Note to mods:, this is offtopic, posted at 1 to keep it under the radar but maintain my identity for the parent AC's benefit.
Why would you mod him down? It's not a troll or flamebait. For the umpteenth time... disagreeing with a post, or thinking it uses poor reasoning, is not a reason to mod it down.
First off, I responded instead of modding him down, making your chastising of me rather unnecessary, no? I chose to respond specifically because, as I stated, his logic was sound but the premise incorrect, so I sought to correct that premise. Secondly, it *is* appropriate to mod someone down when they have posted something that is technically incorrect, offers no particular insight because it is incorrect, and has reached a mod level of 4 or 5. This helps to separate the chaff from the wheat in the discussion. Many people browse at 4+ to save time and see what other users have agreed are the better posts in the thread, which means that some users are going to mod posts down as well as up in determining which are "best".
This isn't kindergarten, everyone doesn't get an A, we aren't all right all the time. I agree with you that posts should not be modded down for disagreeing with opinions or for petty reasons. However when a post is factually incorrect and we learn nothing by the poster's misinformation (OTOH sometimes it is useful to leave a bad post up so others can demonstrate why it is wrong) then there's really nothing wrong with modding it down.
If there were a thread discussing physics and someone was just using incorrect math to make their point, should we leave that at +5 insightful?
These companies are spending billions. To invest that kind of cash you need to see a tempting ROI, which just won't happen if you saddle it with regulations.
If we want Fiber networks to be public infrastructure, then we need to pay for it with public monies.
I thought it would be better to respond than to mod you down. Your arguments are sound assuming that the telcos are doing the fiber rollout on their own with their own money, except that they're not. Congress gave the telcos a couple billion-with-a-b dollars of public funds to roll out fiber infrastructure in the US. The telcos have dragged their feet, mostly not used any of that money for fiber, and have even come back and asked for more money and tax breaks from congress to do what they were already supposed to have done. In addition the lines still run over public and private land and are granted easements by the government to do so. If any of the telcos wanted to do this on their own it would probably be so expensive as to be nearly impossible. So yes, since they are already spending taxpayer money to roll out a privately owned network, I'd say that we the people get to attach some strings to that deal - such as NOT disconnecting the copper infrastructure that is ALSO publicly owned and paid for.
Notice how all the tenses used in the summary and article are present tense? Except the prototype doesn't do most of the things the article so glowingly describes. The only hint is the "ready for testing in 5 years." And even that is about as weak an assertion as one can make - not production, not deployment, not evaluation, but testing in FIVE years.
I build military bots, and I love this concept, I've even seen the current prototype. This is something we need and I wholly support the effort but this press release is pure marketing. The current prototype can't walk, and as far as I could tell it can't even stand yet, the prototype has large wheels where the 'knees' are currently.
I'm sure this story is a calculated attempt to get development money, and that's good, but it's couched in terms that make it sound like the technology is ready to go, which it's not. Five years is a long time, expect lots of program and design changes between now and then, and depending on politics (i.e. military funding) it may get scrapped entirely.
You're the dolt, but thanks for falling victim to your own logic. There are two parts to your probability estimation, it's called Risk Management. We assign weights to the outcomes as well as their probabilities. So while it may be unlikely that event A happens, if the failure is catastrophic then we assign it a higher weight in determining a response. So it's more likely google will cause you some harm by invading your privacy, but the harm is likely to be minor. Whereas it *may* (and I'll get to this in a moment) be less likely that the government causes you some harm through an invasion of privacy, the potential harm is many times greater, thus it is to be avoided.
In addition one must consider the scale of the two entities here, one is a corporation that can only collect information on you if you interact with it in some way. If you don't use google or google products then you are many many times less likely to even be in their databases. This is not so with the government, participation with them is MANDATORY. You must register as a citizen, pay taxes (income, sales, property, etc), as well as licensing for various activities like driving or owning a gun. So we see that google's footprint in your daily life is tiny compared to the government which you come into contact with every day in many many ways. Additionally government data is shared among many institutions and affects everything from your ability to vote, to holding a job, being allowed to drive or travel, or even in some cases it can affect one's ability to live in certain areas. Merely a few examples of how a government record can affect one's day to day life much more profoundly than data residing on google servers.
