Know much about electricity and it's units of measure?
We didn't think so, so it's a silly question to even ask if you have any grasp at all of physics and the potential that this research holds.
Now, go troll somewhere else. Fox News would be a good start.
RTFA, folks. Google is far, far from posing a threat to the wireless carriers. VOIP over Wi-Fi is one thing, but VOIP over 3G wireless (or whatever) is something else entirely, something that the actual carriers have the means, and certainly the motivation, to fuck with at will (as we have already seen). Unless/until Google starts putting up their own towers, there is nothing new here, at least nothing revolutionary or "game changing".
Not surprisingly, the tone of the responses reflects the usual/. MS haters vs MS fanboys argument. Few of the respondents seem to have recognized that what Bing is doing here represents an alarming trend. Not that they're the first to play pricing games on the web, to be sure, but their's may well be the most far reaching. Setting aside the tortured ethics of the whole "rebate" or "cash rewards" scam, fucking with someone just because they are known to pay attention and actually try to take advantage of such schemes (Bing cookie present) is slimy business practice, to say the least.
So..., you're saying that some kind of evil bureaucracy is being allowed to get between a patient and his or her doctor? And meddle in the healthcare decisions that are made by patient and doctor? Why, that's scandalous! We should protest such bureaucratic meddling and demand that our rights as patients be protected from same. Oh, wait...
One of the biggest reasons this country is falling apart? On his best night less than 1% of the country is watching his show. You give him way too much credit.
Agreed. The popularity of Beck and his ilk are just the symptom. The anti-intellectual movement that lets such entertainers hold such sway with their audience is the real problem.
Seriously; this look to government to protect one's self has gone too far.
Wrong, in this case. The government's "responsibility" to maintain flood control infrastructure is specifically excluded. If it was just a matter of the levees, and other pieces specifically built for flood control purposes, failing, there would be no case. The MRGO was built for another purpose entirely, and despite widespread warnings that it would lead to exactly the kind of disaster that befell New Orleans, it was built anyway. The damage it caused to natural barriers (the marshes and cypress groves) and the Corp's failure to maintain it properly were the proximate cause of the flood. Again, the MRGO is not a flood control feature, and therefore exempt from lawsuit. If anything, it is a flood "causing" feature and it was the Corp's failure to recognize and mitigate against this that caused the flooding.
...the package maintainers have agreed that the controversial policy will be tightened to require root authentication for trusted package installation.
Wow. Thank goodness those guys "discovered" that allowing non-root users to do dangerous things to the OS/application stack was a bad idea and "agreed" to lock it down. We might have had some serious problems there. (roll eyes)
WTF? How on gawds green earth did this happen in the first place?
If you don't let us watch everything that everyone does, the terrorists win. Oh, and so does "law and order". We're just protecting you. Keeping you safe from terrorists, violent criminals, non-violent criminals, politically undesirable persons and groups...
All that's going to do is make the "calls queued versus calls answered" stats for poor Raj and his pals in Bangalore look bad. You didn't really think that Comcast would actually try to answer all of those calls, did you?
We've been over this ground many times.
Document (as in "make sure the decision maker is aware of it") the need for an audit of software licenses. If they refuse to permit that, cover your ass as best you can and start looking for another job.
If they permit the audit, do it. If you come up short in the licenses-to-installed copies ratio, document that. If they refuse to mitigate (buy licenses or delete installations) cover your ass as best you can and look for another job.
It is your job to make the decision makers aware of the licensing terms, show them how the organization is or is not in compliance with those terms, and to educate them as to the consequences of failing to comply. If you are not allowed, at the very minimum, to do these things, rest assured that it will be you who is blamed when that willful negligence comes back to bite the organization. Cover your ass and get the documentation that shows you at least tried to get them to do the right thing.
Dear mods,
How is this "informative"? Unless you are a creationist or subscribe to the wholly un-scientific "intelligent design theory", there is no explanation other than evolution for a plant's having developed the remarkable ability to trigger a re-engineering of it's structure through a chemical feedback loop.
Depends on how 'liberal' the judge is. To think that liberals are no less likely to attempt to supress free speech is an act of youthfulness or naivete.
