Okay those may not be technology as such, but for some reason those commercials just made me want to beat my TV set into a smoking pile of wires with a baseball bat.
I wish we could take this tact with the human population. I say, take the warning labels off of everything and let the chips fall where they may.
I'll second that. In fact if someone pulls a pop machine over on themselves because they were tryng to climb up on it or rip it off, they should not only not get any money but if they're still alive the first person to find them should be required to jump up and down on the pop machine until they stop moving. Then pay the person who finished them off for doing a public service.
Okay, maybe that's a little extreme, but we've gone way too far in structuring the system in favor of the morons. And then act surprsied as the population gets dumber and dumber.
And every invasion of privacy is attached to a good cause. It saves lifes, it makes cars safer, parents know what their kids are doing, it helps 911 find you faster. At Kroger your little card gets you a discount, product activation helps prevent piracy and keeps the prices down for the honest users...although I haven't seen prices actually come down and don't shop at Kroger.
I think everyone that collects information starts out with the best intentions. But, sooner or later, any information resource that can be abused will be. So the more persistent information becomes the greater the abuses that will occur. I think there has to be a reaction at some point. Can't help thinking people will wake up one day and it will hit them how invasive information gathering has become and push back. Then I go to some public place and look around and realize...these people are fucking idiots.
I always wondered about that, too. Why do we always think in terms of a round trip to Mars? Seems like without the mass of fuel and consumables a round trip would require it would be possible to send along enough equipment for Mars explorers to construct some type of under ground habitat to last the rest of their life.
Radiation is the big problem getting there and staying there, and staying warm. I would assume underground would be the only realistic option. Be interesting to look at the mass comparisons. One way fuel and 50 years worth of consumables v a round trip.
Okay, let's review. I have to shield my EZ-Pass and pretty soon my credit cards to keep from being tracked with those, install a fm tuner field dampener to keep people from checking which radio station I listen to in the car, carry around an RFID chip jammer to keep the chips in my clothes from ratting me out, turn my cell phone off so people can't track me with that. Pull the plug on my OnStar so the fibbies can't use that to listen in on my car conversations. And now have to have a Bluetooth jammer to keep my refrigerator from spying on me. And I'm probably leaving out some things.
I miss the good 'ol days of being paranoid, when all a fellow needed was a tin foil hat and a good conspiracy theory and you were good to go.
With all this electronic noise how am I supposed to hear instructions from the mothership?
...the Martian Ambassador today announced their intent to "bust a cap in somebody's ass" if the "Earth folk" dropped another lander on them. The ambassador went on to claim the latest attempt to land a scientific instrument package on the Red Planet actually hit his personal vehicle.
"Look what dey did to my damn car!" the ambassador, disguised as a homeless psychotic person in downtown Memphis, TN, insisted. "I'll kick their ass. Dropin' landers and shit all over. Look at that mess!"
The ambassador refused further questions regarding a possible response from Mars, saying only that somebody owed him "a new damn car."
And how many batteries? Wind turbines are also an option if it's located somewhere breezy. But even a small scale wind or solar unit is going to be expensive and will take a looong time to charge a laptop battery.
If this is a cabin, you're probably only going to be there on the occasional weekend. In which case get yourself a laptop and a gasoline generator. You can probably get by with one of the dinky little Honda EU1000's. Whisper quiet, stingy on gas and should run your laptop, charge your cell phone battery, a couple lights, maybe a portable TV and small frig (maybe not all at the same time). It won't run a full size frig or electric heater, but it's easy to carry. Around 800 dollars. If you need more power, a Generac 4,000 watt is quiet, produces clean power and should run most of the weekend on 5-8 gallons of gas (depending on usage). Lot cheaper than Honda's for the same amount of power and that will run a full size refrigerator, heater, TV, satellite receiver, whatever you want. Home Despot, around $750.00. It weighs about 150 lbs (on wheels), so you'll need a pickup or small trailer to haul it back and forth.
With any generator you have to look at the sustained wattage and surge wattage. Honda tends to advertise their surge wattage, which a generator can't maintain very long.
