Maybe companies approached by the in-Justice Dept. will start asking for indemnification before they cooperate on fishing expeditions.
Specific information on individuals suspected of a crime associated with a warrant, no problem. But just handing over data on millions of Americans...they deserve to get sued for not making a token effort to stick up for their customers.
I know that I am about to taste the wrath of/. for daring to question the mindthink,
If you get wrath it's not for questioning the mindthink...I'm not even sure what that is. You might get flack for taking a gutless coward's stance toward civil liberties, which don't seem very important to people sticking up for an over-reaching administration empowered by a spineless Congress.
The bottom line this is useless for tracking down terrorists. All it takes is for one of the cutouts to be a coffee shop or other public place and the pattern goes out the window. Likewise if one of the cutouts uses Nike Net and walks the message to another party. Pretty basic trade craft. We're not the only country monitoring telecom.
What it is good for is keeping tabs on who those pesky newspaper reporters are talking to, and for outlining your political opponents support network, and people donating money. Saves the government thugs a lot of running around when they know right who to intimidate. And you can make customer lists of businesses critical of your administration and send the feds out to talk to all them and watch their business dry up overnight. It's really good for those kinds of things, not very useful for tracking terrorists.
Besides, if this is such a good thing, then brief Congress and have the oversight legalized. Most times you do that BEFORE spending billions of dollars monitoring innocent Americans and then get caught with your hand in the cookie jar.
It's not paranoid to suggest the current administration and their supporters are the biggest threat to America to come along in the last 150 years. Terrorists can knock down a building or blow up a chemical plant, but Bush is undermining the foundation of our country.
In spite of this, I'm sure a million slashdotters are going to bleat about this not solving the fuel crisis, giving us their back of napkin calculations that show you'll need to cover the entire surface of the united states with algae ponds to replace fossil fuels, etc.
Then their back of the napkin calculations would be wrong. To replace all the transportation fuels we use in the US, about 25% of what the world uses, would require roughly 15,000 square miles of the Sonora Desert, which is around 120,000 square miles total. This was previously reported on/. and the pilot testing for large scale production has already been completed. More detail and a good overview here.
The funny thing about all this is that the oil producing algae research was first conducted by our very own US Dept. of Energy. And just like Brazil is taking the lead in showing the world how to achieve energy independence, another country is taking our research and showing how to make themselves less dependent on foreign oil. Kind of funny to watch the rest of the world passing us by in energy research, education, and manufacturing while Bubba and his red state buddies think it's just a hoot to haul their gas burning 4 wheelers out to the recreation area in their pickups that get 9 miles to a gallon, which they absolutely have to drive all the time because they need a truck big enough to haul their gas toys on the weekend.
It's like living in a continuous showing of Hee Haw.
First fund some bogus studies that show how expensive and ineffective it is, then hire a PR firm to make sure those results get extenisve press, at the same time shovel money hand over fist to your Congresscritters. It's a big, bad issue and Congress must act...before the corrupt party gets thrown out of office and we have to start all over bribing a new set of lawmakers.
Same strategy Bellsouth is using with the net neutrality innitiative and before that how RIAA and the MPAA managed to equate file sharing with stealing in the minds of the Great Unwashed Masses. MSFT also uses the same song and dance routine from time to time, more on the local level.
It almost sounds like a guild more than a union. If any employer knew that if they tried to retaliate by outsourcing jobs that their ability to hire more qualified IT would be exactly zero, they'd definitely think twice about it. Problem with giving some people that kind of job protection is they will use it as an excuse to slack. We need something...some middle ground between a union and nothing. There aren't any easy answers.
I've always wondered why IT people don't throw their weight around more. Some of the guys at this customer site would be almost impossible to replace. They have a firewall/router/network eng who is really top notch. Windows and *nix background, Cisco certified he has the keys to their data kingdom in his head and they treat him like a dog. And he takes it. If any of them here treated me like that I'd walk out in a heart beat. If I left it would take them a couple months to gen a new contract for a consultant. No big deal. If he left I'm not sure they'd ever get as good of a person to work out here.
