The siege mentality was alive and well when I was there working on Windows 2000 (at least during the last year). Although, that was the high water mark for their stock so it may be dead at this point. I'm sure no one who's started in the last 4 years has had the illusion of getting rich off their stock options, which I believe is how it's possible to get people to work under siege conditions.
This is completely off topic but I've got to say something. Your statement that you're a Christian has no meaning. Drop the religion if you're going to discard most of it as something not to be followed or believed. I can call myself a Nazi and say that I get in a huff when other so-called Nazis talk about the master race. I'm a Jew loving Nazi. The title has no meaning in that sense other than to give myself the negative association with Nazis. Just as your association with Christians gives you a negative connotation with the scientific community. Just something to think about...
There are things that can be done. Corporations bend to the will of the market. If people stop buying a company's products becuase of their tactics, they'll change. At this point I don't see a subscription to some big telcom being compulsory, thus we can still change things with product choice alone. The only requirement for change is that the mass market cause it. Now all we have to do is figure out how to get the majority of Americans to be more intelligent consumers...
If you didn't have to show an ID or a passport to your employer, I'm suprised. Every time I've started a new job I needed to show one of those pieces of identification for the I-9 form. It takes real effort to live without an ID and generaly requires you to break the law (illegal labor). The only people I can think of who live completely wihtout one are either under 18 or illegals.
everyone I know can't live without an ID. All of the IDs are machine readable (magnetic strip) and data is shared between states about the license. Seems like this is just putting what's already in place into more formalized terms. I know that's not the popular opinion here. It would be nice to have a standard ID system that incorporated some modern methods of authentication and verification. At that point we could say goodbye to most identity theft. "Oh wait, that would be too scary! The government could track what I did and stuff!" Let me clue you into something. They already can. Why not put a decent system into place that verifies identification better than just obscuring some 9 digit number from other parties (yet giving it out to everyone that asks).
That's why these types of systems should implement strong security. Just use the three different methods for each transaction:
1. something you know: passphrase
2. something you are: biometric
3. something you have: smartcard
Currently, credit cards really only use the last one. Signature used to work as the second, but nobody really checks signatures and even if they did the ability to catch fraud is low.
This is getting OT but I couldn't help but say something. I'm a software developer and I don't think it's paticularly hard. But to get a level of fault tolerance and up time like you're talking about takes a large investment (time, money, people, etc.). Now if you're dealing with systems that have lives at stake it's worth the investment, but all the programmers I know work on business applications which don't have such strict requirements for uptime as five nines (99.999%). While all managers would like you to believe that they want five nines and all systems their team deploys have that kind of reliability, most of them have no comprehension of what kind of investment it takes to get there. Most developers (like myself) live by the tyranny of OR: applications can be good (quality), fast (quick to market), and/or cheap (to develop). With most projects you get to pick two and leave the third on the cutting room floor. I find that quality is most often the one sacrificed.
The true joy of kareaoke is watching a drunken fool sing completely off key while stumbling around on the stage. Or being that drunken fool and listening to fun ribbing from other drunken friends...
I may be asking to get flamed into oblivion here but...
Visual Basic.NET is actually quite good. It has all the features of a modern object oriented language and is every bit as powerful as C# or Java. Now I will say that most everything good about it is ripped directly from Java. However, for programs written for Windows with a lot of UI, I'll take VB.NET over Java any day of the week and twice on Sunday. The first time I wrote a Java UI my brain almost hemorrhaged.;)
Just playing devil's advocate...
Neo could still be a program using that phrase. What if "human" is just another type of program? What if the machines killed off all the humans and they produced a program to remind themselves of their creators? Thus all the people in the Matrix and the meta-matrix (Zion) are really just programs like Smith, vampires, werewolves, the Merovingian, and everyone else...
As a side note, I think that the Merovingian might be the original Neo which would make Persephone the original Trinity. This would explain her desire to be kissed by Neo.