If you ever decide to live up there permanently, you'll want to look at either a big solar or combo solar/wind system. Figure on 15 to 20 thousand depending on the wattage you need. If you have a stream or spring, you're golden. Hydro electric is the cheapest and best, until the creek runs dry.
Now the Chinese will be able to hack into our systems with blazing speed. Oh, wait, what am I thinking? We're already sending databases full of personal and financial data about US citizens over there for them to manage for us. They don't need to go anywhere to hack our data, we're shipping it to them!
Maybe instead of diplomatic missions we're going to start settling trade disputes in a Quake arena.
And just what's our motivation to give them feedback that will be used more by marketing than engineering? Unless they're completely stupid...and we could argue about that all day...they already know the strengths and weaknesses of their product relative to Linux and other OSS products. They know why people pick one over the other and know, or at least suspect, it's not all about price.
People are tired of being treated like criminals with access to a bottomless ATM machine. It doesn't take a survey to figure that out. Take your survey and stick it up your ass, Gates. Assholes.
Gone are the days you could count on being able to find another tech job. If you're smart you have a non-tech emergency backup job that you work part-time now.
Although the tech people I know that have been on the bench a while do eventually seem to fall into another tech job. But it's different. Contract work instead of perm and there's a lot more bench time between jobs.
Bank cash and keep your bills down when you're working. Maybe one of these days we'll have a story on/. about the worlds longest chain of wi-fi connected latte' carts.
EDS stock took a beating mainly because of that one moron...
I was under the impression their stock was taking a beating because they're the worst IT outsourcing company in the history of IT consulting. They had a bad rep before Brown. Based on my personal experience with EDS, I wouldn't hire them to run a network connection to my dog house. Ask anyone in the Navy how well they like NMCI. The US Navy and 250 million taxpayers taking it up the poop deck on that one.
If you've been in the IT industry any length of time then you've been here before. Anyone remember the "death" of mainframe programmers? Companies scooping out large pits out behind the plant to bury their COBOL and FORTRAN coders. It's a good thing they didn't cap those pits because a lot of companies had to dig some of them up. Partly because of Y2K and partly because they were still using those systems 20 years later. Overall we survived the transition to client-server and PC think.
Remember when FrontPage came out? That was around 94-96 time frame(?), right about the same time every night school on the planet was offering "webmaster" *snicker* certification. Everybody and their dog was calling themselves a web developer. But it never nicked the market for people who could produce really professional looking high-end sites. Then came the marraige of web sites with a database back end and db skills separated the webmaster employed from the rest of the pack.
If you've been in IT a long time you're used to being a techno-chameleon. There will always be new things coming along that will open up new markets. And even if it doesn't, even if I finally transition out of IT into a different kind of business, look at the technical advantage I have. I can build my own web sites, know how to market and promote them, write my own db's, program my own applications, or tweak OSS apps to do something specific for me, run my own network. It puts me miles ahead of my peers in any other line of business.
20 years in IT and analysts keep coming up with the same crap, like some karmic manure spreader. Just keep your head on a swivel, bank cash when times are good, and don't get boxed in thinking the only way to make a living is working for someone else.
Is there a product that allows you encrypt a file...any file...so all the receiver needs is a key, like a password, to recover the original file? One that doesn't require the user to have a specific client utility?
My first thought was adding a password to a zip file, but that would require WinZip or similar file utility. Adding a password to the directory is easy enough but then your web host would have access to the originals. And, yes, I'm thinking about files I could leave on a web server as opposed to Email.
That would be really handy to have, especially if it was OS independent. Would make encrypting files a lot easier. It doesn't have to be bullet-proof, just stout enough to make decrypting it withouth the key a major pain in the behind.
Been there? I lived there, home boy. Went to school at UT Arlington. Spent time in Houston, Dallas, drank beer and threw peanut shells on the bar floor in Ft. Worth, partied at the West End, went to Trader's Village on the weekends, and one of my girlfriends worked at...what the hell was that place...I want to say Doll House, but that doesn't sound right. Even spent time in such hot spots as Keene, Cleburne, and Waco. Been drift fishing in Corpus Christi, got food poisoning in Brownsville...more than once...and watched Space Services, Inc. blow up a rocket on Padre Island a long time ago. Been to four corners and even El Paso. Used to hang out at WBAP, they still in business? And listen to KRLD, all news all the time.