The government also is not a static entity, and history has taught us time and again throughout all cultures that unchecked a government will strive to increase its own power and control over a populace. While recent US administrations may have been "nice" there is no guarantee that future ones will continue to respect the rights of the people. The point is that the government has the TOOLS the MEANS and the MANPOWER to affect ones life in many more ways, at many more places, and with much greater effect than anything google could ever hope to achieve short of google becoming a government-sized entity in and of itself.
Note that I am NOT saying the sky is falling here. Interesting that your reaction to people arguing against your baseless claims is for you to respond that we are UFO nuts who are afraid of sharks. Wow, great fucking logic. I am NOT afraid of some stupid Hollywood men in black scenario, or some shadowy CIA agent targeting me as the fall-guy for some elaborate government scheme. It doesn't have to be that nefarious or complicated or unlikely an event for the government to completely mess up one's life. Want some day to day examples? How about the TSA no-fly list. How many innocent civilians are restricted from flying, or at the very least must undergo hours of interrogations every time they want to travel simply because their name or birth date is *similar* to some suspected terrorist name on the list. This happens hundreds of times every day across the country. Similar lists are also coming into use, like no-sell lists for sensitive equipment or chemicals/fertilizers, or even one state recently (can't recall which) that proposed a no-gun-sale list. All of these lists lack any sort of oversight committee that provides a way for ordinary citizens to have the information corrected or their names removed after presenting evidence that they aren't terrorists. And in the case of the no-gun sale list there was no due process for having one's name placed on the list! That means that someone's second amendment rights could be removed without due process. So people are stuck with large inconveniences or just plain can't use those services. That's just one example. How about an unpaid traffic ticket? Or lost vehicle registration renewal? Just this month my girlfriend's brother was in an minor accident and the respo
Why do I have a feeling this woman wouldn't give a damn at all about this unless she's afraid her landlord is going to find out she broke the lease terms by having a cat?
i might worry a whole HELL of a lot more about what google is doing with my privacy than the usa
What a load of crap. Call me when google has armed agents in every town in America with the ability to arrest any citizen and detain them for long periods of time, possibly indefinitely after a trial at which google provides the judge, arguments, and laws. THAT is the difference between a private corporation invading your privacy and the government invading your privacy. The government wields force, deadly if desired, against citizens, a private company does not. Yes, there are many shades of grey to this, but the fact remains, one of google's representatives is not allowed, and will not, draw a gun and shoot you because they felt threatened by you; the agents of the government, however, have no problem doing so.
The invasion of privacy and the data collected by it may harm you in either case, but since we as a nation grant the government a monopoly on the use of deadly force (as well as imprisonment), it IS a bigger problem when the government abuses its powers. So yes, it's a double standard, but for good reason.
You mean like sending pictures of "Tub Girl" or the "Goat Sex" guy in an infinite loop? I would think that would get their attention. It's probably digital anyhow.
The problem with sending pornography I think is that it could possibly run afoul of other laws. The prank itself is probably illegal under some state wirefraud law or other, but if you transmit pornography that's another charge they can level at you, and one that will probably stick. IANAL so who knows, this prank was posted in jest and I do not expect anyone at a professional company to execute it. However, if someone *were* to do so it would probably be best to avoid getting themselves into even more serious trouble because of what content they chose to send. As another responder reminded me, this is actually best done with black construction paper for biggest effect on toner use on the receiver's end.
Here's an oldschool fax machine DOS prank that should at least inconvenience them as much as they have you. There's a good chance the company has a fax machine, and since they're a business you should be able to get ahold of that number very easily. Worst case someone may need to pose as a prospective IT hire and get the fax number in order to "send in your resume".
Once you have the fax number just put together about 6 or 7 pages of whatever you like within reason and the bounds of law (i.e. don't send death threats or pornographic images), usually something inane and anonymous, perhaps lolcatz pictures. Tape all the sheets together end-to-end then insert into your fax machine, once the first part of the now super-length page comes through, loop the top around and tape it together, forming a nice infinite paper loop in the fax machine. Let this send all day if you like. On their end it will either eat all their paper, toner, or at the very least render the fax machine unusable!
Important! You obviously want to remain anonymous with this "fax" so be sure to prepend *67 to the fax number, this is the command to block caller ID.:)
Hahaha, thanks for the link, too bad to see that site has been moved to a regular webserver. I'm not sure that the word 'evolution' could be applied to either my terrible idea or theirs, except perhaps in the invocation of a Darwin award.;)
Also another poster pointed out the experiment to implant magnets in fingertips to detect elector-magnetic fields, which is also very close. Nothing new under the sun I guess, including where the sun don't shine!