It sounds like personal finances influence a lot of people, including the person above. I started years ago paying off debts, saving even when it was painful, making good investments and even traded down in houses to a place we can afford comfortably and started my own business. It makes a huge difference in my attitude now that a full-time paycheck is optional. Oddly I have more work than ever. Part of that is the job market, but a definite part is companies are willing to pay more to get me on their projects. Maybe because I'm not a sniveling underling living paycheck to paycheck who has to kiss butt out of fear of losing my job. I play golf with the higher ups, they bring their kids over to my place to go fishing, we have cook outs and knock back a few beers. They treat me like an equal and their net eng like a dog, even though he's worth more (in my opinion) and harder to replace. I'm not digging on anyone over-extended financially, I'm merely suggesting that changing your financial lifestyle could give some of you the kind of security you may be seeking in a union. Just a thought.
The problem might be that some other drunk asshole member of the US congress might overstep his bounds (which we see examples of on the news weekly) and use this information with no sense of proportion to forward an adgenda in the guise of an investigation.
Or some lacky with the morals of a political prostitute might decide to keep tabs on who their political opponents are calling on a regular basis. Or detail the grassroots network in a particular area and send their buddies in the FBI out to intimidate them.
I am sick and fucking tired of our government spending billions to spy on Americans instead of sending some steely-eyed mofo's out to whack terrorists in their own back yard. The Republicans are the most foul, corrupt, incompetent bunch that this country has ever seen in power. I'm disgusted.
What brain dead market droid at FedEx thought it would be a good idea to stage a public event with the MPAA? What win is going to come out of that for FedEx?
FedEx: We let everyone with an issue and their dog sniff your packages! And we open them up and look inside if the dog thinks it smells something!
FedEx: We definitely didn't think this one through!
The RIAA has sent letters [CC] to 40 university presidents in 25 separate states informing them that students are engaging in filesharing on their campuses using the local network.
Assuming university computer networks are not public, wouldn't that constitute illegal access to their computer systems? I don't remember anything in the law suggesting it was okay to illegally access someone's system if you thought there was abuse of your IP going on...not that we're buying RIAA's definition of abusing IP in the first place.
Why isn't the FBI asking RIAA how they got access to those networks? Perhaps they're busy out intimidating Republican political opponents. It is getting down to six months before the election, this would be their busy time of year.
One of many problems with secret searches is understanding what we're getting in exchange? Are we really any safer? Cheney likes to point to the fact that we haven't been attacked since 9-11 as proof the administration is effective, conveniently overlooking that it was almost ten years between attacks on the trade center when we didn't do much of anything. It proves nothing.
Judging by the war in Iraq, bungled response to Katrina, the military wholesale spying on US citizens, the Justice Dept. all but admitting AT&T is helping them monitor communications in America, bankrupting the budget and the endless lies how are we supposed to trust that the government is doing the right thing? Just because Gonzales says this conduct is constitutional doesn't make it so.
I think it's pretty safe to assume this expansion of police powers does not make us any safer. It's a waste of resources, it's intrusive, and further undermines the pitiful remnants of our civil rights. Another failed policy from a failed administration. If it wasn't so dangerous and being wielded by corrupt, incompetent people it would be laughable.
That the Nazi party in pre-war Germany...at their peak commanded something like 30% of the vote. Until they actually seized power they were an extremist fringe group largely dismissed by the electorate.
I think it's oddly coincidental that, even after everything that's happened, Bush's approval rating still is around...
Specifically, I'd like whatever authority that the administration *imagines* gives them the power to do warantless wiretaps specifically removed.
Those laws were passed in the wake of Watergate, but the White House acts like the law doesn't apply to them. So what good would it do to pass more laws the administration feels free to ignore?