Don't lecture me, rookie, I know exactly what I'm talking about. The intelligence level and cultural diversity takes a massive step up when you cross the Austin city line, except every other year when the legislature is in town. Did they ever pass a per diem raise for them or are they still getting by on $35.00 a day?
But it's not that earth shaking. Some of my customers are running evaluations on OO and so far the responses are very positive. They're not in a big hurry to update, they just didn't see much value in the latest Office release and are looking at alternatives.
I guess I see a lot of experimentation going on and it's not really a surprise to see a gov agency switching over. It will save them millions. This is only news because it's one of the first. Always thought Austin was a very cool town. Sort of out of place in Texas.
Let me get this straight
on
Smart Billboards
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· Score: 4, Funny
I have to have a foil wallet to keep my EZ-Pass and credit cards from finking on me, an RFID jammer for my clothing tags, turn my cell phone off to keep from being tracked with the 911 locator, the FBI can use my OnStar to listen to conversations in the car and now I have to have a billboard jammer to keep everyone on the planet from knowing what radio station I listen to?
Being paranoid is getting to be more work all the time.
Before someone figures out how to spoof EZ-Pass. Any challenge/response that goes out over the air can be sniffed. How long before some clever person figures out that to make X return signal you need a card coding of Y?
Anything that I have to carry around in a foil lined wallet to keep it from squealing on me or being charged without my knowledge just isn't worth the few seconds of convenience in my book. When we have to employ some wild weasel jammers on our person to keep the RFID tags in our clothes and wallet quiet it's gone too far.
Linux and SCO aren't producing competitive products. Linux isn't really even a product as much as a community.
If I were really cynical I might suspect the timing...just before MS was making a big push to roll out 2003, as the IT industry was coming out of a 2 1/2 year stretch where many companies were not buying much of anything, just as NT is getting near the end of its life cycle. You have to admit that questions arising about Linux IP purity and a potential liability scare right at this particular time was really convenient for MS. Likely just coincidence, but a mighty handy one all the same.
Fortunately it hasn't done much of anything to stall the advance. At this point trying to stop Linux is like trying to stop the wind. The code is out there in so many places in so many flavors, in so many countries that don't give a crap about US copyright law in the first place. The switch is on. SCO is little more than side show entertainment. What my grandfather would've called a fart in a whirlwind.
At my customer's office they have most of the big apps running on a db cluster with a web front end. Other than that the average user needs Word, Outlook, maybe Excel. There are a few users with special needs for reviewing video from the ad agency and doing some high-end graphics work and the developers have some pretty bad ass workstations, but for 85% of their users Win98 is more than enough. They don't want to upgrade. They've got a rack of 1U servers running ASP apps on NT 4 and we have to restart them maybe once every three or four months. Their attitude is the old machines are working fine so why should they switch?
I've seen this before, the Microcrap forced upgrade-o-rama. In the past they grumbled but did it anyway. This time is different for some reason. Instead of just biting the bullet and making the upgrade they started asking if there were any other web servers that didn't have to be upgraded and patched so often that would work on their old hardware. As a matter of fact...
At home I've got one 98ME laptop and one Win2K box left, everything else is Linux. Haven't loaded XPee at home and never plan to.
I remember the early days, we're talking the late ARPNET early Internet periods, right after the last of the dinosaurs died off and humans shrugged off animal skins in favor of really BAD nylon shirts with wide collars. It was a pretty small club (we didn't think of it that way). We knew each other, by posting if not in person. Even CompuServe was pretty much geek central and there were still bbs systems dialing each other late at night when phone rates were cheaper. Then came AOL. Everyone who ever blocked AOL from their primitive web, gopher and ftp servers raise your hand. Okay, old guys, put 'em down you're smelling up the room.
I have to admit, it was nice having somewhere the Great Unwashed didn't have access. Maybe that's a little snobby but when the AOLers rolled in it was abrasive. They were idiots and they were rude, by our standards anyway. By today's standards they were towers of tact and decorum.