Oh Cripes, throw me a technology idea that no one else has thought of first. I challenge you.
Oh I cannot resist. How about..... an electromagnetic colorectal implant. It can be used to stick your keys, cellphone, etc to your waist w/o need for pouches or a belt, it helps you... uh, stick to metal seats better? Oh, and you can make interesting light shows by shakin' your booty next to CRTs. Just don't walk too close to the knife bock in your kitchen with it turned on!
The ISPs have largely brought this problem on themselves. If only they actually provided the service that they claim to provide then this wouldn't be an issue. Instead of upgrading networks to fiber (for which telcos have received *many* billions-with-a-B of US taxpayer funds to do, and largely haven't) and other infrastructure improvements they have dragged their feet, taken profit when they should have rolled money back into upgrades, and basically lied the whole time about what the service is really capable of. The fact that in the background the infrastructure can't actually handle every subscriber using the pipes to the amount advertised is not the fault of consumers expecting too much, it's wholesale bait and switch!
Look, if you sell someone a car and tell them it gets 1000 mpg, but in reality this is only achievable when the car is pushed, don't be surprised when they call you out for fraud when it doesn't perform as advertised.
In my opinion these state-sanction monopolies need to be checked hard, and held accountable for every single dollar given them for fiber upgrades that have never materialized despite huge budget and schedule overruns.
If he really cared about the kids, should he be GLAD that Intel is selling them below cost? This whole project reeks of his own ego.
But you've missed the point of WHY Intel is selling below cost, it's not pure philanthropy, as Intel would love for you to believe, it is to undercut their competitor in this market - OLPC. The countries that are going to be buying these computers are extremely sensitive to price, if the Intel version costs less they will probably go with those since the open source advantage of the OLPC laptop will likely be lost on the politicians making the buying decision. Once this happens enough times, OLPC will not be getting a large enough volume of orders to make their unit cost effective, and will probably be unable to compete. This isn't about open market competition, this is about muscling out a competitor by undercutting them and stealing their business. Then once the trap is set, Intel and those creating soft/hardware for the platform will have a comfortable monopoly to raise prices for hardware, service, support, upgrades, etc. Whereas with OLPC things like OS upgrades, new software, some service etc would be free in many cases since it's open source. If Intel really wanted to help this project they could donate money, materials, time, etc directly to it. Now the counter is that Intel wouldn't want to help subsidize their major competitor AMD who supplies the OLPC processors, but there's no reason Intel couldn't create a compatible chipset/mobo that runs in the same machine, but replaces the AMD boards. That would give OLPC two major suppliers to draw from. No, this is about Intel letting OLPC do the groundwork to prove the concept, then muscling in when it's time to sell product.
I'd say they all enjoy the money and power over the people in what is largely a social engineering experiment.
Given how long most organized religions have been around (of course this excludes the very recent Scientology) I would say they are well past the experiment phase and are quite far along in real-world trials. These organizations have been influencing culture, society, governments, and people for centuries to milennia, they're pretty good at it these days.
I agree with a couple other posts that suggest it may just be your work environment that needs a change, not so much the work you do. Think about it this way, you've already spent most of your career in IT, learning tricks of the trade, people skills for IT interactions, and generally improving your skillset. Understandably work is work and not play, but there are very few jobs indeed where that isn't true most of the time.
However, I don't think changing careers entirely late in the game is going to make things any more fun, or any easier. You'll have to start over learning new job skills, the pecking order within not only that office, but that career. Basically you'll be starting over in a lot of ways, which means playing catch-up and probably even less fun. Of course, I am assuming you'd still choose a new career in something you're at least familiar with, or related to IT, but there will be differences to relearn nonetheless.
Try a change of scene first, maybe a small startup is what you need, a close-knit group working to a focused goal, generally less corporate atmosphere, maybe interesting office culture. Never been in a startup myself, but if the anecdotes we hear from silicon valley from time to time are true then that sounds like the kind of environment where work could be intense but fun for the last few years of your career. Although the retirement benefits could go either way, you could retire from a google, or from a dotcom bust special. Good luck.;)
If, big if perhaps, devices intended to be seen could fly under the radar for so long it's frightening to think what devices intended to be hidden could do.
