What annoys me about Adobe's splash screens isn't that they exist, but that they are so hideously ugly.... But not so long ago, Adobe Illustrator would fire up and you'd get this picture of Botticelli's Venus gracing your screen. A piece of fine art. It provoked a lot of positive reactions- it was literally a familiar face that you saw every time you fired up the application.
You're certainly entitled to your likes and dislikes, but if I want to see a favorite image, I'll load it myself, thank you. When I launch a program, I'm not doing art, I just want to use the program...and I don't want to see what amounts to an advertisement for the program before it graciously allows me to use it. There's often some sort of semi-hidden setting that allows you to hide the splashscreen, but I think it should be turned off by default—at least after the first time it's shown.
Bingo. One of the things that has always bothered me about the global the warming/climate change thesis that its advocates predict nothing but negative consequences. That's extremely improbable. Even if we grant that these theories are correct, it's clear that their proponents stress the negative impact because they need to induce fear to motivate funding and to justify the additional bureaucratic power that they crave.
'Anonymous' is not a group it is simply am activist promotional meme.
The word "meme" has been used in such a way that its meaning has become elastic to the point of being void. I take you to be saying that the notion of a group called "Anonymous" is something that has been floated by certain people to obtain media attention. If so, I agree, and admit that it's silly of me to attack an imaginary organization created for purposes of propaganda. So permit me to amend my statement: the people who have recently been conducting DoS attacks, hacking various web sites and data servers for political reasons and who are not associated with any government or corporate entity are vigilante thugs. (The ones associated with real organizations are thugs loyal to their particular organization.) You're quite right, precision in thought and writing is important, and I am always grateful when people force me to be more articulate.
People choose to engage in an activity in the name of 'Anonymous' or not. Whether some choose to behave in a digitally disruptive manner or publicly protest is up to them as individuals. No person who does something in the anonymously in the name of 'Anonymous' is responsible for the action of any other individual.
Maybe so, but creating an imaginary organization can have real and adverse legal consequences. It could provide a pretext for criminal conspiracy charges under RICO. A court might have very limited sympathy with the defense's claim that the organization in which the defendants publicly claimed membership really doesn't exist. I'm not saying that this is right, I'm saying this is a potential onerous legal consequence. Also, the nebulous nature of the Anonymous "organization" creates very obvious opportunities for action by agents provocateur of the government or other interests. If the government wants to discredit the stated beliefs and actions of individuals who are associated—at least in the public mind— with "Anonymous, then the available methods are obvious. You are naive anonymous children.
Any claim that 'Anonymous' are vigilante thugs is completely ludicrous, firstly as by far the majority of people who have conducted activist activity in the name of 'Anonymous' had nothing to do with the temporary digital disruptions of digital billboard service and secondly no physical violence of any kind or description was conducted.
What is a "billboard service"? Perhaps you are referring to recent DOS attacks against certain web sites. I agree that these are completely trivial publicity stunts. When they—whoever they are—disrupt, for example, electronic communications and services actually used by the Department of Justice in its operations, then we would be talking about "cyber warfare". However, it is entirely possible to be thuggish without engaging in hand-to-hand violence. Some anonymous group (notice my judicious use of the lower case "a") recently hacked Stratfor, and compromised the private data of many of its subscribers. I was one of them. (Stratfor offered me a deep discount for a one year trial, but I didn't renew—they charge far more than their service is worth.) As a result of this data breach, the bank has cancelled my credit card. They've given me a new one, but now I have to figure out all the automatic bill payments I had set up with that card, and convert them to the new account number. I also get to worry about what else is going to be done to me with whatever data was compromised by these thugs. The email address was a one-of, so that's not a serious problem, but still an invasion of my privacy.
I call them damned thugs. I don't know who the cowards are, but I call them thugs. And now I get to worry about the possible retribution that my statements may attract from them.
As for Barret Brown the supposed operative for 'Anonymous' his activity has more to do with profiting
If I need a piece of software but can't afford it (which is often, because I'm a young entrepreneur), I look for it on pirate sites.
There was a time in my life, when I was very young, stupid and wrong, when I used pretty much the same rationalization: I am poor, therefore I steal. Without condemning you for sins I committed in my own youth (and I do hope you are very young), I remind you that another person has worked hard to create these tools that you need, and that taking the fruits of his labors from him without payment is unjust. I also ask you to consider how you will feel in about 10 or 20 years, when after much hard work you create something valuable—and people steal it.