How about the Liberal President and his staff trying to stifle the free speech of Fox News?
Sigh...
OK, here it is again...
Fox News (sic) is free to say whatever they like. Pointing out that they are not really a news organization and that they are really more like the propaganda arm of the conservative wing of the Republican Party is in no way stifling that speech.
Really? When was the last time you heard of a "liberal" judge or federal prosecutor trying to stomp on free speech?
BTW, calendar check..., Tim Morrison (the moron who started all this nonsense) was appointed to his federal post of United States Attorney under the Bush (43) administration. So you're right - a right-wing appointed tool acting they way he did... not surprising in the least. Well, OK, there was one surprise. The subpoena was so ham-handed that I rather expected to see that he'd been one of those Regent University losers, so many of whom found their way, as political favors, into positions way above their skill, knowledge and abilities. But no, Attorney Morrison actually has something on his resume, including an education at a real university. Go figure.
First of all, don't ask them what they want to see. They almost certainly don't have the insight required to even begin to ask meaningful questions. Save yourself the work of producing meaningless output.
Uptime is nice, but there's not much to get excited about when it's always the same high percentage.:) Surely you have security measures in place to repel intrusions. Knock up some reports from the output of your HIDS/NIDS.
Do regular updates to your OS/applications? Document it, even it's just output from yum (or whatever), and put it into a report.
Backups? Report the number files/bytes backed up.
Sure, all this stuff is probably automated, but it represents work that you did to make it so. There is value in that work and those numbers are quite often the only way you'll have to show that.
Mod parent down, please.
While all of the points made therein are true, the inference, that one can always depend on a corded phone and a pots line, is false. Last fall, here in Houston in the days (weeks, in some cases) following Hurricane Ike, man POTS customers learned this first-hand. The reasons for the failure of POTS lines were several:
Wind and/or wind-blown debris took down overheard lines
Rain (flooding) damaged underground lines and infrastructure
Utility power failed, first taking out battery powered distribution equipment and then when the CO's generators ran out of fuel, everything connected to that CO went dark.
Perhaps more importantly, most calls for help did nothing more than tie up already overloaded emergency services call-takes and dispatchers who, for several of the early hours of the storm could only inform the callers that emergency services were not responding until conditions were safe enough.
Now, granted, this is an extreme case, but I should point out that my cell phone worked throughout the event. The carrier's network suffered from congestion for a while, until they got the word out that texting would be a more reliable away to contact those one needed to contact. The analog phone line has it's place, but it is, in most cases, not the panacea the parent would have us believe.
...every study says "pirates" spend more on music than anybody.
Citation, please.
Look, I hate RIAA and it's members as much as anybody, and they are "lying bastards", but let's not muddy the waters with hyperbole and unsupported claims.
Making music--good music--takes time and resources. Time that you can't really make money on, and instruments and (nowadays) computer equipment that is not free. Unless you sell the music you're essentially losing money, in most situations. And no matter what some slashdotters CLAIM, yes, many people will not buy albums at all just because they can get them off soulseek or bittorrent or, god forbid, limewire.
Rubbish. Utter and uninformed rubbish. Among the qualities that make a given piece of music, or a particular performance of a piece of music, "good", the technology stack is only a small part. It most certainly does not take take a raft of "instruments and... computer equipment..." to make good music. One of the most stirring performances I ever witnessed was the appearance by Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox on the old Arsenio Hall show. Dave's guitar was the only "instrument" that cost any money at all, but the mastery displayed by the two artists that day was one of those rare magical moments that anyone involved in the performance and/or production of music knows so well; that chills-down-your-spine electrifying experience when it all comes together so perfectly and everyone in the room feels it. It wasn't the technology. One of the most powerful musical recordings I own is Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue". When that recording was made, over fifty years ago, they used then-state-of-the-art technology, which is to say "crude and simple technology" by today's standards. Nevertheless, "Kind of Blue" is still widely regarded as one of the greatest jazz recordings of all time. Recording technology that is far superior to that used to make those recordings is within financial reach of almost anyone. What is nowhere nearly so readily available, alas, is the mastery of the artistic and technological domains, both of which are required to make "good" recorded music. I hesitate to beat the "mp3 format sucks" drum yet again, but I'm afraid I must. The prevalence of shitty sounding "product", to the extent that quality lossless recordings are all but unavailable, has reduced the value that recorded music has. It used to be that part of that value was the distribution medium. It did cost a lot of money to make a recording and get it "pressed" and distributed. No more. People won't buy recorded music unless they see enough value in it. DRM is an attempt to artificially increase the "value" of a particular "copy" of a recording. The market is demonstrating, with alarming efficiency, that it will not tolerate such manipulation.
