I read another article on this (possible on The Register), and one of the shortfalls of the project as it turned out (i.e. going further than expected) seemed to be the lack of battery power for the transponder for attempts at a longer journey.
I wonder how much a nicely paired up solar panel would upset the lift/weight balance on a high altitude balloon, and whether it would be able to charge the batteries well enough to power a transponder over a longer trip.
Whilst the auto update feature sort of makes sense (if you discount a malicious user working out how to auto-update an installed copy with their own code), I detest ads, possibly in common with the rest of the world. Ok, it is their revenue, but it's bad enough seeing them on pages, but having them eve more targetted???
Oh yes, and the autoupdate program (googleupdate.exe) still executes at startup even after Chrome is uninstalled. I know it's a beta, but that's just sloppy.
I am struggling to think of when I actually went to a cinema and saw a film and if so, what it was. I really cannot remember if I spent an inordinate amount of money getting in, then spent a small fortune getting a drink or sweets. Nope, still drawing a blank...
DVDs however are another matter. Barely a week went by without some sort of hiring going on. It's far more comfortable and relaxing to curl up on the sofa with fiancee and a beer and relax.
One point I will say is that during the Great Depression, movie audiences were also at a very large high. It was felt that the general population needed to escape from the reality of their lives for a short period of time and that movies provided that relief. With the way that the world is heading (rising oil prices etc), what is to say that people will also choose to spend a few hours a week safe in the womb of feel-good movies.
Maybe Disney will see a new market here and make films with even more schmaltzy endings...
Wars (or even conflicts) have always produced the greatest advances in technology. It is only natural that a race to be the first to conquer something be productive to both sides doing the racing. Both sodes advanced in leaps and bounds because of the space race and the accompanying cold war, but both sides paid a huge price for the one-up-manship.
The Russians one this battle, but ultimately lost the war thanks to the deeper pockets of the Americans. One could wonder what might have happened if the outcome had been reversed....
You need to be careful saying things like that. Apparently the UK has some of the best laws protecting privacy in the world, but we also have more CCTYV than any other nation, a higher percentage of people on a DNA database than any other nation and the government is more than happy to "share" this data with the US, despite having said laws about what companies or other people can see.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that this ID card thing that the UK is planning will allow private companies to buy parts of the data that are stored about any person on the register. How's that for privacy?
Face it, if they did chose something like a Nissan 350Z, they would at least have a car that could live up to the stunts. The Trans Am was woefully bad at going round corners (like most cars made for the US market) and only really became an icon thanks to Knight Rider. I agree though that a talking car is a bit passe now. Hell, my GPS talks to me!
Yes, we are all tired of channels re-hashing old "classics" (and I use the term with all the power of inverted commas), but we _keep_ watching them and paying good money to see them at the cinema. When people actually vote with their feet and refrain from going to see them, then maybe, just maybe, someone will have an original idea and manage to get it onto the screens. Heroes is a good example, as is 24. 24 is getting old now though, which is a shame as the first couple of series were quite good.
Go one step further... You, the governtment of a country that employs censorship, set up your own proxy and start spamming people in your own country about it. They log on to use it and, hey presto! You have their name, IP etc and can subtly keep an eye on what they are getting up to. After that, it's child's play to send out the heavy mob with the mini-van to go and collect the subversives.
Mind you, that's just being plain cynical. Surely no govertment would ever dream of doing something so sneaky or as bad as trying to entrap its own population so that it can quash people that think differently from the people in charge.
Didn't the Russians used to do a similar deal with all their export weapons systems and especially the avionics of the aircraft?
I seem to remember reading something about the export versions of the Mig 29 avionics software being deliberately downgraded for export so that the Russian/Soviet pilots would have the edge if the customer suddenly turned into an enemy.
I appreciate that this makes a lot of sense from the point of view of being suspicious of your clients when selling weapons, but it is interesting to see the US military/industrial/political complex doing something similar for, what one could argue as, capitalist reasons. It would require a real stretch of imagination to believe that the US did not trust it's biggest ally enough in this respect to give us the source code. We are about the only ones supporting them properly right now and I would hate to think that all that support went one way.