Do you truly have no alternatives? Can't you find shareware or freeware that will do the job? How about writing the tool yourself? If you are working on something that you hope will be of value to others, and you truly need this tool, then perhaps you should save up the money and buy it. A truly archaic concept, I know...
I believe what the gist you are trying to say but failed too articulate, IMHO, is that... Authority without Accountability is never a good idea in the long run.
Cheez, you want me to be articulate? What a hard audience; in any case, I only do that for money. But as a special one-time favor, I will attack you articulately without charge: your confusion of "authority" with "power" is a solecism.
What I said was pretty much what I meant: there are logical difficulties with any claim that one belongs (or does not belong) to an anonymous organization. (OK, I should have defined "anonymous organization" as "an organization none of whose members are known to each other or to any outsider".) To elaborate, I think that "anonymous organization" is problematic in a way similar to "anarchist government". Of course, philosophical objections have never prevented people from saying things like, "I am a member of the Anarchist army" (e.g. the one that fought in the Spanish Civil War), or "I am a member of an anonymous group". That's because most people don't think like philosophers—they are neither sufficiently obsessive nor perverse.
And—do I really have to say this—I wasn't being entirely serious. Please forgive me for not being more amusing.
I'd like to know that also, but I can understand why the writer didn't want to reveal any details—next thing you know, he'll be branded an enemy of the people, and Anonymous will ruin him. This is war, and all sides are saying "if you're not with us, we'll shoot you".
The more I think about it, the more I become convinced that the so-called "pirates" are victims of prejudicial nomenclature—a label hung on them by their enemies. Historically, the question of who is and who is not a "pirate" has been a matter of viewpoint. In fact, you could become a licensed pirate—er freebooter—by getting a letter of marque and reprisal from some needy country. "Freebooter" sounds much nicer than "pirate", doesn't it? Certainly, it';s no worse than "greedy CEO".
Before anyone gets voted up to the stratosphere or down to oblivion here, we should remind ourselves that there is no way to tell how legitimately or illegitimately he made his money until a breakdown of his income is published.
Is that how it's done in your country? Here in the U.S.A., we consider people innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Unless, of course, they piss off our owners.
Please define "it" for the rest of us. Because to most, "it" appears to be "anything that the people of anonymous take a fancy to this week".
Yeah, "Anonymous" is a bunch of vigilante thugs, as far as I'm concerned.
I have to wonder: if you're part of an anonymous group, then you don't know who else is a member of your group, right? So you can't very well disavow any action done by someone who says they're "Anonymous". It's just another guy wearing the same silly mask as you are--how do you know he's not a member of your group? For that matter, how do you know you are a member of the group? If "Anonymous" were serious, and if it were really a group, it would work out a way so that their actions can be authenticated as being those of the one, true "Anonymous". I'm sure they will welcome suggestions by the highly qualified (and mostly anonymous) members of this community.
Come the fuck on people. Its war. This is just like that Abu Ghraib bullshit. People die horribly all the time in these areas, and yet for some reason the thing that always outrages the moral cowards at home is when someone is humiliated. Its like the civilized mind cannot comprehend the atrocities of war, so they focus in on the level of wrong that they can identify with.
Of course war is horrible. I ask only that if we fight a war, then we do it for a very good reason. What, sir, is the reason we are fighting these local militias in Afghanistan? Why are we creating more hell on earth for these people? Yes, I know they are quite capable of doing this on their own, but I am not responsible for the behavior of Afghan tribesmen to each other; I do feel responsible for the conduct of my country's armed forces.
Speaking of our soldiers, why are we inflicting dreadful physical and psychological harm on our own by making them participate in an activity that will leave none of the survivors unscarred? I'm not a pacifist. In fact, I own a freaking arsenal, and like to practice gun control (hitting the target). I don't want to ever use my guns on anyone, but I would do so if presented with sufficient reason (imminent threat of harm to my family, and secondly to myself, for example).
I figure the same standards ought to apply to my country. Don't tell me "that's war". I know. Tell my why we're making war.