If the recording "industry" is to survive, it needs to remake itself from the ground up. It needs to be about delivering a product that does offer enough value that people will pay something for it, even if that something is only a token amount that is calculated to provide the artists and engineers with enough incentive to keep doing a good job. That rather leaves out most of the traditional music industry payroll. The role of manufacturing LP's, tapes, or CD's is gone. Distribution? Anyone with a web server can distribute music. There is arguably still a role for the "A&R" people, but it is going to be vastly different too. The upshot is that music should cost the consumer a lot less than it does now, and that the artists, engineers, and producers should get the lion's share of the proceeds because it is they who are now producing the only thing of significant value.
...and perhaps a few loud townhall meetings were involved (both of which, incidentally, you can't do at either the US House or Senate).
Ahem..., kept up on recent events in the House much? Let's just say that for certain factions, those feeling a little "challenged", decorum ain't what it used to be.
As for TFA, it is indeed startlingly short on detail and context that might have made the story more meaningful. If the elected officials actually suffered from harassment, as opposed to civil discourse that legitimately challenged their actions, it is a shame that they quit. If that's what happens it means the system is more broken than if they had only been guilty of corruption.
Yeah... We've got the greatest health care system, I mean Intertube system in the world. The U.S. telecom companies should be who we look to for guidance on how to move forward in deploying broadband so that everyone has a choice. Maybe even think about giving those companies some kind of financial incentive to expand their networks.
I mean, it worked before, didn't it?
Oh, wait...
"Presumably either the ideas leaking in through an unfiltered Internet are not reaching a large enough proportion of the population, or the ideas are not expected to take hold in enough people's minds to reach a tipping point that causes a problem for the ruling party."
Comrade Minister of People's Internet Service Provider: "Comrade Minister of Enforcement of Proper Thinking, I am pleased to announce that Great Firewall 3.0 is now in place and operational. "
Comrade Minister of Enforcement of Proper Thinking: Comrade Minister of People's Internet Service Provider, this is a glorious accomplishment. We can now prevent all manner of dangerous information from reaching the people and disrupting our peace and prosperity. But..., you have blocked my access to RedTube. I can no longer perform my research into the disgusting sex practices of the Western Imperialist dogs.
Comrade Minister of People's Internet Service Provider: "Dude, have you never heard of UltraSurf?"
Nah, that would just make too much, you know, sense.
Besides, the notion that the integrity of our elections, the most fundamental Constitutional tools by which the citizenry may decide how to govern themselves, should be sacrosanct and guarded against corruption at all costs..., well that's just crazy talk.
I jest, but only in part. Even if our elections are clean, those we elect often are not, owing their primary allegiances to those who gave them the money required to get elected. The corruption of our government by those interests who are not the electorate, namely powerful corporations, is a grave problem, but one best suited for another forum. Suffice to say, it matters little if the voting machine is rigged when the rigger could just easily buy the influence he needs from whomever is in office.
You are quite right, of course, about the behavior of a valve amplifier as it reaches it's limits, but that's not the point I was making. I was talking about a user interface (a knob) that obeys my commands, regardless of the sonic effects that it may judge I ought not to suffer. Linux sound systems are far, far away from that simple elegance, reliability, and tractability. Don't get me wrong, much of my audio collection lives on and is delivered by an Ubuntu box, but between Amarok and the cable going to my amp, things are mess. Why?
Slashdot Mirror
Know much about electricity and it's units of measure?
We didn't think so, so it's a silly question to even ask if you have any grasp at all of physics and the potential that this research holds.