Which could be quite handy if you were planning on ambusing people... You could jam it in a hole in the wall at about neck height and then switch it on from round the corner when people came through.
When I first saw the headline, I was thinking that it was something that would display a pseudo 3D image that floats in the air, but even though Iw as disappointed when the site _eventually_ loaded, I have to admit that it is still pretty cool.
My only concern, and ultimately the only reason I won't buy one (hehehe like I could) is that it takes up too much space. I don't really have the space to put the projector as far back as it needs to be and those speakers.... I'd look like one of the little bad guys in HALO
How difficult it would be to move Hubble out of orbit and nudge it very, very slowly to the moon... I'm thinking that when/if we actually try and settle the moon as a halfway house to everywhere else, or a mining facility or something, then having a large telescope around the place would be quite handy.
It would certainly beat just scrapping it by putting it into the sea somewhere and it can't be that much more technically challenging than missing shipping lanes can it? (probably...). If you sent it slowly enough, then by the time it got there, the first settling missions to the moon might actually be ready to receive it.
Mind you, it'll be old by then but I suppose they can always use it for scrap or something.
Judging from the photo on the site, I'd say it was unlikely that you could fold the top screen underneath the bottom one. Notice how the guts of the laptop are contained under the lower screen. You'd have to have a very large hinged joint to do that and then you would be putting a lot more stress on that joint, not to mention leaving the top screen wide open for damage.
Second point. How many books would you normally carry around that weigh as much as a laptop? (Note: WinNT resource books don't qualify, but they are pretty much the same size and weight as a laptop. It's just tahat a laptop is more useful, even when it runs out of battery)
Connectors: That may well be the case. I stand corrected, even though I have had this happen to my laptop
Cracked screen: Again, true. However, with this laptop, you have two screens and no keyboard. If something gets trapped in the middle, there will be little or no give (as would be found in a normal laptop with the keys providing some suspension). I think this would lead to a higher than average incidence of screen crack/damage.
Holding: If you are going to be holding it with two hands the whole time, how are you going to write on it. If you assume that the weight is the same as a normal laptop, then when you have to write something, all the weight will have to be taken by the hand that doesn't write. Since laptops are heavy(ish) I think it would be easy to drop one. Also, one handed operation would put a fair bit of strain on the hinge, again, it's a point of failure that you would not normally find on a laptop.
Some of my points still stand. The whole thing is toy. I hate it when people bring out stuff like this. How long before the connectors fsck up and break? How long bfore you get a crack in the screen.
Also, if it is supposed to be book size, how can future models have a 15" diagonal screen on either side? It's going to be like holding a very expensive, breakable world atlas. Now that will be comfy won't it?
Laptops were there to be carted around because you need a computer on the move? You chose something that was small, light and just powerful enough to do what you needed.
That's the reason I still use my Thinkpad 760xl. It's tiny by modern standards, but it's rugged as h3ll and has survived two 4 foot drops.
Then we have the sort of laptop that execs use to show off with.... 17" screens, more memory than you can shake a stick at and all that jazz... They weigh a ton, last about 30 minutes on battery and spent all their life in the docking station. What's the point?
It's the same with this new laptop. How the hell are you going to find the space on a plane to use both screens? Or on a train. Yes, it's toy. Yes, it's shiny (and shiny is good) but it's got very little practical use as far as I am concerned.
And there was me thinking that a simple mechanical device would work.... I thought it was just electrical devices that didn't? You can't tell me that chemical devices wouldn't work either can you? How is the body supposed to work?
I think you'll find that a sawed off 12 guage would do wonders for Harry's protection and it would also work very well in a magical field.
What that Harry Potter kid needs is a large calibre handgun! I mean, he's got into so many scrapes with monsters, wizards and the like that he needs something that could give him more protection than a spell.