Maybe a little geek balkanization wouldn't be such a bad thing. Something to separate the real geeks from the wannabes. Some-whereeeeee o-ver the rain-bow, en-crypt-eeeeed satellite network...
I think the smoke trails on the Cylon missiles are kind of funny, but the visuals would lose a little drama without them. Overall it's really well done. I expected them to improve the visuals, but the improvements to the story lines and characters were a pleasant surprise.
Definitely too many commercials. If the quality sags a micron that will become more of a factor.
Slashdot Mirror
- Tech support in non-English speaking countries.
- Interns in TV commercials
Okay those may not be technology as such, but for some reason those commercials just made me want to beat my TV set into a smoking pile of wires with a baseball bat.
Hey, most places you have to pay extra for that.
I'll second that. In fact if someone pulls a pop machine over on themselves because they were tryng to climb up on it or rip it off, they should not only not get any money but if they're still alive the first person to find them should be required to jump up and down on the pop machine until they stop moving. Then pay the person who finished them off for doing a public service.
Okay, maybe that's a little extreme, but we've gone way too far in structuring the system in favor of the morons. And then act surprsied as the population gets dumber and dumber.
I think everyone that collects information starts out with the best intentions. But, sooner or later, any information resource that can be abused will be. So the more persistent information becomes the greater the abuses that will occur. I think there has to be a reaction at some point. Can't help thinking people will wake up one day and it will hit them how invasive information gathering has become and push back. Then I go to some public place and look around and realize...these people are fucking idiots.
Radiation is the big problem getting there and staying there, and staying warm. I would assume underground would be the only realistic option. Be interesting to look at the mass comparisons. One way fuel and 50 years worth of consumables v a round trip.
I miss the good 'ol days of being paranoid, when all a fellow needed was a tin foil hat and a good conspiracy theory and you were good to go.
With all this electronic noise how am I supposed to hear instructions from the mothership?
"Look what dey did to my damn car!" the ambassador, disguised as a homeless psychotic person in downtown Memphis, TN, insisted. "I'll kick their ass. Dropin' landers and shit all over. Look at that mess!"
The ambassador refused further questions regarding a possible response from Mars, saying only that somebody owed him "a new damn car."
Nobody got me what I really wanted: An Airzooka. SHHUMP!
If this is a cabin, you're probably only going to be there on the occasional weekend. In which case get yourself a laptop and a gasoline generator. You can probably get by with one of the dinky little Honda EU1000's. Whisper quiet, stingy on gas and should run your laptop, charge your cell phone battery, a couple lights, maybe a portable TV and small frig (maybe not all at the same time). It won't run a full size frig or electric heater, but it's easy to carry. Around 800 dollars. If you need more power, a Generac 4,000 watt is quiet, produces clean power and should run most of the weekend on 5-8 gallons of gas (depending on usage). Lot cheaper than Honda's for the same amount of power and that will run a full size refrigerator, heater, TV, satellite receiver, whatever you want. Home Despot, around $750.00. It weighs about 150 lbs (on wheels), so you'll need a pickup or small trailer to haul it back and forth.
With any generator you have to look at the sustained wattage and surge wattage. Honda tends to advertise their surge wattage, which a generator can't maintain very long.
If you ever decide to live up there permanently, you'll want to look at either a big solar or combo solar/wind system. Figure on 15 to 20 thousand depending on the wattage you need. If you have a stream or spring, you're golden. Hydro electric is the cheapest and best, until the creek runs dry.
Let the anal probing begin!
Maybe instead of diplomatic missions we're going to start settling trade disputes in a Quake arena.
People are tired of being treated like criminals with access to a bottomless ATM machine. It doesn't take a survey to figure that out. Take your survey and stick it up your ass, Gates. Assholes.
Although the tech people I know that have been on the bench a while do eventually seem to fall into another tech job. But it's different. Contract work instead of perm and there's a lot more bench time between jobs.
Bank cash and keep your bills down when you're working. Maybe one of these days we'll have a story on /. about the worlds longest chain of wi-fi connected latte' carts.
