The summary mentions a $6.3 billion cost for this virus inventory. To put that into perspective, that's about the same amount of money that it took to build the new Bay Bridge in California.
Or do you mean that parents should plan their sex based on the state's kindergarten cutoff so that their kids turn 18 earlier in the school year?
When I have kids, I'm planning to time it so that they'd be the youngest in their grade, not the oldest. You know, give them a head start and all that.
web pages which used to be optimised for efficient downloading are now optimised for nothing at all.
That's not true; they're optimized for showing you a maximum of advertisement with a minimum of content.
I really feel for the poor dial-up folks. It was bad enough a decade and a half ago when web pages were reasonable, but now that every 10-item list has turned into a one-page-per-item slideshow it's got to be infuriating!
However, I do take issue with the idea that a person is solely at fault for having their ignorance taken advantage of...
Of course, silly me, at the time, I guess I never should have assumed that the bank doing the financing, and putting in such a huge up front investment (far more than me) with their only guarantee of repayment being the lien on the property....would have insisted on thorough above board inspectors.
I guess it should have been obvious to me at um 24...
The reason I have limited sympathy is that if you're that ignorant, you have no business buying a house to begin with. You're supposed to understand that the bank's inspector works for the bank, not you, so if you want someone to look out for your interests you have to hire him yourself. This is home-buying 101: an hour of HGTV, a few minutes googling "how to buy a house" or a short chat with a competent realtor should have explained it to you. (And if you had decided to try to sue, by the way, the judge would have explained it to you as he laughed you out of court).
I mean, yeah, people walk into Best Buy and grab a computer without knowing what they're doing, and people throw themselves upon the "tender mercy" of sleezebag car salesmen without doing their research -- but come on, they're stupid. Based on the typical demographic that Slashdot attracts, the mere fact that you're here suggests to me that you ought be smart enough to know better (not to mention, analytically-minded enough to want to optimize your experience).
And it's not that you're supposed to know how to inspect the house yourself, either. You're just supposed to hire someone decent, the same way you hire any other service professional: you look for licensing, trade organization (in this case, ASHI) membership, recommendations from friends, good online reviews, etc. You don't go to the inspection with him so you can check up on his work, you go with him so that he can point out the issues in person and answer your questions in a way that you, as a layman, can understand. (And then he'll give you a detailed and thorough written report with a whole bunch of pictures anyway, which you will then use to negotiate seller concessions for all the problems he found.)
For what it's worth, I bought my house at age 25 -- and I assure you, I was no more mature than you -- but I knew these things.
You at least knew to use a buyer's agent instead of allowing the seller's agent to have "dual agency" (which is a conflict of interest) and you knew to buy your own title insurance (because the bank's title insurance doesn't protect you), I hope?
Also, in many cases the purchaser doesn't pay for or provide the inspector.
Here's the thing: in all cases the purchaser should pay for an inspection done by an inspector of his own choosing. Why? Because the "inspection" the bank requires is designed to protect the bank, not the buyer. If you want someone whose obligation is protect you, the buyer then you have to choose and pay for him yourself. The bank inspection is completely irrelevant.
The reason I have limited sympathy is that this is part of home-buying 101: all you have to do is watch an hour or so of HGTV, google "how to buy a house," or talk to a competent realtor for a few minutes and you'll know it.
Admittedly, I learned the hard way that if you buy a house with large trees on the property you should also get an arborist to do a tree inspection, but that's a different story (and something that realtors and HGTV probably won't teach you).
HA HA HA HA HA You think such a thing actually exists??!!
Speaking as a traffic engineer, I'd like to inform you that we're not nearly that good. (mostly because most of our work is poorly funded by the government, so the results are barely adequate, at best). For example, the functional classification map (that labels streets as "local," "collector" or "arterial") for Atlanta was last updated around 1970 -- that's over forty years ago. And you think we have the resources to go around mapping yield signs?! We still submit plans to the state DOT as printouts on paper, for crying out loud!
But old Trek had gotten so stale that there wasn't really any other place to go. I know many Trekkers don't like the reboot, and there are aspects that I wasn't excited about, but let's face it -- is a series made by old pharts for old pharts really where you want to be?
That still doesn't mean there's an excuse for letting a cadet out of Police Academy jump straight to captain!
The problem with the Abrams monstrosities aren't just that they "aren't Star Trek," but that they're fucking stupid in and of themselves.
Takei is pretty old, but he doesn't look that old.
Takei playing Sulu wouldn't be any less appropriate than Edward James Olmos playing Adama in the new Battlestar Galactica or Roy Scheider playing Bridger in Seaquest DSV.
Now, Walter Koenig (from the video in the summary) -- holy crap he's old! Too old to be an admiral, even.
Also, the price should fall each week as the audience diminishes, to encourage repeat viewers, or to get more "impulse watchers" that are willing to spend $2 but not $12.
That already (sort of) happens. In my city, there are several "discount theaters" that get the movie a few weeks after release and charge $2. The only catch is that they are not the same theaters as the ones that charge full price, and they're usually older and not quite as nice (no stadium seating, for example).
Your scheme failed in step 0, because the NSA used a man-in-the-middle attack to replace the download of the "guardmail program" with a backdoor'd version.
It sounds like the one you encountered was an American cockroach, which is really, really common in the South. In fact, I didn't even know "little cockroaches" existed until recently -- the 2-inch-long ones are "normal" around here (in Atlanta).
DE did nothing to help, even when I had a solid line of the stuff
In that case, the issue is that it did not work because you had a solid line of the stuff. In this case, more is not better: if you use too much, the bugs notice and walk around it instead of through it.
You're crazy. How are the three-letter guys going to threaten the President of the United States? He has way too much access to the public/press; if the TLAs tried anything he could call them out on it.