I couldn't agree more. My method of contributing to the solution of this problem (the existence of the TSA) is to make their day just a little bit worse, in hopes that I can tip them over the edge into resigning a job that no honorable man or woman should hold. So I offer job counseling: "Isn't there a concentration camp you should be guarding?", or "You know, male prostitutes generally enjoy more respect and job satisfaction than a TSA employee". On my last walk through the X ray chamber, they wanted to grope me because their machine had detected "anomalies" on my body. (It was my metal suspender clips; I politely offered to take them off, hold up my pants and walk through the machine again. They said this was against the rules...I had to get the rubber glove treatment. That's when I got...kinda mean.) The first thing I did rather surprised me: informed that I would be groped, I said "hell no!".
Of course this put me in an untenable position—I was visiting my eighty one year old aunt in the Old Country, and for her, I had to get on that damn plane. Besides, my daughter was with me. I was eventually going to have to climb down, but how? Then they gave me an opening: they threatened to call the police. (In case you don't know it, these poor jerks don't even have police powers—they cannot arrest you.) I said "great"! I want you to call the police. I am not afraid of the police." When the cop came, I made a big deal out of how glad I was able to see a real police officer, and how I respected his job (effectively playing him off against the TSA grunts). I asked him to search me. Unfortunately, that didn't fly, but he did offer to witness the search to make sure everything was on the up-and-up. I took the deal because I had to fly...had this been a recreational trip, I would have found out what happens when you really refuse the grope.
I couldn't help but notice how surprised the TSA grunts were when I refused the grope. Do most people just quietly submit to this violation of human dignity and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States?
Please don't think I was having fun. It has gotten to the point where I get the sweats just thinking about going into an airport. I do not enjoy verbally abusing people. I would have much preferred just to go get on my plane without any fuss. Somehow, I feel a moral imperative to not submit quietly to things I know are wrong. Do not go gently into that night, my friends.
Never mind a few million people of other nationalities[...]
Including approximately two million German civilians of all ages and gender killed after the war during the ethnic cleansing of Eastern and Central European lands, where Germans had been living for many centuries. To be sure, Churchill and Roosevelt regretted this unpleasantness—but they wanted to keep Stalin happy, and Stalin wanted to hang on to that chunk of Poland that Hitler had given him. So the Poles got a chunk of Germany to "compensate" them, and, in turn, they expropriated and drove out the previous German tenants. In ex-Czechoslovakia, things went just as badly for the Sudeten Germans who lived there. To quote Eduard Bene upon his return in the wake of Allied troops: "Woe, woe woe, thrice woe to the Germans, we will liquidate you!". [After the Reich, Giles Macdonogh, 2007, Basic Books, New York, N.Y.]
Yes, I know; of course they deserved it.
I don't understand you "erratum" comment, by the way: do you truly think only Jews suffered persecution during the Second World War? Here's a quote from a pretty reliable source:
3. How many non-Jewish civilians were murdered during World War II?
Answer: While it is impossible to ascertain the exact number, the recognized figure is approximately 5,000,000. Among the groups which the Nazis and their collaborators murdered and persecuted were: Gypsies, Serbs, Polish intelligentsia, resistance fighters from all the nations, German opponents of Nazism, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, habitual criminals, and the "anti-social," e.g. beggars, vagrants, and hawkers.
That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Ergo, you're wrong.
Sure, you can ignore me. But your ergo is a non sequitur, I'm afraid: The fact that an assertion is made without an argument does not prove it false.
This forum is not suitable for lengthy philosophical discussions, so I usually don't bother. I'm planning to start a blog in the next few months--I'll try to write an essay on this topic.
Meanwhile, you might read up on what Karl Popper had to say about the falsifiability criterion.
You say yourself that drastic climate changes have happened in the past, and that such changes became manifest over long periods of time. Historically, there have been minor climatic excursions, usually lasting less than a century; these are quirks, and usually were local and not worldwide.
By definition, climatic changes are long-term phenomena. You clearly know this, but then go on to write as though data trends over a few years or decades are informative about how the climate is changing. It is not so.
In particular, isolated temperature measurements, such as this Antarctic high temperature, tell you nothing about how the climate is changing. They are merely weather .
The climatologists who assert that conclusions about "climate change" can be drawn from such isolated data points are either fools or liars. (I am not accusing you, of course — your only fault is that you are insufficiently critical of those who claim to speak with authority.)