Now, go troll somewhere else. Fox News would be a good start.
RTFA, folks. Google is far, far from posing a threat to the wireless carriers. VOIP over Wi-Fi is one thing, but VOIP over 3G wireless (or whatever) is something else entirely, something that the actual carriers have the means, and certainly the motivation, to fuck with at will (as we have already seen). Unless/until Google starts putting up their own towers, there is nothing new here, at least nothing revolutionary or "game changing".
Not surprisingly, the tone of the responses reflects the usual /. MS haters vs MS fanboys argument. Few of the respondents seem to have recognized that what Bing is doing here represents an alarming trend. Not that they're the first to play pricing games on the web, to be sure, but their's may well be the most far reaching. Setting aside the tortured ethics of the whole "rebate" or "cash rewards" scam, fucking with someone just because they are known to pay attention and actually try to take advantage of such schemes (Bing cookie present) is slimy business practice, to say the least.
Remember how Virginia's health records were compromised earlier this year?
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/05/1232240
Sounds like systemic ineptitude which is why I'm really looking forward to more government involvement in health care!
Yeah, right. Because the private sector has done such a good job of protecting our privacy, banking info, etc.
Please..., go troll somewhere else.
So..., you're saying that some kind of evil bureaucracy is being allowed to get between a patient and his or her doctor? And meddle in the healthcare decisions that are made by patient and doctor? Why, that's scandalous! We should protest such bureaucratic meddling and demand that our rights as patients be protected from same.
Oh, wait...
One of the biggest reasons this country is falling apart? On his best night less than 1% of the country is watching his show. You give him way too much credit.
Agreed. The popularity of Beck and his ilk are just the symptom. The anti-intellectual movement that lets such entertainers hold such sway with their audience is the real problem.
Microsoft Denies It Deliberately Built Backdoor Into Windows 7
Seriously; this look to government to protect one's self has gone too far.
Wrong, in this case. The government's "responsibility" to maintain flood control infrastructure is specifically excluded. If it was just a matter of the levees, and other pieces specifically built for flood control purposes, failing, there would be no case. The MRGO was built for another purpose entirely, and despite widespread warnings that it would lead to exactly the kind of disaster that befell New Orleans, it was built anyway. The damage it caused to natural barriers (the marshes and cypress groves) and the Corp's failure to maintain it properly were the proximate cause of the flood. Again, the MRGO is not a flood control feature, and therefore exempt from lawsuit. If anything, it is a flood "causing" feature and it was the Corp's failure to recognize and mitigate against this that caused the flooding.
...the package maintainers have agreed that the controversial policy will be tightened to require root authentication for trusted package installation.
Wow. Thank goodness those guys "discovered" that allowing non-root users to do dangerous things to the OS/application stack was a bad idea and "agreed" to lock it down. We might have had some serious problems there. (roll eyes)
WTF? How on gawds green earth did this happen in the first place?
If you don't let us watch everything that everyone does, the terrorists win. Oh, and so does "law and order". We're just protecting you. Keeping you safe from terrorists, violent criminals, non-violent criminals, politically undesirable persons and groups...
Ben Franklin is spinning in his grave for sure.
All that's going to do is make the "calls queued versus calls answered" stats for poor Raj and his pals in Bangalore look bad. You didn't really think that Comcast would actually try to answer all of those calls, did you?
We've been over this ground many times.
Document (as in "make sure the decision maker is aware of it") the need for an audit of software licenses. If they refuse to permit that, cover your ass as best you can and start looking for another job.
If they permit the audit, do it. If you come up short in the licenses-to-installed copies ratio, document that. If they refuse to mitigate (buy licenses or delete installations) cover your ass as best you can and look for another job.
It is your job to make the decision makers aware of the licensing terms, show them how the organization is or is not in compliance with those terms, and to educate them as to the consequences of failing to comply. If you are not allowed, at the very minimum, to do these things, rest assured that it will be you who is blamed when that willful negligence comes back to bite the organization. Cover your ass and get the documentation that shows you at least tried to get them to do the right thing.