I think it's far more plausible that Obama just made a bunch of promises he never intended to keep in order to get elected.
Slashdot Mirror
Desktop replacement?
The summary mentions a $6.3 billion cost for this virus inventory. To put that into perspective, that's about the same amount of money that it took to build the new Bay Bridge in California.
Sure it could... you could make it a cron job.
Indeed, my first question is "can it run MythTV?" (With an external tuner like a HDHomeRun, of course.)
When I have kids, I'm planning to time it so that they'd be the youngest in their grade, not the oldest. You know, give them a head start and all that.
In that case, we should have about 20% of the mental hospital capacity left. Do we?
That's not true; they're optimized for showing you a maximum of advertisement with a minimum of content.
I really feel for the poor dial-up folks. It was bad enough a decade and a half ago when web pages were reasonable, but now that every 10-item list has turned into a one-page-per-item slideshow it's got to be infuriating!
The reason I have limited sympathy is that if you're that ignorant, you have no business buying a house to begin with. You're supposed to understand that the bank's inspector works for the bank, not you, so if you want someone to look out for your interests you have to hire him yourself. This is home-buying 101: an hour of HGTV, a few minutes googling "how to buy a house" or a short chat with a competent realtor should have explained it to you. (And if you had decided to try to sue, by the way, the judge would have explained it to you as he laughed you out of court).
I mean, yeah, people walk into Best Buy and grab a computer without knowing what they're doing, and people throw themselves upon the "tender mercy" of sleezebag car salesmen without doing their research -- but come on, they're stupid. Based on the typical demographic that Slashdot attracts, the mere fact that you're here suggests to me that you ought be smart enough to know better (not to mention, analytically-minded enough to want to optimize your experience).
And it's not that you're supposed to know how to inspect the house yourself, either. You're just supposed to hire someone decent, the same way you hire any other service professional: you look for licensing, trade organization (in this case, ASHI) membership, recommendations from friends, good online reviews, etc. You don't go to the inspection with him so you can check up on his work, you go with him so that he can point out the issues in person and answer your questions in a way that you, as a layman, can understand. (And then he'll give you a detailed and thorough written report with a whole bunch of pictures anyway, which you will then use to negotiate seller concessions for all the problems he found.)
For what it's worth, I bought my house at age 25 -- and I assure you, I was no more mature than you -- but I knew these things.
You at least knew to use a buyer's agent instead of allowing the seller's agent to have "dual agency" (which is a conflict of interest) and you knew to buy your own title insurance (because the bank's title insurance doesn't protect you), I hope?
Here's the thing: in all cases the purchaser should pay for an inspection done by an inspector of his own choosing. Why? Because the "inspection" the bank requires is designed to protect the bank, not the buyer. If you want someone whose obligation is protect you, the buyer then you have to choose and pay for him yourself. The bank inspection is completely irrelevant.
The reason I have limited sympathy is that this is part of home-buying 101: all you have to do is watch an hour or so of HGTV, google "how to buy a house," or talk to a competent realtor for a few minutes and you'll know it.
Admittedly, I learned the hard way that if you buy a house with large trees on the property you should also get an arborist to do a tree inspection, but that's a different story (and something that realtors and HGTV probably won't teach you).
That was your own fault. After all, you were the one who picked out and hired the home inspector, and accompanied him on his inspection.
HA HA HA HA HA You think such a thing actually exists??!!
Speaking as a traffic engineer, I'd like to inform you that we're not nearly that good. (mostly because most of our work is poorly funded by the government, so the results are barely adequate, at best). For example, the functional classification map (that labels streets as "local," "collector" or "arterial") for Atlanta was last updated around 1970 -- that's over forty years ago. And you think we have the resources to go around mapping yield signs?! We still submit plans to the state DOT as printouts on paper, for crying out loud!
I'm sure all the folks who work at ORNL are thrilled with your stereotype.
Just swap the name to J.J. Abrams; it still works.
That still doesn't mean there's an excuse for letting a cadet out of Police Academy jump straight to captain!
The problem with the Abrams monstrosities aren't just that they "aren't Star Trek," but that they're fucking stupid in and of themselves.
You're thinking of Kim Cattrall as Valeris from Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country.
Takei is pretty old, but he doesn't look that old. Takei playing Sulu wouldn't be any less appropriate than Edward James Olmos playing Adama in the new Battlestar Galactica or Roy Scheider playing Bridger in Seaquest DSV.
Now, Walter Koenig (from the video in the summary) -- holy crap he's old! Too old to be an admiral, even.
I think I liked Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (at least partially) because it was subtitled.
That already (sort of) happens. In my city, there are several "discount theaters" that get the movie a few weeks after release and charge $2. The only catch is that they are not the same theaters as the ones that charge full price, and they're usually older and not quite as nice (no stadium seating, for example).
So what you're really saying is that icanhascheezburger is a secret data dump?
Your scheme failed in step 0, because the NSA used a man-in-the-middle attack to replace the download of the "guardmail program" with a backdoor'd version.
It sounds like the one you encountered was an American cockroach, which is really, really common in the South. In fact, I didn't even know "little cockroaches" existed until recently -- the 2-inch-long ones are "normal" around here (in Atlanta).
In that case, the issue is that it did not work because you had a solid line of the stuff. In this case, more is not better: if you use too much, the bugs notice and walk around it instead of through it.
Among other (less drastic) options, he could simply fire everybody responsible for enforcing the offending "law."
You're crazy. How are the three-letter guys going to threaten the President of the United States? He has way too much access to the public/press; if the TLAs tried anything he could call them out on it.
I think it's far more plausible that Obama just made a bunch of promises he never intended to keep in order to get elected.
Fair enough. However, even financial corruption still pales in importance in comparison to totalitarianism.