https://www.xkcd.com/893/ - "The Universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space -- each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision."
This reminds me of the Halo Worlds depicted in Charles Stross's Permanence. In the novel, those systems, usually orbiting a brown dwarf, accounted for the missing mass in the universe, so it turned out there was no 'dark matter'.
The halo worlds were also the way for humanity to first venture into interstellar travel.
I have to work with Visual Studio.Net 2003, and to me it's one (maybe the one) worst IDEs I've used, second only to the Oracle Forms/Reports crap. Even for Windows development, Borland C++ Builder is a far superior IDE. For the web, Dreamweaver is still the tool to beat.
On the linux side, the choices are much broader.
Re:Well, if they were really hardcore...
on
Return of the Mac
·
· Score: 1
It's not only about the fun. At least to me, it's somewhat entertaining to choose the parts, but the actual building is just another task.
The real point is about control. Just like with software, there is difference between picking exactly what you want, instead of being spoon fed the crap computer companies put inside the machines.
And the idea of becoming a "mac slave" as one of my friends calls them, is not really attractive at all.
Well, if they were really hardcore...
on
Return of the Mac
·
· Score: 1
They wouldn't buy, they'd build their own. Ready-made boxes are for wimps. Real men (and women)
custom build their machines.
After some very bad experiences with my first two machines, I started to build. I can tell I'm never buying a computer built by someone else, call it a mom-and-pop beige box shop, or a brand name.
And yes, that includes Apple too.
Instead of getting a home theater, sound system, etc. I decided to invest in a high-end sound card and top of the line speakers, making my computer into my DVD player and music player, since most of my music is in there anyway. You can many more things when your computer is your audio player than any of the consumer devices do. The only thing I don't do on this machine is watch TV, and that is because I haven't gotten around to get a TV card.
I don't think we need "Media Center" or "Media Hubs" boxes dedicated to this role.
I used to work as a temp for a company. After some time passed on the project, my boss came with a copy of the so-called "Code of Ethics" which was destined for the full time regular employees, as it started with the words: "you, as an employee-ower..." etc.
When i reviewed the thing, i saw it included a section giving the company full rights and ownership of anything i discovered, invented, or made, even if it wasn't created in company systems, time, or facilities. Basically, it said they owned me for the time of my employment, but since i was a temp, they had absolutely no obligation towards me.
I refused to sign such a document. They kept saying I had to, but I never did.
I don't know if anyone has already suggested this, but I think this guy should get back at DirectTV by releasing the design on the Net, or since he'll be in jail, having someone do this for him.
You forgot to mention the fake files which currently inundate Kazaa. But those file are tipically there for popular or recent releases, like cheesy Pop songs and the like.
I've always used Kazaa only to look for more mainstream content, to find more rare stuff, i've had to go somewhere else, like eDonkey2000 (using eMule) and Gnutella (using Gnucleus).
I've never tried WinMX, but i'm intrigued. Does it have ads? or reported spyware?
Just keep using Kazaa Lite, that is, until they find a way to disable access for non-authorized versions, and we all end up with "only" eMule and the other networks, which will probably include a modified version of WASTE in the near future.
I've experience something similar to this while working for an oil company. The setup was kind of complicated: first, the oil company (1. PDVSA) gets offered a project by their IT service company (2. Intesa). Since this company, in turn, doesn't have enough employees to do that project, they hire a few temps, which is done using a third company (3), similar to an agency. While the temp has to answer to a supervisor from company 2, in paper, he's a contractor for the third company, so when they dispose of him for whatever reason (including, but not limited to, the successfull completion of the project), 1 and 2 can come up with clean hands.
Since non-competes are illegal in Venezuela, they resorted to a kind of informal scam. The agencies and company #2 agreed (verbally) not to hire anyone from another agency until 45 days had passed. This was of course illegal as well, but since it wasn't written anywhere, nobody could sue. Both #2 and #3 take a slice of the payments made by #1 to me, and in return i get nothing at all.
I've never had a full time steady job, and i think some of the blame belongs to the 'system' I just described.
Re:SAIC is Employee-Owned - Employee-Ownership Roc
on
Inside SAIC
·
· Score: 0, Troll
How many times I have to say it? There is absolutely no way to control a production installation from a desktop computer anywhere within the PDVSA network. Perhaps the wireless card were used to access a mail o file server, but to open valves and "cause" spillages, you have to actually be there on the spot. The crap about remote access is just an excuse for the incompetence of the traitors who are helping the Chavez government send more free oil to Cuba.