Dear mods,
How is this "informative"? Unless you are a creationist or subscribe to the wholly un-scientific "intelligent design theory", there is no explanation other than evolution for a plant's having developed the remarkable ability to trigger a re-engineering of it's structure through a chemical feedback loop.
Depends on how 'liberal' the judge is. To think that liberals are no less likely to attempt to supress free speech is an act of youthfulness or naivete.
Citation, please.
(crickets)
How about the Liberal President and his staff trying to stifle the free speech of Fox News?
Sigh...
OK, here it is again...
Fox News (sic) is free to say whatever they like. Pointing out that they are not really a news organization and that they are really more like the propaganda arm of the conservative wing of the Republican Party is in no way stifling that speech.
Really? When was the last time you heard of a "liberal" judge or federal prosecutor trying to stomp on free speech?
BTW, calendar check..., Tim Morrison (the moron who started all this nonsense) was appointed to his federal post of United States Attorney under the Bush (43) administration. So you're right - a right-wing appointed tool acting they way he did... not surprising in the least. Well, OK, there was one surprise. The subpoena was so ham-handed that I rather expected to see that he'd been one of those Regent University losers, so many of whom found their way, as political favors, into positions way above their skill, knowledge and abilities. But no, Attorney Morrison actually has something on his resume, including an education at a real university. Go figure.
First of all, don't ask them what they want to see. They almost certainly don't have the insight required to even begin to ask meaningful questions. Save yourself the work of producing meaningless output. :) Surely you have security measures in place to repel intrusions. Knock up some reports from the output of your HIDS/NIDS.
Uptime is nice, but there's not much to get excited about when it's always the same high percentage.
Do regular updates to your OS/applications? Document it, even it's just output from yum (or whatever), and put it into a report.
Backups? Report the number files/bytes backed up.
Sure, all this stuff is probably automated, but it represents work that you did to make it so. There is value in that work and those numbers are quite often the only way you'll have to show that.
While all of the points made therein are true, the inference, that one can always depend on a corded phone and a pots line, is false. Last fall, here in Houston in the days (weeks, in some cases) following Hurricane Ike, man POTS customers learned this first-hand. The reasons for the failure of POTS lines were several: Wind and/or wind-blown debris took down overheard lines Rain (flooding) damaged underground lines and infrastructure Utility power failed, first taking out battery powered distribution equipment and then when the CO's generators ran out of fuel, everything connected to that CO went dark.
Perhaps more importantly, most calls for help did nothing more than tie up already overloaded emergency services call-takes and dispatchers who, for several of the early hours of the storm could only inform the callers that emergency services were not responding until conditions were safe enough.
Now, granted, this is an extreme case, but I should point out that my cell phone worked throughout the event. The carrier's network suffered from congestion for a while, until they got the word out that texting would be a more reliable away to contact those one needed to contact. The analog phone line has it's place, but it is, in most cases, not the panacea the parent would have us believe.
Citation, please.
Look, I hate RIAA and it's members as much as anybody, and they are "lying bastards", but let's not muddy the waters with hyperbole and unsupported claims.
>
Making music--good music--takes time and resources. Time that you can't really make money on, and instruments and (nowadays) computer equipment that is not free. Unless you sell the music you're essentially losing money, in most situations. And no matter what some slashdotters CLAIM, yes, many people will not buy albums at all just because they can get them off soulseek or bittorrent or, god forbid, limewire.
Rubbish. Utter and uninformed rubbish. Among the qualities that make a given piece of music, or a particular performance of a piece of music, "good", the technology stack is only a small part. It most certainly does not take take a raft of "instruments and... computer equipment..." to make good music. One of the most stirring performances I ever witnessed was the appearance by Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox on the old Arsenio Hall show. Dave's guitar was the only "instrument" that cost any money at all, but the mastery displayed by the two artists that day was one of those rare magical moments that anyone involved in the performance and/or production of music knows so well; that chills-down-your-spine electrifying experience when it all comes together so perfectly and everyone in the room feels it. It wasn't the technology. One of the most powerful musical recordings I own is Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue". When that recording was made, over fifty years ago, they used then-state-of-the-art technology, which is to say "crude and simple technology" by today's standards. Nevertheless, "Kind of Blue" is still widely regarded as one of the greatest jazz recordings of all time. Recording technology that is far superior to that used to make those recordings is within financial reach of almost anyone. What is nowhere nearly so readily available, alas, is the mastery of the artistic and technological domains, both of which are required to make "good" recorded music. I hesitate to beat the "mp3 format sucks" drum yet again, but I'm afraid I must. The prevalence of shitty sounding "product", to the extent that quality lossless recordings are all but unavailable, has reduced the value that recorded music has. It used to be that part of that value was the distribution medium. It did cost a lot of money to make a recording and get it "pressed" and distributed. No more. People won't buy recorded music unless they see enough value in it. DRM is an attempt to artificially increase the "value" of a particular "copy" of a recording. The market is demonstrating, with alarming efficiency, that it will not tolerate such manipulation.