Ok then, how about this along the lines of using "our spectrum". I say that the networks have been doing a piss poor job of serving the public interest. I think the only interests they're serving are their own. The so called required public service messages commonly come on in the middle of the night when advertising dollars are scarce. I say we reclaim our spectrum from them and redistribute it in a fashion that will be of much greater use (as this/. thread suggests).
Since when is it an inalienable right to watch television?
Besides, the networks don't broadcast to benefit the poor. You pay for "free" television by sitting through the ads, and the ads are there to get people with money to buy products.
I don't watch tv (broadcast, cable, or satellite) and I'd like to see that airspace put to good use. Anything would be better than this god awful spoonfed shite that appears on all the networks right now.
Here are some just off the top of my head
Stranger in a Strange Land
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (book Bladerunner was based off of) by Philip K. Dick
Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
Brave New World by Aldus Huxley
1984 by George Orwell
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
All of those except for possibly Beggars in Spain should be required reading for any sci-fi/geek book lover.
If you're willing to look beyond the geek areas my highest recommended book would be On The Road by Jack Keroac. I've read it 5 times and I'm sure I'll read it at least as many more.
Re:Lame Canadian radio is based mostly on gov't re
on
Time to Face the Music
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
US Radio sucks ass as well. Clear Channel controls a huge percentage of the radio market and they play the same so called music ad-nauseum. I say let the recording industries die! Put the power back into the hands of the musicians. People will continue to make music whether or not they get paid millions to do so. If the recording industry gets out of the way, we may be able to sling all this over hyped corporate shit into the can. Avril, Shania, and Celine are exactly who I'm talking about here. If I have to hear any more of their stuff I'm going to jam pencils into my ears until I'm deaf.
I couldn't agree more. If I had mod points you'd get them. I was contracting at MS in 98 and 99. Everything listed in the article was standard practice at that time except for the forced termination of contracts. They introduced that policy near the end of '99 to take effect within the first 6 months of 2000. I decided right there to jump ship as soon as the product I was working on went gold...
Slashdot Mirror
The siege mentality was alive and well when I was there working on Windows 2000 (at least during the last year). Although, that was the high water mark for their stock so it may be dead at this point. I'm sure no one who's started in the last 4 years has had the illusion of getting rich off their stock options, which I believe is how it's possible to get people to work under siege conditions.
This is completely off topic but I've got to say something. Your statement that you're a Christian has no meaning. Drop the religion if you're going to discard most of it as something not to be followed or believed. I can call myself a Nazi and say that I get in a huff when other so-called Nazis talk about the master race. I'm a Jew loving Nazi. The title has no meaning in that sense other than to give myself the negative association with Nazis. Just as your association with Christians gives you a negative connotation with the scientific community. Just something to think about...
There are things that can be done. Corporations bend to the will of the market. If people stop buying a company's products becuase of their tactics, they'll change. At this point I don't see a subscription to some big telcom being compulsory, thus we can still change things with product choice alone. The only requirement for change is that the mass market cause it. Now all we have to do is figure out how to get the majority of Americans to be more intelligent consumers...
If you didn't have to show an ID or a passport to your employer, I'm suprised. Every time I've started a new job I needed to show one of those pieces of identification for the I-9 form. It takes real effort to live without an ID and generaly requires you to break the law (illegal labor). The only people I can think of who live completely wihtout one are either under 18 or illegals.
everyone I know can't live without an ID. All of the IDs are machine readable (magnetic strip) and data is shared between states about the license. Seems like this is just putting what's already in place into more formalized terms. I know that's not the popular opinion here. It would be nice to have a standard ID system that incorporated some modern methods of authentication and verification. At that point we could say goodbye to most identity theft. "Oh wait, that would be too scary! The government could track what I did and stuff!" Let me clue you into something. They already can. Why not put a decent system into place that verifies identification better than just obscuring some 9 digit number from other parties (yet giving it out to everyone that asks).