I was under the impression their stock was taking a beating because they're the worst IT outsourcing company in the history of IT consulting. They had a bad rep before Brown. Based on my personal experience with EDS, I wouldn't hire them to run a network connection to my dog house. Ask anyone in the Navy how well they like NMCI. The US Navy and 250 million taxpayers taking it up the poop deck on that one.
Remember when FrontPage came out? That was around 94-96 time frame(?), right about the same time every night school on the planet was offering "webmaster" *snicker* certification. Everybody and their dog was calling themselves a web developer. But it never nicked the market for people who could produce really professional looking high-end sites. Then came the marraige of web sites with a database back end and db skills separated the webmaster employed from the rest of the pack.
If you've been in IT a long time you're used to being a techno-chameleon. There will always be new things coming along that will open up new markets. And even if it doesn't, even if I finally transition out of IT into a different kind of business, look at the technical advantage I have. I can build my own web sites, know how to market and promote them, write my own db's, program my own applications, or tweak OSS apps to do something specific for me, run my own network. It puts me miles ahead of my peers in any other line of business.
20 years in IT and analysts keep coming up with the same crap, like some karmic manure spreader. Just keep your head on a swivel, bank cash when times are good, and don't get boxed in thinking the only way to make a living is working for someone else.
My first thought was adding a password to a zip file, but that would require WinZip or similar file utility. Adding a password to the directory is easy enough but then your web host would have access to the originals. And, yes, I'm thinking about files I could leave on a web server as opposed to Email.
That would be really handy to have, especially if it was OS independent. Would make encrypting files a lot easier. It doesn't have to be bullet-proof, just stout enough to make decrypting it withouth the key a major pain in the behind.
Don't lecture me, rookie, I know exactly what I'm talking about. The intelligence level and cultural diversity takes a massive step up when you cross the Austin city line, except every other year when the legislature is in town. Did they ever pass a per diem raise for them or are they still getting by on $35.00 a day?
I guess I see a lot of experimentation going on and it's not really a surprise to see a gov agency switching over. It will save them millions. This is only news because it's one of the first. Always thought Austin was a very cool town. Sort of out of place in Texas.
Trustworthy Computing!
Being paranoid is getting to be more work all the time.
Anything that I have to carry around in a foil lined wallet to keep it from squealing on me or being charged without my knowledge just isn't worth the few seconds of convenience in my book. When we have to employ some wild weasel jammers on our person to keep the RFID tags in our clothes and wallet quiet it's gone too far.
If I were really cynical I might suspect the timing...just before MS was making a big push to roll out 2003, as the IT industry was coming out of a 2 1/2 year stretch where many companies were not buying much of anything, just as NT is getting near the end of its life cycle. You have to admit that questions arising about Linux IP purity and a potential liability scare right at this particular time was really convenient for MS. Likely just coincidence, but a mighty handy one all the same.
Fortunately it hasn't done much of anything to stall the advance. At this point trying to stop Linux is like trying to stop the wind. The code is out there in so many places in so many flavors, in so many countries that don't give a crap about US copyright law in the first place. The switch is on. SCO is little more than side show entertainment. What my grandfather would've called a fart in a whirlwind.
I've seen this before, the Microcrap forced upgrade-o-rama. In the past they grumbled but did it anyway. This time is different for some reason. Instead of just biting the bullet and making the upgrade they started asking if there were any other web servers that didn't have to be upgraded and patched so often that would work on their old hardware. As a matter of fact...
At home I've got one 98ME laptop and one Win2K box left, everything else is Linux. Haven't loaded XPee at home and never plan to.
I have to admit, it was nice having somewhere the Great Unwashed didn't have access. Maybe that's a little snobby but when the AOLers rolled in it was abrasive. They were idiots and they were rude, by our standards anyway. By today's standards they were towers of tact and decorum.
Maybe a little geek balkanization wouldn't be such a bad thing. Something to separate the real geeks from the wannabes. Some-whereeeeee o-ver the rain-bow, en-crypt-eeeeed satellite network...
Definitely too many commercials. If the quality sags a micron that will become more of a factor.