If the recording "industry" is to survive, it needs to remake itself from the ground up. It needs to be about delivering a product that does offer enough value that people will pay something for it, even if that something is only a token amount that is calculated to provide the artists and engineers with enough incentive to keep doing a good job. That rather leaves out most of the traditional music industry payroll. The role of manufacturing LP's, tapes, or CD's is gone. Distribution? Anyone with a web server can distribute music. There is arguably still a role for the "A&R" people, but it is going to be vastly different too. The upshot is that music should cost the consumer a lot less than it does now, and that the artists, engineers, and producers should get the lion's share of the proceeds because it is they who are now producing the only thing of significant value.
...and perhaps a few loud townhall meetings were involved (both of which, incidentally, you can't do at either the US House or Senate).
Ahem..., kept up on recent events in the House much? Let's just say that for certain factions, those feeling a little "challenged", decorum ain't what it used to be.
As for TFA, it is indeed startlingly short on detail and context that might have made the story more meaningful. If the elected officials actually suffered from harassment, as opposed to civil discourse that legitimately challenged their actions, it is a shame that they quit. If that's what happens it means the system is more broken than if they had only been guilty of corruption.
Yeah... We've got the greatest health care system, I mean Intertube system in the world. The U.S. telecom companies should be who we look to for guidance on how to move forward in deploying broadband so that everyone has a choice. Maybe even think about giving those companies some kind of financial incentive to expand their networks.
I mean, it worked before, didn't it?
Oh, wait...
"Presumably either the ideas leaking in through an unfiltered Internet are not reaching a large enough proportion of the population, or the ideas are not expected to take hold in enough people's minds to reach a tipping point that causes a problem for the ruling party."
Comrade Minister of People's Internet Service Provider: "Comrade Minister of Enforcement of Proper Thinking, I am pleased to announce that Great Firewall 3.0 is now in place and operational. "
Comrade Minister of Enforcement of Proper Thinking: Comrade Minister of People's Internet Service Provider, this is a glorious accomplishment. We can now prevent all manner of dangerous information from reaching the people and disrupting our peace and prosperity. But..., you have blocked my access to RedTube. I can no longer perform my research into the disgusting sex practices of the Western Imperialist dogs.
Comrade Minister of People's Internet Service Provider: "Dude, have you never heard of UltraSurf?"
Nah, that would just make too much, you know, sense.
Besides, the notion that the integrity of our elections, the most fundamental Constitutional tools by which the citizenry may decide how to govern themselves, should be sacrosanct and guarded against corruption at all costs..., well that's just crazy talk.
I jest, but only in part. Even if our elections are clean, those we elect often are not, owing their primary allegiances to those who gave them the money required to get elected. The corruption of our government by those interests who are not the electorate, namely powerful corporations, is a grave problem, but one best suited for another forum. Suffice to say, it matters little if the voting machine is rigged when the rigger could just easily buy the influence he needs from whomever is in office.
You are quite right, of course, about the behavior of a valve amplifier as it reaches it's limits, but that's not the point I was making. I was talking about a user interface (a knob) that obeys my commands, regardless of the sonic effects that it may judge I ought not to suffer. Linux sound systems are far, far away from that simple elegance, reliability, and tractability. Don't get me wrong, much of my audio collection lives on and is delivered by an Ubuntu box, but between Amarok and the cable going to my amp, things are mess.
Why?