That's why these types of systems should implement strong security. Just use the three different methods for each transaction:
1. something you know: passphrase
2. something you are: biometric
3. something you have: smartcard
Currently, credit cards really only use the last one. Signature used to work as the second, but nobody really checks signatures and even if they did the ability to catch fraud is low.
This is getting OT but I couldn't help but say something. I'm a software developer and I don't think it's paticularly hard. But to get a level of fault tolerance and up time like you're talking about takes a large investment (time, money, people, etc.). Now if you're dealing with systems that have lives at stake it's worth the investment, but all the programmers I know work on business applications which don't have such strict requirements for uptime as five nines (99.999%). While all managers would like you to believe that they want five nines and all systems their team deploys have that kind of reliability, most of them have no comprehension of what kind of investment it takes to get there. Most developers (like myself) live by the tyranny of OR: applications can be good (quality), fast (quick to market), and/or cheap (to develop). With most projects you get to pick two and leave the third on the cutting room floor. I find that quality is most often the one sacrificed.
The true joy of kareaoke is watching a drunken fool sing completely off key while stumbling around on the stage. Or being that drunken fool and listening to fun ribbing from other drunken friends...
"Because it's cool" - Battle of the Planets, Invader ZIM
I may be asking to get flamed into oblivion here but... .NET is actually quite good. It has all the features of a modern object oriented language and is every bit as powerful as C# or Java. Now I will say that most everything good about it is ripped directly from Java. However, for programs written for Windows with a lot of UI, I'll take VB.NET over Java any day of the week and twice on Sunday. The first time I wrote a Java UI my brain almost hemorrhaged. ;)
Visual Basic
Just playing devil's advocate...
Neo could still be a program using that phrase. What if "human" is just another type of program? What if the machines killed off all the humans and they produced a program to remind themselves of their creators? Thus all the people in the Matrix and the meta-matrix (Zion) are really just programs like Smith, vampires, werewolves, the Merovingian, and everyone else...
As a side note, I think that the Merovingian might be the original Neo which would make Persephone the original Trinity. This would explain her desire to be kissed by Neo.
Ok then, how about this along the lines of using "our spectrum". I say that the networks have been doing a piss poor job of serving the public interest. I think the only interests they're serving are their own. The so called required public service messages commonly come on in the middle of the night when advertising dollars are scarce. I say we reclaim our spectrum from them and redistribute it in a fashion that will be of much greater use (as this /. thread suggests).
Since when is it an inalienable right to watch television?
Besides, the networks don't broadcast to benefit the poor. You pay for "free" television by sitting through the ads, and the ads are there to get people with money to buy products.
I don't watch tv (broadcast, cable, or satellite) and I'd like to see that airspace put to good use. Anything would be better than this god awful spoonfed shite that appears on all the networks right now.
Here are some just off the top of my head
Stranger in a Strange Land
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (book Bladerunner was based off of) by Philip K. Dick
Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
Brave New World by Aldus Huxley
1984 by George Orwell
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
All of those except for possibly Beggars in Spain should be required reading for any sci-fi/geek book lover.
If you're willing to look beyond the geek areas my highest recommended book would be On The Road by Jack Keroac. I've read it 5 times and I'm sure I'll read it at least as many more.
US Radio sucks ass as well. Clear Channel controls a huge percentage of the radio market and they play the same so called music ad-nauseum. I say let the recording industries die! Put the power back into the hands of the musicians. People will continue to make music whether or not they get paid millions to do so. If the recording industry gets out of the way, we may be able to sling all this over hyped corporate shit into the can. Avril, Shania, and Celine are exactly who I'm talking about here. If I have to hear any more of their stuff I'm going to jam pencils into my ears until I'm deaf.
I couldn't agree more. If I had mod points you'd get them. I was contracting at MS in 98 and 99. Everything listed in the article was standard practice at that time except for the forced termination of contracts. They introduced that policy near the end of '99 to take effect within the first 6 months of 2000. I decided right there to jump ship as soon as the product I was working on went gold...