Someone tries to "disarm" you with a spell, shoot them in the leg. Cheif bad wizard killed your friend and taken you wand? Whip out your trusty Desert Eagle and land 7.44 magnum rounds into his chest from 20 feet. That should stop him. Alternatively, have a forward air controller and an A10 standing by. I'd like to see a wizard that could stand up to a load of Willy Pete with daisy cutter fuses.
Assume that the US (or Russia or China) founds a colony on Mars/the Moon. They will be in enclosed areas. Now think about the spread of a biohazardous agent in those areas.
We all know that agents like TB thrive in areas with a relatively high humidty and warmth (the lungs are a classic location) and we also know that there is a high occurence of TB among parts of society that live "in each other's pockets" including "down and outs". You have to assume that a space colony will have the latest in air recycling, but the fact that it will retain a lot of heat and moisture compared with Earth and the fact that there will be a lot of people living in a very small enclosed area with a lot of social interaction and you have a scenario where even the smallest bacterial/viral infection could cause a catastrophe.
In many ways it will be worse that on Earth because there will be no place to run to away from the infection. It will be like being stranded in Iowa with a plague victim. Physically able to run, but handcuffed to the infected person. Considering that only the US (and Europe and Japan to a lesser degree) have the finances to build on the moon, but that a lot more countries _very nearly_ have launch capability/technology, most of them with a grudge against the US and you have a scenario that I don't want to think about and I studied this sort of thing at university for four years.
Personally, I'd rather wait until world peace was at the door knocking, than set up a moonbase before I could defend it against _everything_.
As a Brit, we have had similar tragedies, but not to the extent that the US has. True, we have had Dunblane, but that was due to a lunatic with several unregistered firearms.
I _is_ interesting that the two people that the US is planning on letting run the country have chosen to tie the internet to teenage violence. Ok, so there is a possiblity that people who can't distinguish reality from games like Quake might get carried away, but there is a substantial chunk of evidence that shows that games of that nature actually aid reaction times and concentration. Who amongst us has sat down for a quick five minute game of AvP and stood up four hours later? I certainly have.
After a couple of hours playing Gran Turismo on the PSX my driving is pretty ropey, but if I sit down for an hour and talk with my friends before I drive, it isn't a problem. When I get in my car, It actually feels more responsive and I certainly notice more of what is happening around me. In some ways, I concentrate more on what I am doing simply because I _know_ it is not a game.
I totally disagree that the internet is to blame for violence and subversion. The internet simply _is_, it is the people that choose to use the information or can't handle that volume of information that are to blame. In some case, it may be the people that let them use it, but as it's free, who can say where to draw the line? I'm not going to.
How can you be sure that HavenCo/Sealand is not going to have the data it will carry compromised by organised crime in the same way that Sealand's passport and currency system was?
Do you also think that the venture will attract people who are willing to take this risk to retain their free speech or will it just attract people that Customs in Felixstowe will just find too tempting to pass up?
When I was lent this book (along with "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas) it was by a friend who was trying to educate me in the finer points of literature. The fact that my own book collection is extensive and I list 1984 and Brave New World as two of my favorite books was not lost on him. He just felt that I should read a book that he felt displayed several factors from our past and could quite well become our future.
It is, quite simply, a stunning book. It is very well written and held my interest to such a degree that I never once put it down the whole time I was reading it. I kept thinking back to a short story I read once as a child about a man in the future who was arrested for "walking" at night. No other reason. I could feel the same insanity in F 451.
Even though it is entirely fiction, I can feel the history in it. What is even more disturbing, is tat I can also feel the future in it. I have seen similar acts to book burning where people have been forced to destroy somrthing of extreme value just to survive and that sort of imagery really disturbs me.
I may work in IT, I may like driving at high speeds, but I LOVE books and I think that the idea of detroying them is abhorant. I will even drive slowly round the country just to experience the sounds and sights of nature. The fact that a future culture that is not too dissimilar to our own would actively stop us doing that, disturbs me greatly. When I see the parallels between F 451 and the way "outsiders" are treated in schools today (computers kiddies being top of the list), I wonder where it will all end.