About the firing of the workers, I seem to recall there is something called the right to go on strike. And even if you could through some weird, alternate universe logic (similar of that used by the Chavez government), justify the firing of those employees, the fact is after more than 4 months, not a sigle fired worker has received his severance payments, which are mandatory by law in Venezuela. This is again, the fault of the Chavez so-called administration.
One final point: when talking about gas, you don't say "spillage", but "leak" instead. I think this reflects you lack of experience on the subject.
Re:SAIC is Employee-Owned - Employee-Ownership Roc
on
Inside SAIC
·
· Score: 1
It's no surprise you wrote as an Anonymous Coward, but you may as well wrote as Totally Uninformed Coward.
I used to work for PDVSA, and I can assure you there is now way to manipulate the production facilities by any other way than actually being there, at the control consoles.
The remote capabilities are for monitoring only, and unless you're a hopeless control freak, you can continue to work without them.
As for the 'wireless network card' used for the sabotage, they simply don't exist outside offices. My guess you got you information from the highly unreliable sources close to the goverment, such as a really idiotic woman who said to the ever greater idiot we have for a president (Hugo Chavez) that each valve had an IP Address and by using satellite signals, those valves could be manipulated.
Any person with even a basic understanding of oil technologies knows that the said capabilities are at this point, if not impossible, impractical, and they certaily don't exist anywhere in the world.
Those reasons were given as an excuse for the disasters cuased by the morons the goverment brought in to replace the legitimate oil workers.
How can an mechanical engineer with no experience possibly replace a guy with 20 year experience in a particualr facility?
The answer: they can't. And all the accidents happening at the different production sites prove that.
My university signed this thing with microsoft called 'Campus Agreement'. Basically it means they get MS software really cheap, almost free for the students, but tha catch is that this "Agreement" is exclusive. They're not allowed to work other similar liceses.
This results classes about VB programming, where there used to be C++ and Pascal courses.
This happened after I graduated, so I did enyoy learning a lot of different languages, but now, that's a thing of the past, thanks (again) to MS (or should I say M$?)
As for my favorite language, C/C++, they could be using one of Borland's tools (C++ Builder, Kylix), but as a product of the agreement, they're stuck with the very inferior Visual C++.
I totally agree with you.
I live in a country with many cell phones (close to 46% of the population has one or more), and I have felt some pressure to get one.
Since I find the telephone in general annoying, I found this concept of portable annoyance much more irritating. Thus so far I've resisted to buy one.
Slashdot Mirror
So, basically an anti-hipster device? I want one.
Just took a whole new meaning.
Galaxy S2 w/ ICS 4.0.3 here. It doesn't work on my phone.
https://www.xkcd.com/893/ - "The Universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space -- each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision."
This reminds me of the Halo Worlds depicted in Charles Stross's Permanence. In the novel, those systems, usually orbiting a brown dwarf, accounted for the missing mass in the universe, so it turned out there was no 'dark matter'. The halo worlds were also the way for humanity to first venture into interstellar travel.
I have to work with Visual Studio .Net 2003, and to me it's one (maybe the one) worst IDEs I've used, second only to the Oracle Forms/Reports crap. Even for Windows development, Borland C++ Builder is a far superior IDE. For the web, Dreamweaver is still the tool to beat.
On the linux side, the choices are much broader.
It's not only about the fun. At least to me, it's somewhat entertaining to choose the parts, but the actual building is just another task. The real point is about control. Just like with software, there is difference between picking exactly what you want, instead of being spoon fed the crap computer companies put inside the machines. And the idea of becoming a "mac slave" as one of my friends calls them, is not really attractive at all.
They wouldn't buy, they'd build their own. Ready-made boxes are for wimps. Real men (and women) custom build their machines. After some very bad experiences with my first two machines, I started to build. I can tell I'm never buying a computer built by someone else, call it a mom-and-pop beige box shop, or a brand name. And yes, that includes Apple too.
Instead of getting a home theater, sound system, etc. I decided to invest in a high-end sound card and top of the line speakers, making my computer into my DVD player and music player, since most of my music is in there anyway. You can many more things when your computer is your audio player than any of the consumer devices do.
The only thing I don't do on this machine is watch TV, and that is because I haven't gotten around to get a TV card.
I don't think we need "Media Center" or "Media Hubs" boxes dedicated to this role.
In America, listeners used to pick hits. In Soviet Russia, hitters pick on you.
I used to work as a temp for a company. After some time passed on the project, my boss came with a copy of the so-called "Code of Ethics" which was destined for the full time regular employees, as it started with the words: "you, as an employee-ower..." etc.
