil filth! We are totally anti-big corporation.
Exec 1: Well, we will just see about that. (motions to hired goons, goons grab the band members and hold them down) The case, Bill.
Exec 2: Yeah, here.(opens briefcase and holds for exec 1)
Band: F*%@ you, pig! Torture us if you want, we will never give in to the establishment!
Exec 1: (Takes stacks of ca$h from briefcase and begins pelting the band with them) Ha! It's only a matter of time til you break!
Exec 2: Think of what you could do with all this money. Buy cool cars and clothes! you could even move out of your parent's basements!
Exec 1: (Still raining down the Benjamins) Give yourself to the dark side...there is no escape!
Band: Okay, oh, God, just stop it. We'll do it.
Obviously, this sort of treatment is in violation of the Geneva convention.
Who cares if they have to change the name? Not me, I use Mandrake.
Thank God they don't have any legal troubles with their....oh, wait..
Inevitable, yes. Imminent, no. Had they done the BoA, it would have been a matter of 3-4 weeks. Seriously, the power that BoA, and more importantly, the people at the top of BoA can wield is astonishing. With SCO's present delay-based strategies, SCO gets to kite the stock and keep riding for many more months. I will grant that perhaps their "MSFT pipe-line advisors" may have been the ones to quash it and not the Boies-boys.
Some crackpot AOLer will sue them for blocking a site he wants to buy crap from. Then the Crap-Merchant will sue them under some Federal law or other. And win or lose, the attention it brings will bring out the politicians(shudder).
Since this only affects AOL members at this point, I say "Hooray for AOL!"
But how long until AOL blocks ALL of the traffic on their network - whether it originates from one of their members or from somewhere else - to these sites?
How will non-AOL members like it when they are blocked? First they will complain to their own ISP, and maybe AOL directly, then their ISP might complain to AOL, loudly, then here come the Feds to start "regulating" the internet. This is going to eventually lead to no good.
We all know that there are a lot of people, in the government and outside of it, that want to see stronger federal regulation of the internet. This will be the excuse they use to pass strict "Patriot Act" style regulation. "Hey, we just want to stop spam, and, uh, viruses too...yeah,
You are mostly right, they need to make noise to pump the stock price again. However, there are some targets which we know they chose not to pursue. Bank of America, for one. Why go after Daimler/Chrysler instead? This is complex, and forgive the tin-foil hat sound of it.
BoA is big. More importntly BoA is VERY influential in the Banking and Investment Banking industry. Think it through. BoA has ties to virtually every financial institution on the planet of somekind and could very easily use its influence to ruin SCO in a heartbeat. A few phone calls from some BoA execs and suddenly SCO's line of credit dries up and loans are called-in. Even better, the Mortgages and auto loans, whatever debts, of SCO execs are called and there are suddenly no other banks anywhere willing to lend them money.
Not only that, but BayStar has all its credit affected also, as well as its execs. Sure all these SCO-scum and BayStar-bitches are probably rich enough to handle it, but it is going to hurt and hurt bad. Most Americans, even Donald Trump, are so heavily "leveraged" that if something like this were to occur it would destroy them. It would most certainly destroy SCO, et al.
SCO's lawyers probably realized this at the last minute and convinced Darl that BoA and any other super-sized Bank was capable of playing hardball at a level SCO can't survive. Otherwise, why change targets instead of just tactics? SCO could have just amended that letter to BoA to sue them just like Daim\Chrysler instead of trying to get the court to seize, effectively, all their computers. Answer: SCO isn't suing BoA because they are scared of what BoA could do to them. If not, why announce the Fed-suit instead of going back after BoA? A company that everyone now knows(thanks to MS-Word fun) was an initial target. Answer: Not even the Feds scare them as bad, as this headline proves.
Now make a list of alternative methods(email, pager, whatever) and the response times you will have for problems - don't forget to detail after-hours and weekends to show clearly what will happen.
Our Tech manager did this and he also suggested using BlackBerry devices. The upper management bought a large number of them for select employees to use and that was fine for us.