I say we take some of that massive intelligence apparatus and turn it on the Federalist Society. They're a bigger threat to our country than Al-Qaida. The terrorists might be able to do some damage to an airport or chemical plant, but the neo-cons are undermining our freedom, our government and the very foundation of this nation.
It's time for those in law enforcement, the military and the Justice Department to start remembering that they took an oath to protect and preserve the Constitution, not the Republican party. The people threatening a building can't undermine the Constitution, it takes Dick Cheney to do that. They don't seem very worried about this fall, perhaps they feel they have the elections rigged well enough they can't lose.
And after all these bozos are in jail I say we take a paddy wagon down K Street and round up every one of those sonsabitches.
Seeing as how there is no physical packaging, nor physical inventory that might suffer breakage, one wonders how Sony will defend against these charges.
They're just figuring the cost of losing will be less than what they can rake in while the case grinds its way through court and appeals. If it looks bad they'll try to settle, but I'm sure they don't have any delusions about actually winning.
There's always a chance lightning will strike in court but mainly they're just dragging their feet as long as possible. Scumbags.
MSFT has alienated as many customers on this side of the pond as they can, now they have to move into emerging markets to find customers who don't already hate them.
Pay them minimum wage, work them long hours at a thankless job, make them sign away all their rights as employees to get that crapass job, take an invasive drug test...remind me again why anyone competent would take a job like that? And I'm not just picking on the electronic stores, it's that way with almost any appliance you're buying now days. Half the time at Lowes I know the inventory better than the people working there. Like last week looking for a package of door shims. The guy working there insisted they didn't have any until I walked over and found them myself. He looked at me like I was a magician. And I certainly wouldn't ask their advice on how to fix anything. Anyone who really knows how to patch drywall, install hardwood floors, hang a door or lay tile is already out making five times as much money.
Corporate Amerika squeezes and squeezes until the people facing customers are the ones with no knowledge, no ambition, and not able to make a living any other way. The dregs of the workforce. Then you'll hear store managers lament about how hard it is to find anyone who wants to work, or politicians spout off about illegal immigrants do the jobs citizens don't want. Correct from the standpoint that Americans don't want to make 2 dollars an hour for picking fruit 10 hours a day. While you hear young people complain there aren't any jobs!
Pay them a realistic wage and you'll find lots of people willing to work. You might even find some *gasp* qualified applicants.
designed to give the Justice Department 'tools to combat IP crime' which which are used to 'quite frankly, fund terrorism activities,' according to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Don't bother presenting any evidence to back that up, just make a broad, over-reaching statement and present it as fact. I don't believe anything that comes out of the Bush administration. The only person who lies more than Gonzales was The Lying McClellan. How did you know Scott McClellan was lying? His lips were moving.
Oxygen also supports terrorism, so why not cut down all the trees? Oh, wait...
Re:same old story
on
Viiv Falls Flat
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· Score: 4, Insightful
They'll get it all wrong anyway, because they'll make a bunch of assumptions that they will attempt to force on their customers.
That's what happens when you try to save money on focus groups. Instead of listening to what customers want they're trying to force fit what they think they want.
Here's a clue: You'll never be able to figure out what customers want from the corner office on mahogany row. You can't skimp on focus groups and test marketing and don't think you can make the MPAA and your customers happy. You're going to have to pick one or the other.
And now you know what happens when you pick the MPAA.
And today I'll make damn sure that none of her work or reproductions ever grace an office wall or calendar where I work. Another example that no good deed goes unpunished.
Ignorant, greedy fuckwits. I hope Google doen't let this snit bother them. Just because these walking slime molds are assholes doesn't mean everyone is. I'm sure there are dozens of artists who would give Google whatever rights they wanted for that kind of exposure, then follow up with a thank you original to decorate their offices. That would be the proper response.