Yes, exactly, thank you. I think this two/three week timing also leads us to make one of two conclusions about the Boston response. Either: (A) police did not notice the devices, which were glowing and attached to city bridges they must drive under daily - a HUGE lapse in awareness and observation on their part, thus some obvious incompetence/shortcomings in procedures. Or (B) Police did in fact notice the devices and took them for what they were, harmless glowing cartoons, and then later after the whole panic the city and mayor claimed that they could not have known the devices were not bombs, etc etc. Yet other officers had seen them and determined they were harmless or failed to report something that should have been investigated to determine if harmless or not. So again, incompetence/shortcomings in procedures.
THAT'S the reason why they're trying so hard to push all the blame on the "evil" artists and "lawless" Turner Broadcasting - they want desperately for no one to notice that no matter what the explanation there was a big breakdown in how the city should have handled this.
To be fair, we've always had this. If you happen to be a Russian spy (or whatever) trying to steal state secrets or blow up bridges, I'm sure they wouldn't give you a jury of your peers. They never have. No, you're going to have one of those friendly counseling session with the bright lights and the big, mean, sargent [...] Practically speaking, nothing has changed.
I beg to differ. This sort of behavior is now established in law. That, I would say, is a huge difference from the oldschool wink-wink "interrogation" of suspected spies. Oh, and also your US citizenship is a moot point nowadays, your habeas corpus is removed regardless.
Yes. The idiots that put up the devices in the first place had to know that they would be inciting public panic. They knew darn well that after 9/11 the government cannot afford to get caught with its pants down, so they have to take every threat seriously. That includes panicked individuals calling in on tip lines reporting blinky signs in places that are not authorized. Personally I think those responsible for the advertising campaign should be fined 10x the amount the city spent, and the ones that installed the devices should have to spend a few weeks in a P.M.I.t.A. prison.
Yes, that response sounds entirely proportional and appropriate. And for the city workers who installed a traffic counter that was later incorrectly suspected to be an explosive device and detonated by the Boston Police Bomb Squad, those workers should have the exact same sentence right? They had to know that in this post-911 world ANYTHING with a wire, placed anywhere in the city could be a threat, even if the city itself ordered the placement of the device.
Or maybe, just maybe, you're a complete jackass who can't think for themselves and recognize that there were a lot more failures in these incidents than by the people who placed devices that were not bombs and were not intended to be interpretted as such. Even the legal definition of hoax device under MA law states that the device must be INTENDED by the placer to be interpretted as a threat in an effort to cause panic. No intent means no hoax, no matter how hard someone squints their eyes and declares something a bomb that doesn't look, function, or have anywhere near the same mass & volume as a bomb. And placement of something is not the only factor that should be used in determining if an object is an explosive, just being under a bridge does not make something a bomb, ask any homeless person. And let's say we give the bomb squad the benefit of the doubt and say the first 5 LED signs they found should have been treated like bombs, what about the next 5 that were identical, at what point do we establish a pattern of non-threat? Never? "Well, the first 99 devices we found all turned out to be harmless tape recorders afterall, but we're still treating number 100 as a live bomb because the others could have all been distractions from the real one." Yes, very plausible indeed. Putting them under bridges may not have been the smartest move by these artists, but to lay the blame 100% on them is rediculous. If we don't hold the people in power accountable for their failures as well as their successes then we only encourage incompetence.
As a resident of Boston, what I took away from this incident is that if you wanted to plant a real bomb somewhere in the city, you could easily distract the bomb squad for the entire day by leaving harmless electircal items under multiple bridges. Leaving you free to pull off a real act of terrorism while the police spend the ENTIRE DAY "defusing" the same harmless device over and over. Although you may have to wait a while since it will take them over 2 weeks to even notice that there are devices attached to bridges. Pathetic.
like getting them arrested. Without a sample of the essay it's hard to say what was "disturbing" about it, so when I say 'troubled student' I mean it as maybe the kid was just a bit depressed or felt trapped. That sort of thing happens in your teens, we've mostly all been there. Things get better, but a kid who's in a bad place for a time needs some understanding and someone to talk to, not legal costs and the fear of prison time or a criminal record that will bascially ruin their future. Schools have got to get back to a middle ground where problems are dealt with instead of simply calling the cops for everything. There's a reason that 18 is the age of majority in the law, so why are we holding these kids accountable to the strictest standards of the law when we (US society) openly admit that they are too imature to fully comprehend their own actions? I'm NOT saying when you're under 18 you're immune to the law, or we should let anything slide. But since we make the distinction already, it's a double standard to say "you're not 100% legally in charge of yourself in the eyes of the law yet, but we're going to treat you as if you were." WTF?
hen, given that settlement, they can go after bigger fish, like, say, Microsoft, and demand much larger sums of money, while saying that the industry (i.e. Apple, a prominent member in that industry) has already acknowledged their patent as being valid.