Will todays "Nanny State" become tomorrows "Big Brother"? I hope not.
Yet another example of Microsoft sticking the boot in and happily allowing the "freedom of speech/expression" thing that, I beleive, America was founded on to fall by the wayside.
I would love to know exactly how Microsoft can claim to be the world's saviour (opening up computing to the masses etc) when all they really want is control.
I've worked as a contractor for several high profile Comms companies over here in the UK and all of them have similar messages on the logon screens. Most of the time, people just don't give a shed about it, but I know that it is possible for the admins to monitor who does what and goes where.
I didn't like it then, so I found a way around it. I still don't now, even though I'm at a different company now. I've just found my way around it... Thank fsck for the lax DHCP servers they have around here....
I know that the places I've worked here do have the ability to prosecute you based on the strength of the NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) that people have to sign when they start work and that the logon warning just gives a little more leverage so that if they had an axe to grind, they could really nail you. I know of people who've been out of the door quicker than a hamster on speed, with a couple of "helpers" to make sure he doesn't get "lost" or "forget" something on the way out.
Like I said before, I just work around things like that these days: If it's not obscure, it's too easy.
I would have to agree with this. As a contractor in the UK (shortly due to get a royal screwing from the Government over here), I've seen a lot of people in the industry take the P*** big time when it comes to timesheets and work.
I try to be as honest as I can and it is a point of honor that I have never taken a day off sick without being incapable of working and things of a similar nature. I hope that my employers recognise this and respect it, but I fear that there are too many people out there that take advantage of it.
It reminds me of a joke about the world's oldest man....
Slashdot Mirror
I read another article on this (possible on The Register), and one of the shortfalls of the project as it turned out (i.e. going further than expected) seemed to be the lack of battery power for the transponder for attempts at a longer journey.
I wonder how much a nicely paired up solar panel would upset the lift/weight balance on a high altitude balloon, and whether it would be able to charge the batteries well enough to power a transponder over a longer trip.
Is anyone else nauseated by this?
I mean, that add was like 30 seconds long if that and now I want to find somewhere dark to go and throw up in. The stationary cupboard maybe...
Doesn't this count as using child labour?
Whilst the auto update feature sort of makes sense (if you discount a malicious user working out how to auto-update an installed copy with their own code), I detest ads, possibly in common with the rest of the world. Ok, it is their revenue, but it's bad enough seeing them on pages, but having them eve more targetted???
Oh yes, and the autoupdate program (googleupdate.exe) still executes at startup even after Chrome is uninstalled. I know it's a beta, but that's just sloppy.
Or is it???
Good lord! Were there such things in 2007?
I am struggling to think of when I actually went to a cinema and saw a film and if so, what it was. I really cannot remember if I spent an inordinate amount of money getting in, then spent a small fortune getting a drink or sweets. Nope, still drawing a blank...
DVDs however are another matter. Barely a week went by without some sort of hiring going on. It's far more comfortable and relaxing to curl up on the sofa with fiancee and a beer and relax.
One point I will say is that during the Great Depression, movie audiences were also at a very large high. It was felt that the general population needed to escape from the reality of their lives for a short period of time and that movies provided that relief. With the way that the world is heading (rising oil prices etc), what is to say that people will also choose to spend a few hours a week safe in the womb of feel-good movies.
Maybe Disney will see a new market here and make films with even more schmaltzy endings...
Wars (or even conflicts) have always produced the greatest advances in technology. It is only natural that a race to be the first to conquer something be productive to both sides doing the racing. Both sodes advanced in leaps and bounds because of the space race and the accompanying cold war, but both sides paid a huge price for the one-up-manship.
The Russians one this battle, but ultimately lost the war thanks to the deeper pockets of the Americans. One could wonder what might have happened if the outcome had been reversed....
Pleaseanty thoughts?