And I don't believe anything he says. He's cut from the same lying cloth as the rest of that bunch. This is Iraq WMD's all over again. The facts are law enforcement is already very effective at tracking down child porn and international cooperation has increased dramtically. We don't need this law for that reason, which begs the question...what's the real reason the Bush administration wants ISP's to retain records?
The problem with lying to people for so long is no one believes you if you're telling the truth. But this doesn't pass the smell test.
If the Justice Dept. wanted to something really useful with their time they'd start an investigation of the Federalist Society.
Jobs seem to be increasingly harder to find in the real world today, and even harder to obtain due to the increased proliferation of on-line-only or electronic-only job applications.
Jobs hard to find? Just off-hand I'd say it's harder to find reliable workers. Depends where you live and what kind of jobs you're talking about, but if you're willing to work I see a world flush with opportunity. And they're better jobs than working at Kroger.
Let me guess, you grew up with your mom shuttling you around in the back of an SUV, right? Not interacting with the world, just watching it fly by the back seat windows while you played with your Game Boy. The unemployment rate today is something like 4.7% or close to it. That means if you have a pulse and two neurons to rub together to make a spark you can find a job.
Now if you can't find a job because you can't figure out a kiosk or don't have the the nerve to ask questions because you're not strapped in the back seat, then that's too bad, kid. Otherwise I have 10 acres of brush that needs clearing, another 9 acres that needs fenced, a pond that needs stocking, wind turbine towers to put up, two down tress that need cut up and split...that and the other projects I have going would keep you busy most of the summer. The reason I don't do it myself is that I have a full time day job, a part-time sideline career, do video production and produce commercials for the side-line job AND I've got a meeting with another company next week on a consulting gig that needs help becuase they can't fill a full time position.
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Specific information on individuals suspected of a crime associated with a warrant, no problem. But just handing over data on millions of Americans...they deserve to get sued for not making a token effort to stick up for their customers.
If you get wrath it's not for questioning the mindthink...I'm not even sure what that is. You might get flack for taking a gutless coward's stance toward civil liberties, which don't seem very important to people sticking up for an over-reaching administration empowered by a spineless Congress.
The bottom line this is useless for tracking down terrorists. All it takes is for one of the cutouts to be a coffee shop or other public place and the pattern goes out the window. Likewise if one of the cutouts uses Nike Net and walks the message to another party. Pretty basic trade craft. We're not the only country monitoring telecom.
What it is good for is keeping tabs on who those pesky newspaper reporters are talking to, and for outlining your political opponents support network, and people donating money. Saves the government thugs a lot of running around when they know right who to intimidate. And you can make customer lists of businesses critical of your administration and send the feds out to talk to all them and watch their business dry up overnight. It's really good for those kinds of things, not very useful for tracking terrorists.
Besides, if this is such a good thing, then brief Congress and have the oversight legalized. Most times you do that BEFORE spending billions of dollars monitoring innocent Americans and then get caught with your hand in the cookie jar.
It's not paranoid to suggest the current administration and their supporters are the biggest threat to America to come along in the last 150 years. Terrorists can knock down a building or blow up a chemical plant, but Bush is undermining the foundation of our country.
Then their back of the napkin calculations would be wrong. To replace all the transportation fuels we use in the US, about 25% of what the world uses, would require roughly 15,000 square miles of the Sonora Desert, which is around 120,000 square miles total. This was previously reported on /. and the pilot testing for large scale production has already been completed. More detail and a good overview here.
The funny thing about all this is that the oil producing algae research was first conducted by our very own US Dept. of Energy. And just like Brazil is taking the lead in showing the world how to achieve energy independence, another country is taking our research and showing how to make themselves less dependent on foreign oil. Kind of funny to watch the rest of the world passing us by in energy research, education, and manufacturing while Bubba and his red state buddies think it's just a hoot to haul their gas burning 4 wheelers out to the recreation area in their pickups that get 9 miles to a gallon, which they absolutely have to drive all the time because they need a truck big enough to haul their gas toys on the weekend.