Side story...One previous employer actually wanted me to buy a cell phone for work. I flatly refused, stating that the company should provide whatever tools/items I need to do my job. After being threatened with termination, I got one and started submitting my cell phone bills each month on the expense reports. After paying for it without realizing it for over one year, I got chewed out by one of the accounting staff. I wasn't hiding it, it said "Cell Phone" and a full copy of my bill was stapled to each one, and it was signed-off by my manager(always read before you sign :) ) I sent my boss an email detailing the business uses of my cell phone and the response times to problems along with how long it would have been without one. I included examples from the past year and said that if the company doesn't care to reimburse me then service will not be as good. I BCC'ed his boss and his boss's boss as well as the head of accounting.
My manager wasn't mad, but not only did they decide to get me a phone, they got one for him and a bunch of other people also -some business contract for a large lot of phones knocked the per-phone cost down, or so said the accounting dorks.
I haven't seen much TurboLinux here in the USA for about 3 years now. I still have an old ISO CD of it around, but it was klunky(3 years is a long time ago in Linux-years).
This was a bit confusing to me that HP would start pushing different distros in different parts of the world. Must be a marketing thing? They have a deal with Mandrake, and are increasing the push on it here in the USA and abroad. Now they also are offering TurboLinux, and I think you can get servers from them with Red Hat as well.
Makes me wonder just what their overall Linux strategy is...maybe to just "spray-n-pray",ie; blasting the market with as many solutions as possible hoping to hit with something.
I just hope this doesn't signal a move away from Mandrake. They have a great distro that continues to be at the forefront of features and UI/GUI develoopment for the desktop.
It could just be a response to Novell/SuSe. Talk about potential, they could have a bunch of server and client Linux solutions rolling soon that could really grab some market share. That is, if Novell doesn't fsck it up somehow or fail to put enough $ and time into it for it to develop.
The Space Merchants by Frederick Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth
also the sequel The Merchant's War by Frederick Pohl
Reading these will make you want to strangle an advertising executive.
I just got done oredering a Centrino based notebook from IBM that I plan run Mandrake 10.x on when I get it.
And lo, Kirk said unto Him...
"Excuse me, what does God need with a StarShip?"
Jake: Hit it!
Elwood: I bet these cops got SCMODS.
Jake: SCMODS?
Elwood: State County Municipal Offender Data System.
My previous boss loved meetings because she never wanted to have to do any real work. A meeting was a place for her to gossip, chat, eat and waste other people's time. Anyone she didn't like would get chewed out or have crappy assignments piled-on during meetings. :)
It is my belief that most meetings really are time-wasters, existing only to reinforce the self-importance of those in charge.
When my boss was told to start rotating the chair for the Employee-of-the-Month selection committee between us supervisors, I ran them with an iron fist when it was my turn. Since I was also expected to complete all of my usual duties as well(salaried means no overtime), I interrupted anyone who got off-topic and brought them back to what we were doing. I may not have made friends that way, but I cut 3 two-hour donut-fests a month down to two separate 30 minute meetings per month.
When her boss found out from another department head who sat in on the meetings how I had taken charge, he decided he liked my methods and promoted me to another department. He apparently also told my now old boss to cut out all non-essential meetings and keep any meeting she had down to a half hour. Was she PISSED.
A friend and I were in Best Buy today and I gave the new AMD64 equipped emachines laptop the once over. Very nice, I nearly drooled. It was tagged at $1599, with some rebates knocking off 150 or 200(don't recall which). Seemed nice. But... comes with WinXP Home(if I have to have Win, let it be Pro). When some non-beta 64bit OS's are out I can see getting one of these to play with...also, the battery life on these things is only about 1 hour 20 minutes. Jeez, I can't even watch a dvd with that!...not that I would set it on my lap. When I first walked up to it I lifted the front up a bit and slid my hand along the bottom(get your mind out of the gutter!). It was very hot to the left of center. Much hotter than an idle laptop should ever be. AMD really needs to work on the power consumption and heat issues before I will shell out a grand plus for this tech, especially with no final stable 64bit OS here yet. Yeah, don't bother telling me "XYZ Linux distro is 64 ready.", 'cuz it ain't. Wait til June/July. That is about when some decent stable OS's should be available.
*cough* HP *cough*
Hey, they already have a deal with Mandrake for putting the distro on laptops in Asia as well as you can get a Mandrake CD set with some of their lower-cost pc offerings. They are still shilling RH-EL for the servers, but a deal with Mandrake could replace that with MDK Corp Server.
As someone who has been there since 8.1, I love the distro and see its potential. Come on HP, go for it!