You need to be careful saying things like that. Apparently the UK has some of the best laws protecting privacy in the world, but we also have more CCTYV than any other nation, a higher percentage of people on a DNA database than any other nation and the government is more than happy to "share" this data with the US, despite having said laws about what companies or other people can see.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that this ID card thing that the UK is planning will allow private companies to buy parts of the data that are stored about any person on the register. How's that for privacy?
Face it, if they did chose something like a Nissan 350Z, they would at least have a car that could live up to the stunts. The Trans Am was woefully bad at going round corners (like most cars made for the US market) and only really became an icon thanks to Knight Rider. I agree though that a talking car is a bit passe now. Hell, my GPS talks to me!
Yes, we are all tired of channels re-hashing old "classics" (and I use the term with all the power of inverted commas), but we _keep_ watching them and paying good money to see them at the cinema. When people actually vote with their feet and refrain from going to see them, then maybe, just maybe, someone will have an original idea and manage to get it onto the screens. Heroes is a good example, as is 24. 24 is getting old now though, which is a shame as the first couple of series were quite good.
Go one step further... You, the governtment of a country that employs censorship, set up your own proxy and start spamming people in your own country about it. They log on to use it and, hey presto! You have their name, IP etc and can subtly keep an eye on what they are getting up to. After that, it's child's play to send out the heavy mob with the mini-van to go and collect the subversives.
Mind you, that's just being plain cynical. Surely no govertment would ever dream of doing something so sneaky or as bad as trying to entrap its own population so that it can quash people that think differently from the people in charge.
Hang on...
Didn't the Russians used to do a similar deal with all their export weapons systems and especially the avionics of the aircraft?
I seem to remember reading something about the export versions of the Mig 29 avionics software being deliberately downgraded for export so that the Russian/Soviet pilots would have the edge if the customer suddenly turned into an enemy.
I appreciate that this makes a lot of sense from the point of view of being suspicious of your clients when selling weapons, but it is interesting to see the US military/industrial/political complex doing something similar for, what one could argue as, capitalist reasons. It would require a real stretch of imagination to believe that the US did not trust it's biggest ally enough in this respect to give us the source code. We are about the only ones supporting them properly right now and I would hate to think that all that support went one way.
Oh, hang on...
Which could be quite handy if you were planning on ambusing people... You could jam it in a hole in the wall at about neck height and then switch it on from round the corner when people came through.
Hours of fun to be had with that I think.
When I first saw the headline, I was thinking that it was something that would display a pseudo 3D image that floats in the air, but even though Iw as disappointed when the site _eventually_ loaded, I have to admit that it is still pretty cool.
My only concern, and ultimately the only reason I won't buy one (hehehe like I could) is that it takes up too much space. I don't really have the space to put the projector as far back as it needs to be and those speakers.... I'd look like one of the little bad guys in HALO
How difficult it would be to move Hubble out of orbit and nudge it very, very slowly to the moon... I'm thinking that when/if we actually try and settle the moon as a halfway house to everywhere else, or a mining facility or something, then having a large telescope around the place would be quite handy.
It would certainly beat just scrapping it by putting it into the sea somewhere and it can't be that much more technically challenging than missing shipping lanes can it? (probably...). If you sent it slowly enough, then by the time it got there, the first settling missions to the moon might actually be ready to receive it.
Mind you, it'll be old by then but I suppose they can always use it for scrap or something.
Judging from the photo on the site, I'd say it was unlikely that you could fold the top screen underneath the bottom one. Notice how the guts of the laptop are contained under the lower screen. You'd have to have a very large hinged joint to do that and then you would be putting a lot more stress on that joint, not to mention leaving the top screen wide open for damage.
Second point. How many books would you normally carry around that weigh as much as a laptop? (Note: WinNT resource books don't qualify, but they are pretty much the same size and weight as a laptop. It's just tahat a laptop is more useful, even when it runs out of battery)
I beg to differ on some of your counterpoints.