IANAL so someone please correct me, but usually in settlements isn't there a often a clause along the lines of 'the defendent denies any wrongdoing/validation, etc but will pay X amount to settle out of court'. We saw this in the Sony DRMed CDs cases didn't we? They settled but denied any wrongdoing. Why would Apple choose to settle in a way that validates the patent? If this company doesn't accept those terms then Apple might have to decide between taking one for the "team" and going to court or deiciding to settle for the $20 million and let everyone else figure out how to escape the lawsuits that will follow from this backhanded validation of the patent.
Slashdot Mirror
First off, I responded instead of modding him down, making your chastising of me rather unnecessary, no? I chose to respond specifically because, as I stated, his logic was sound but the premise incorrect, so I sought to correct that premise.
Secondly, it *is* appropriate to mod someone down when they have posted something that is technically incorrect, offers no particular insight because it is incorrect, and has reached a mod level of 4 or 5. This helps to separate the chaff from the wheat in the discussion. Many people browse at 4+ to save time and see what other users have agreed are the better posts in the thread, which means that some users are going to mod posts down as well as up in determining which are "best".
This isn't kindergarten, everyone doesn't get an A, we aren't all right all the time. I agree with you that posts should not be modded down for disagreeing with opinions or for petty reasons. However when a post is factually incorrect and we learn nothing by the poster's misinformation (OTOH sometimes it is useful to leave a bad post up so others can demonstrate why it is wrong) then there's really nothing wrong with modding it down.
If there were a thread discussing physics and someone was just using incorrect math to make their point, should we leave that at +5 insightful?
The oblig Back to the Future reference: "You mean you have to use your hands? That's a baby's toy."
Bartender? Scotch please, on my tab.
And for the true regular at the bar: [Raises index finger at bartender]
Oh but I forgot, it's "on the internets" so it's somehow novel and nonobvious.
Notice how all the tenses used in the summary and article are present tense? Except the prototype doesn't do most of the things the article so glowingly describes. The only hint is the "ready for testing in 5 years." And even that is about as weak an assertion as one can make - not production, not deployment, not evaluation, but testing in FIVE years.
I build military bots, and I love this concept, I've even seen the current prototype. This is something we need and I wholly support the effort but this press release is pure marketing. The current prototype can't walk, and as far as I could tell it can't even stand yet, the prototype has large wheels where the 'knees' are currently.
I'm sure this story is a calculated attempt to get development money, and that's good, but it's couched in terms that make it sound like the technology is ready to go, which it's not. Five years is a long time, expect lots of program and design changes between now and then, and depending on politics (i.e. military funding) it may get scrapped entirely.
You're the dolt, but thanks for falling victim to your own logic. There are two parts to your probability estimation, it's called Risk Management. We assign weights to the outcomes as well as their probabilities. So while it may be unlikely that event A happens, if the failure is catastrophic then we assign it a higher weight in determining a response. So it's more likely google will cause you some harm by invading your privacy, but the harm is likely to be minor. Whereas it *may* (and I'll get to this in a moment) be less likely that the government causes you some harm through an invasion of privacy, the potential harm is many times greater, thus it is to be avoided.
In addition one must consider the scale of the two entities here, one is a corporation that can only collect information on you if you interact with it in some way. If you don't use google or google products then you are many many times less likely to even be in their databases. This is not so with the government, participation with them is MANDATORY. You must register as a citizen, pay taxes (income, sales, property, etc), as well as licensing for various activities like driving or owning a gun. So we see that google's footprint in your daily life is tiny compared to the government which you come into contact with every day in many many ways. Additionally government data is shared among many institutions and affects everything from your ability to vote, to holding a job, being allowed to drive or travel, or even in some cases it can affect one's ability to live in certain areas. Merely a few examples of how a government record can affect one's day to day life much more profoundly than data residing on google servers.