It's like living in a continuous showing of Hee Haw.
Same strategy Bellsouth is using with the net neutrality innitiative and before that how RIAA and the MPAA managed to equate file sharing with stealing in the minds of the Great Unwashed Masses. MSFT also uses the same song and dance routine from time to time, more on the local level.
I've always wondered why IT people don't throw their weight around more. Some of the guys at this customer site would be almost impossible to replace. They have a firewall/router/network eng who is really top notch. Windows and *nix background, Cisco certified he has the keys to their data kingdom in his head and they treat him like a dog. And he takes it. If any of them here treated me like that I'd walk out in a heart beat. If I left it would take them a couple months to gen a new contract for a consultant. No big deal. If he left I'm not sure they'd ever get as good of a person to work out here.
It sounds like personal finances influence a lot of people, including the person above. I started years ago paying off debts, saving even when it was painful, making good investments and even traded down in houses to a place we can afford comfortably and started my own business. It makes a huge difference in my attitude now that a full-time paycheck is optional. Oddly I have more work than ever. Part of that is the job market, but a definite part is companies are willing to pay more to get me on their projects. Maybe because I'm not a sniveling underling living paycheck to paycheck who has to kiss butt out of fear of losing my job. I play golf with the higher ups, they bring their kids over to my place to go fishing, we have cook outs and knock back a few beers. They treat me like an equal and their net eng like a dog, even though he's worth more (in my opinion) and harder to replace. I'm not digging on anyone over-extended financially, I'm merely suggesting that changing your financial lifestyle could give some of you the kind of security you may be seeking in a union. Just a thought.
Or some lacky with the morals of a political prostitute might decide to keep tabs on who their political opponents are calling on a regular basis. Or detail the grassroots network in a particular area and send their buddies in the FBI out to intimidate them.
I am sick and fucking tired of our government spending billions to spy on Americans instead of sending some steely-eyed mofo's out to whack terrorists in their own back yard. The Republicans are the most foul, corrupt, incompetent bunch that this country has ever seen in power. I'm disgusted.
FedEx: We let everyone with an issue and their dog sniff your packages! And we open them up and look inside if the dog thinks it smells something!
FedEx: We definitely didn't think this one through!
Assuming university computer networks are not public, wouldn't that constitute illegal access to their computer systems? I don't remember anything in the law suggesting it was okay to illegally access someone's system if you thought there was abuse of your IP going on...not that we're buying RIAA's definition of abusing IP in the first place.
Why isn't the FBI asking RIAA how they got access to those networks? Perhaps they're busy out intimidating Republican political opponents. It is getting down to six months before the election, this would be their busy time of year.
You bet. I got dibs on the top bunk.
Judging by the war in Iraq, bungled response to Katrina, the military wholesale spying on US citizens, the Justice Dept. all but admitting AT&T is helping them monitor communications in America, bankrupting the budget and the endless lies how are we supposed to trust that the government is doing the right thing? Just because Gonzales says this conduct is constitutional doesn't make it so.
I think it's pretty safe to assume this expansion of police powers does not make us any safer. It's a waste of resources, it's intrusive, and further undermines the pitiful remnants of our civil rights. Another failed policy from a failed administration. If it wasn't so dangerous and being wielded by corrupt, incompetent people it would be laughable.
I think it's oddly coincidental that, even after everything that's happened, Bush's approval rating still is around...
...30%.
Those laws were passed in the wake of Watergate, but the White House acts like the law doesn't apply to them. So what good would it do to pass more laws the administration feels free to ignore?
I say we take some of that massive intelligence apparatus and turn it on the Federalist Society. They're a bigger threat to our country than Al-Qaida. The terrorists might be able to do some damage to an airport or chemical plant, but the neo-cons are undermining our freedom, our government and the very foundation of this nation.