Connectors: That may well be the case. I stand corrected, even though I have had this happen to my laptop
Cracked screen: Again, true. However, with this laptop, you have two screens and no keyboard. If something gets trapped in the middle, there will be little or no give (as would be found in a normal laptop with the keys providing some suspension). I think this would lead to a higher than average incidence of screen crack/damage.
Holding: If you are going to be holding it with two hands the whole time, how are you going to write on it. If you assume that the weight is the same as a normal laptop, then when you have to write something, all the weight will have to be taken by the hand that doesn't write. Since laptops are heavy(ish) I think it would be easy to drop one. Also, one handed operation would put a fair bit of strain on the hinge, again, it's a point of failure that you would not normally find on a laptop.
Are these reasons any better?
Some of my points still stand. The whole thing is toy. I hate it when people bring out stuff like this. How long before the connectors fsck up and break? How long bfore you get a crack in the screen.
Also, if it is supposed to be book size, how can future models have a 15" diagonal screen on either side? It's going to be like holding a very expensive, breakable world atlas. Now that will be comfy won't it?
Laptops were there to be carted around because you need a computer on the move? You chose something that was small, light and just powerful enough to do what you needed.
That's the reason I still use my Thinkpad 760xl. It's tiny by modern standards, but it's rugged as h3ll and has survived two 4 foot drops.
Then we have the sort of laptop that execs use to show off with.... 17" screens, more memory than you can shake a stick at and all that jazz... They weigh a ton, last about 30 minutes on battery and spent all their life in the docking station. What's the point?
It's the same with this new laptop. How the hell are you going to find the space on a plane to use both screens? Or on a train. Yes, it's toy. Yes, it's shiny (and shiny is good) but it's got very little practical use as far as I am concerned.
And there was me thinking that a simple mechanical device would work.... I thought it was just electrical devices that didn't? You can't tell me that chemical devices wouldn't work either can you? How is the body supposed to work?
I think you'll find that a sawed off 12 guage would do wonders for Harry's protection and it would also work very well in a magical field.
Hachiman
What that Harry Potter kid needs is a large calibre handgun! I mean, he's got into so many scrapes with monsters, wizards and the like that he needs something that could give him more protection than a spell.
.44 magnum rounds into his chest from 20 feet. That should stop him. Alternatively, have a forward air controller and an A10 standing by. I'd like to see a wizard that could stand up to a load of Willy Pete with daisy cutter fuses.
Someone tries to "disarm" you with a spell, shoot them in the leg. Cheif bad wizard killed your friend and taken you wand? Whip out your trusty Desert Eagle and land 7
Assume that the US (or Russia or China) founds a colony on Mars/the Moon. They will be in enclosed areas. Now think about the spread of a biohazardous agent in those areas.
We all know that agents like TB thrive in areas with a relatively high humidty and warmth (the lungs are a classic location) and we also know that there is a high occurence of TB among parts of society that live "in each other's pockets" including "down and outs". You have to assume that a space colony will have the latest in air recycling, but the fact that it will retain a lot of heat and moisture compared with Earth and the fact that there will be a lot of people living in a very small enclosed area with a lot of social interaction and you have a scenario where even the smallest bacterial/viral infection could cause a catastrophe.
In many ways it will be worse that on Earth because there will be no place to run to away from the infection. It will be like being stranded in Iowa with a plague victim. Physically able to run, but handcuffed to the infected person. Considering that only the US (and Europe and Japan to a lesser degree) have the finances to build on the moon, but that a lot more countries _very nearly_ have launch capability/technology, most of them with a grudge against the US and you have a scenario that I don't want to think about and I studied this sort of thing at university for four years.
Personally, I'd rather wait until world peace was at the door knocking, than set up a moonbase before I could defend it against _everything_.
Hachiman
As a Brit, we have had similar tragedies, but not to the extent that the US has. True, we have had Dunblane, but that was due to a lunatic with several unregistered firearms.