The government also is not a static entity, and history has taught us time and again throughout all cultures that unchecked a government will strive to increase its own power and control over a populace. While recent US administrations may have been "nice" there is no guarantee that future ones will continue to respect the rights of the people. The point is that the government has the TOOLS the MEANS and the MANPOWER to affect ones life in many more ways, at many more places, and with much greater effect than anything google could ever hope to achieve short of google becoming a government-sized entity in and of itself.
Note that I am NOT saying the sky is falling here. Interesting that your reaction to people arguing against your baseless claims is for you to respond that we are UFO nuts who are afraid of sharks. Wow, great fucking logic. I am NOT afraid of some stupid Hollywood men in black scenario, or some shadowy CIA agent targeting me as the fall-guy for some elaborate government scheme. It doesn't have to be that nefarious or complicated or unlikely an event for the government to completely mess up one's life. Want some day to day examples? How about the TSA no-fly list. How many innocent civilians are restricted from flying, or at the very least must undergo hours of interrogations every time they want to travel simply because their name or birth date is *similar* to some suspected terrorist name on the list. This happens hundreds of times every day across the country. Similar lists are also coming into use, like no-sell lists for sensitive equipment or chemicals/fertilizers, or even one state recently (can't recall which) that proposed a no-gun-sale list. All of these lists lack any sort of oversight committee that provides a way for ordinary citizens to have the information corrected or their names removed after presenting evidence that they aren't terrorists. And in the case of the no-gun sale list there was no due process for having one's name placed on the list! That means that someone's second amendment rights could be removed without due process. So people are stuck with large inconveniences or just plain can't use those services. That's just one example. How about an unpaid traffic ticket? Or lost vehicle registration renewal? Just this month my girlfriend's brother was in an minor accident and the respo
Why do I have a feeling this woman wouldn't give a damn at all about this unless she's afraid her landlord is going to find out she broke the lease terms by having a cat?
:)
Sort of the inverse of cui bono, no?
i might worry a whole HELL of a lot more about what google is doing with my privacy than the usa
What a load of crap. Call me when google has armed agents in every town in America with the ability to arrest any citizen and detain them for long periods of time, possibly indefinitely after a trial at which google provides the judge, arguments, and laws. THAT is the difference between a private corporation invading your privacy and the government invading your privacy. The government wields force, deadly if desired, against citizens, a private company does not. Yes, there are many shades of grey to this, but the fact remains, one of google's representatives is not allowed, and will not, draw a gun and shoot you because they felt threatened by you; the agents of the government, however, have no problem doing so.
The invasion of privacy and the data collected by it may harm you in either case, but since we as a nation grant the government a monopoly on the use of deadly force (as well as imprisonment), it IS a bigger problem when the government abuses its powers. So yes, it's a double standard, but for good reason.
Here's an oldschool fax machine DOS prank that should at least inconvenience them as much as they have you. There's a good chance the company has a fax machine, and since they're a business you should be able to get ahold of that number very easily. Worst case someone may need to pose as a prospective IT hire and get the fax number in order to "send in your resume".
:)
Once you have the fax number just put together about 6 or 7 pages of whatever you like within reason and the bounds of law (i.e. don't send death threats or pornographic images), usually something inane and anonymous, perhaps lolcatz pictures. Tape all the sheets together end-to-end then insert into your fax machine, once the first part of the now super-length page comes through, loop the top around and tape it together, forming a nice infinite paper loop in the fax machine. Let this send all day if you like. On their end it will either eat all their paper, toner, or at the very least render the fax machine unusable!
Important! You obviously want to remain anonymous with this "fax" so be sure to prepend *67 to the fax number, this is the command to block caller ID.
Enjoy!
Hahaha, thanks for the link, too bad to see that site has been moved to a regular webserver. I'm not sure that the word 'evolution' could be applied to either my terrible idea or theirs, except perhaps in the invocation of a Darwin award. ;)
Also another poster pointed out the experiment to implant magnets in fingertips to detect elector-magnetic fields, which is also very close. Nothing new under the sun I guess, including where the sun don't shine!
I *really* hope no one else has thought of that.
The ISPs have largely brought this problem on themselves. If only they actually provided the service that they claim to provide then this wouldn't be an issue. Instead of upgrading networks to fiber (for which telcos have received *many* billions-with-a-B of US taxpayer funds to do, and largely haven't) and other infrastructure improvements they have dragged their feet, taken profit when they should have rolled money back into upgrades, and basically lied the whole time about what the service is really capable of. The fact that in the background the infrastructure can't actually handle every subscriber using the pipes to the amount advertised is not the fault of consumers expecting too much, it's wholesale bait and switch!