When i reviewed the thing, i saw it included a section giving the company full rights and ownership of anything i discovered, invented, or made, even if it wasn't created in company systems, time, or facilities. Basically, it said they owned me for the time of my employment, but since i was a temp, they had absolutely no obligation towards me.
I refused to sign such a document. They kept saying I had to, but I never did.
I don't know if anyone has already suggested this, but I think this guy should get back at DirectTV by releasing the design on the Net, or since he'll be in jail, having someone do this for him.
That would probably hit DirecTV very hard.
You forgot to mention the fake files which currently inundate Kazaa. But those file are tipically there for popular or recent releases, like cheesy Pop songs and the like. I've always used Kazaa only to look for more mainstream content, to find more rare stuff, i've had to go somewhere else, like eDonkey2000 (using eMule) and Gnutella (using Gnucleus).
I've never tried WinMX, but i'm intrigued. Does it have ads? or reported spyware?
Just keep using Kazaa Lite, that is, until they find a way to disable access for non-authorized versions, and we all end up with "only" eMule and the other networks, which will probably include a modified version of WASTE in the near future.
I've experience something similar to this while working for an oil company. The setup was kind of complicated: first, the oil company (1. PDVSA) gets offered a project by their IT service company (2. Intesa). Since this company, in turn, doesn't have enough employees to do that project, they hire a few temps, which is done using a third company (3), similar to an agency. While the temp has to answer to a supervisor from company 2, in paper, he's a contractor for the third company, so when they dispose of him for whatever reason (including, but not limited to, the successfull completion of the project), 1 and 2 can come up with clean hands.
Since non-competes are illegal in Venezuela, they resorted to a kind of informal scam. The agencies and company #2 agreed (verbally) not to hire anyone from another agency until 45 days had passed. This was of course illegal as well, but since it wasn't written anywhere, nobody could sue. Both #2 and #3 take a slice of the payments made by #1 to me, and in return i get nothing at all.
I've never had a full time steady job, and i think some of the blame belongs to the 'system' I just described.
How many times I have to say it? There is absolutely no way to control a production installation from a desktop computer anywhere within the PDVSA network. Perhaps the wireless card were used to access a mail o file server, but to open valves and "cause" spillages, you have to actually be there on the spot. The crap about remote access is just an excuse for the incompetence of the traitors who are helping the Chavez government send more free oil to Cuba. About the firing of the workers, I seem to recall there is something called the right to go on strike. And even if you could through some weird, alternate universe logic (similar of that used by the Chavez government), justify the firing of those employees, the fact is after more than 4 months, not a sigle fired worker has received his severance payments, which are mandatory by law in Venezuela. This is again, the fault of the Chavez so-called administration. One final point: when talking about gas, you don't say "spillage", but "leak" instead. I think this reflects you lack of experience on the subject.
It's no surprise you wrote as an Anonymous Coward, but you may as well wrote as Totally Uninformed Coward. I used to work for PDVSA, and I can assure you there is now way to manipulate the production facilities by any other way than actually being there, at the control consoles. The remote capabilities are for monitoring only, and unless you're a hopeless control freak, you can continue to work without them. As for the 'wireless network card' used for the sabotage, they simply don't exist outside offices. My guess you got you information from the highly unreliable sources close to the goverment, such as a really idiotic woman who said to the ever greater idiot we have for a president (Hugo Chavez) that each valve had an IP Address and by using satellite signals, those valves could be manipulated. Any person with even a basic understanding of oil technologies knows that the said capabilities are at this point, if not impossible, impractical, and they certaily don't exist anywhere in the world. Those reasons were given as an excuse for the disasters cuased by the morons the goverment brought in to replace the legitimate oil workers. How can an mechanical engineer with no experience possibly replace a guy with 20 year experience in a particualr facility? The answer: they can't. And all the accidents happening at the different production sites prove that.
My university signed this thing with microsoft called 'Campus Agreement'. Basically it means they get MS software really cheap, almost free for the students, but tha catch is that this "Agreement" is exclusive. They're not allowed to work other similar liceses. This results classes about VB programming, where there used to be C++ and Pascal courses. This happened after I graduated, so I did enyoy learning a lot of different languages, but now, that's a thing of the past, thanks (again) to MS (or should I say M$?) As for my favorite language, C/C++, they could be using one of Borland's tools (C++ Builder, Kylix), but as a product of the agreement, they're stuck with the very inferior Visual C++.
I totally agree with you. I live in a country with many cell phones (close to 46% of the population has one or more), and I have felt some pressure to get one. Since I find the telephone in general annoying, I found this concept of portable annoyance much more irritating. Thus so far I've resisted to buy one.