I _is_ interesting that the two people that the US is planning on letting run the country have chosen to tie the internet to teenage violence. Ok, so there is a possiblity that people who can't distinguish reality from games like Quake might get carried away, but there is a substantial chunk of evidence that shows that games of that nature actually aid reaction times and concentration. Who amongst us has sat down for a quick five minute game of AvP and stood up four hours later? I certainly have.
After a couple of hours playing Gran Turismo on the PSX my driving is pretty ropey, but if I sit down for an hour and talk with my friends before I drive, it isn't a problem. When I get in my car, It actually feels more responsive and I certainly notice more of what is happening around me. In some ways, I concentrate more on what I am doing simply because I _know_ it is not a game.
I totally disagree that the internet is to blame for violence and subversion. The internet simply _is_, it is the people that choose to use the information or can't handle that volume of information that are to blame. In some case, it may be the people that let them use it, but as it's free, who can say where to draw the line? I'm not going to.
How can you be sure that HavenCo/Sealand is not going to have the data it will carry compromised by organised crime in the same way that Sealand's passport and currency system was?
Do you also think that the venture will attract people who are willing to take this risk to retain their free speech or will it just attract people that Customs in Felixstowe will just find too tempting to pass up?
When I was lent this book (along with "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas) it was by a friend who was trying to educate me in the finer points of literature. The fact that my own book collection is extensive and I list 1984 and Brave New World as two of my favorite books was not lost on him. He just felt that I should read a book that he felt displayed several factors from our past and could quite well become our future.
It is, quite simply, a stunning book. It is very well written and held my interest to such a degree that I never once put it down the whole time I was reading it. I kept thinking back to a short story I read once as a child about a man in the future who was arrested for "walking" at night. No other reason. I could feel the same insanity in F 451.
Even though it is entirely fiction, I can feel the history in it. What is even more disturbing, is tat I can also feel the future in it. I have seen similar acts to book burning where people have been forced to destroy somrthing of extreme value just to survive and that sort of imagery really disturbs me.
I may work in IT, I may like driving at high speeds, but I LOVE books and I think that the idea of detroying them is abhorant. I will even drive slowly round the country just to experience the sounds and sights of nature. The fact that a future culture that is not too dissimilar to our own would actively stop us doing that, disturbs me greatly. When I see the parallels between F 451 and the way "outsiders" are treated in schools today (computers kiddies being top of the list), I wonder where it will all end.
Will todays "Nanny State" become tomorrows "Big Brother"? I hope not.
Oh dear.
Yet another example of Microsoft sticking the boot in and happily allowing the "freedom of speech/expression" thing that, I beleive, America was founded on to fall by the wayside.
I would love to know exactly how Microsoft can claim to be the world's saviour (opening up computing to the masses etc) when all they really want is control.
Does anyone else smell Big Brother and room 101??
I've worked as a contractor for several high profile Comms companies over here in the UK and all of them have similar messages on the logon screens. Most of the time, people just don't give a shed about it, but I know that it is possible for the admins to monitor who does what and goes where.
I didn't like it then, so I found a way around it. I still don't now, even though I'm at a different company now. I've just found my way around it... Thank fsck for the lax DHCP servers they have around here....
I know that the places I've worked here do have the ability to prosecute you based on the strength of the NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) that people have to sign when they start work and that the logon warning just gives a little more leverage so that if they had an axe to grind, they could really nail you. I know of people who've been out of the door quicker than a hamster on speed, with a couple of "helpers" to make sure he doesn't get "lost" or "forget" something on the way out.
Like I said before, I just work around things like that these days: If it's not obscure, it's too easy.
I would have to agree with this. As a contractor in the UK (shortly due to get a royal screwing from the Government over here), I've seen a lot of people in the industry take the P*** big time when it comes to timesheets and work.
I try to be as honest as I can and it is a point of honor that I have never taken a day off sick without being incapable of working and things of a similar nature. I hope that my employers recognise this and respect it, but I fear that there are too many people out there that take advantage of it.
It reminds me of a joke about the world's oldest man....