Look, if you sell someone a car and tell them it gets 1000 mpg, but in reality this is only achievable when the car is pushed, don't be surprised when they call you out for fraud when it doesn't perform as advertised.
In my opinion these state-sanction monopolies need to be checked hard, and held accountable for every single dollar given them for fiber upgrades that have never materialized despite huge budget and schedule overruns.
No, this is about Intel letting OLPC do the groundwork to prove the concept, then muscling in when it's time to sell product.
I agree with a couple other posts that suggest it may just be your work environment that needs a change, not so much the work you do. Think about it this way, you've already spent most of your career in IT, learning tricks of the trade, people skills for IT interactions, and generally improving your skillset. Understandably work is work and not play, but there are very few jobs indeed where that isn't true most of the time.
;)
However, I don't think changing careers entirely late in the game is going to make things any more fun, or any easier. You'll have to start over learning new job skills, the pecking order within not only that office, but that career. Basically you'll be starting over in a lot of ways, which means playing catch-up and probably even less fun. Of course, I am assuming you'd still choose a new career in something you're at least familiar with, or related to IT, but there will be differences to relearn nonetheless.
Try a change of scene first, maybe a small startup is what you need, a close-knit group working to a focused goal, generally less corporate atmosphere, maybe interesting office culture. Never been in a startup myself, but if the anecdotes we hear from silicon valley from time to time are true then that sounds like the kind of environment where work could be intense but fun for the last few years of your career. Although the retirement benefits could go either way, you could retire from a google, or from a dotcom bust special. Good luck.
THAT'S the reason why they're trying so hard to push all the blame on the "evil" artists and "lawless" Turner Broadcasting - they want desperately for no one to notice that no matter what the explanation there was a big breakdown in how the city should have handled this.
Or maybe, just maybe, you're a complete jackass who can't think for themselves and recognize that there were a lot more failures in these incidents than by the people who placed devices that were not bombs and were not intended to be interpretted as such. Even the legal definition of hoax device under MA law states that the device must be INTENDED by the placer to be interpretted as a threat in an effort to cause panic. No intent means no hoax, no matter how hard someone squints their eyes and declares something a bomb that doesn't look, function, or have anywhere near the same mass & volume as a bomb. And placement of something is not the only factor that should be used in determining if an object is an explosive, just being under a bridge does not make something a bomb, ask any homeless person. And let's say we give the bomb squad the benefit of the doubt and say the first 5 LED signs they found should have been treated like bombs, what about the next 5 that were identical, at what point do we establish a pattern of non-threat? Never? "Well, the first 99 devices we found all turned out to be harmless tape recorders afterall, but we're still treating number 100 as a live bomb because the others could have all been distractions from the real one." Yes, very plausible indeed. Putting them under bridges may not have been the smartest move by these artists, but to lay the blame 100% on them is rediculous. If we don't hold the people in power accountable for their failures as well as their successes then we only encourage incompetence.
As a resident of Boston, what I took away from this incident is that if you wanted to plant a real bomb somewhere in the city, you could easily distract the bomb squad for the entire day by leaving harmless electircal items under multiple bridges. Leaving you free to pull off a real act of terrorism while the police spend the ENTIRE DAY "defusing" the same harmless device over and over. Although you may have to wait a while since it will take them over 2 weeks to even notice that there are devices attached to bridges. Pathetic.
like getting them arrested. Without a sample of the essay it's hard to say what was "disturbing" about it, so when I say 'troubled student' I mean it as maybe the kid was just a bit depressed or felt trapped. That sort of thing happens in your teens, we've mostly all been there. Things get better, but a kid who's in a bad place for a time needs some understanding and someone to talk to, not legal costs and the fear of prison time or a criminal record that will bascially ruin their future. Schools have got to get back to a middle ground where problems are dealt with instead of simply calling the cops for everything. There's a reason that 18 is the age of majority in the law, so why are we holding these kids accountable to the strictest standards of the law when we (US society) openly admit that they are too imature to fully comprehend their own actions? I'm NOT saying when you're under 18 you're immune to the law, or we should let anything slide. But since we make the distinction already, it's a double standard to say "you're not 100% legally in charge of yourself in the eyes of the law yet, but we're going to treat you as if you were." WTF?
Mod: +1 Revenge is Sweet. Way to cut down a snide comment with the facts! :)