It's time for those in law enforcement, the military and the Justice Department to start remembering that they took an oath to protect and preserve the Constitution, not the Republican party. The people threatening a building can't undermine the Constitution, it takes Dick Cheney to do that. They don't seem very worried about this fall, perhaps they feel they have the elections rigged well enough they can't lose.
And after all these bozos are in jail I say we take a paddy wagon down K Street and round up every one of those sonsabitches.
They're just figuring the cost of losing will be less than what they can rake in while the case grinds its way through court and appeals. If it looks bad they'll try to settle, but I'm sure they don't have any delusions about actually winning.
There's always a chance lightning will strike in court but mainly they're just dragging their feet as long as possible. Scumbags.
MSFT has alienated as many customers on this side of the pond as they can, now they have to move into emerging markets to find customers who don't already hate them.
On second thought...not even MSFT would be that cruel.
Corporate Amerika squeezes and squeezes until the people facing customers are the ones with no knowledge, no ambition, and not able to make a living any other way. The dregs of the workforce. Then you'll hear store managers lament about how hard it is to find anyone who wants to work, or politicians spout off about illegal immigrants do the jobs citizens don't want. Correct from the standpoint that Americans don't want to make 2 dollars an hour for picking fruit 10 hours a day. While you hear young people complain there aren't any jobs!
Pay them a realistic wage and you'll find lots of people willing to work. You might even find some *gasp* qualified applicants.
Don't bother presenting any evidence to back that up, just make a broad, over-reaching statement and present it as fact. I don't believe anything that comes out of the Bush administration. The only person who lies more than Gonzales was The Lying McClellan. How did you know Scott McClellan was lying? His lips were moving.
Oxygen also supports terrorism, so why not cut down all the trees? Oh, wait...
That's what happens when you try to save money on focus groups. Instead of listening to what customers want they're trying to force fit what they think they want.
Here's a clue: You'll never be able to figure out what customers want from the corner office on mahogany row. You can't skimp on focus groups and test marketing and don't think you can make the MPAA and your customers happy. You're going to have to pick one or the other.
And now you know what happens when you pick the MPAA.
The family is still a bunch of greedy fuckwits.
Ignorant, greedy fuckwits. I hope Google doen't let this snit bother them. Just because these walking slime molds are assholes doesn't mean everyone is. I'm sure there are dozens of artists who would give Google whatever rights they wanted for that kind of exposure, then follow up with a thank you original to decorate their offices. That would be the proper response.
The problem with lying to people for so long is no one believes you if you're telling the truth. But this doesn't pass the smell test.
If the Justice Dept. wanted to something really useful with their time they'd start an investigation of the Federalist Society.
...in Redmond tonight.
Jobs hard to find? Just off-hand I'd say it's harder to find reliable workers. Depends where you live and what kind of jobs you're talking about, but if you're willing to work I see a world flush with opportunity. And they're better jobs than working at Kroger.
Let me guess, you grew up with your mom shuttling you around in the back of an SUV, right? Not interacting with the world, just watching it fly by the back seat windows while you played with your Game Boy. The unemployment rate today is something like 4.7% or close to it. That means if you have a pulse and two neurons to rub together to make a spark you can find a job.
Now if you can't find a job because you can't figure out a kiosk or don't have the the nerve to ask questions because you're not strapped in the back seat, then that's too bad, kid. Otherwise I have 10 acres of brush that needs clearing, another 9 acres that needs fenced, a pond that needs stocking, wind turbine towers to put up, two down tress that need cut up and split...that and the other projects I have going would keep you busy most of the summer. The reason I don't do it myself is that I have a full time day job, a part-time sideline career, do video production and produce commercials for the side-line job AND I've got a meeting with another company next week on a consulting gig that needs help becuase they can't fill a full time position.
Can't find a job....ugghhhhh.
I think it's finally becoming clear that MSFT's best days are behind them. As a company they have jumped the shark.
And why is that? I don't need no stinking Vista at my house!