To be charitable, I will grant that these climatologists are acting in what they consider to be a good cause. They honestly believe that something dreadful is going to happen, that it's our fault, and that it is something we can remedy. They know that only precise measurements, gathered over a period of at least a century, would carry any weight in proving that the global climate is truly trending toward warming. (or cooling, for that matter—indeed, I'd be very surprised if it wasn't one or the other; the climate has always been changing!)
But the climatologists fear an apocalypse. They have no definitive proof, but they are afraid...so they lie. They figure that most people don't understand the difference
between weather and climate anyway, and that a few little white lies will help them to save humanity.
It would be far less charitable of me to point out that funding for orthodox climatic research is much easier to obtain than for non-religious, open-minded research. That would be tantamount to saying that scientific thought follows the money. And that would indeed be uncharitable of me.
I all seriousness, I understand the folks who don't believe in global warming. I don't understand how they reach their conclusions, but what I guess I can't wrap my head around is how staunch they seem to be that global warming is absolutely not possible.
I find it odd that you characterize adherence to the "global warming" hypothesis as a matter of belief. I thought this was intended to be a scientific matter. If it's a matter of faith, then everybody can choose whether to believe in it or not, right? So what's your beef? Or are we having a religious war...
...the Environmental Law Institute found that the U.S. government offered $72 billion in incentives for oil, gas, and coal producers between 2002 and 2008. Most of that was in the form of 23 different tax credits, especially the credit for overseas production ($15.3 billion) and a credit for production of non-conventional fuel ($14.1 billion).
Correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't "non-conventional fuel" stuff like solar, wind and tidal power? If so, then this isn't exactly a subsidy for oil production, is it? Of course, this money goes to oil companies, which are — by your lights— intrinsically evil. It may not be a terribly good idea, but it's not a subsidy for oil production.
Also, if you're going to cite a source, you should find a neutral one, not one with a political agenda that you happen to find agreeable.
As for the notion that the recent wars have been about oil, that's just complete nonsense. The actual reasons for the Iraq and Afghan wars don't make even that much sense. Stop seeing conspiracies where stupidity provides a sufficient explanation.
... As we speak I am putting the final points together to automate part of the security system. Once it is in place, then the time to make changes reduces (again, mind you, I did the first part of this years ago - which has not changed since). Once this is in place a nice front end will allow users to modify their own security, according to the business rules which will be in the master driver program. Nice, hey. End result - one slacker on the team has nothing to do anymore.
This is just one of dozens of projects I can keep myself busy with, and show that I am doing 'work' to the PHB.. which could keep me going until the PHB is replaced or fixed.
We seem to think alike. I did pretty much the same thing for the last year or so that I was at my previous (and last) employer. I called my policy "aggressive helpfulness". Basically, "aggressive helpfulness" is to find stuff that needs fixing—and fix it so well that nobody can deny that my changes are an improvement. Under the circumstances, it was a form of guerrilla warfare. For example, there were 12 pages of instructions for the non-programmers who worked on transforming our XML documents to HTML Help and PDF. They consisted of many, many manual steps, each of which was an opportunity for error. For me, the worst part was the sheer tedium of the process. They wanted me to help out doing these manual transformations. (Considering how long it all took, and how many times you screwed up entering all those individual commands, they needed all they help they could get during crunch time!) I took one look at the instructions (written by The Favorite, of course), and said (to myself) "no way". So I wrote a Perl program that did all the file manipulations, XSL transforms, and miscellaneous command line stuff. Then I slapped together a Perl/Tk GUI front end. When I was done, all you had to do was bring up the GUI, browse for the files you wanted to process, check a couple of options, and click "Go".
I didn't do these things to convince my boss that I was useful; the guy hated me for reasons that I will never completely understand, and nothing would change his opinion of me, nor his intent to break me. I did it because it was imperative to have "accomplishments" to list on my annual "self evaluations". (I don't know if you are familiar with "self evaluations". Basically, they are an HR technique that dates back to Stalinist-Communist "self-criticism" sessions. You get up in front of an audience, and confess your failings. In this case, the audience was my straw boss, my real boss (Demonic Manager), and his boss (Bum Boy).) I was required to list my "failures" on the "self assessment". They were usually something like "Did not complete project X because management decided to cancel it", or "Could not write French manual because I do not know French". But I made sure my guerrilla projects were listed on the plus side of the form. As the existence of these fixes could not be denied (everyone was using them), I usually managed to pull out fairly high marks on these "self evaluations". So there was no way they could fire me for cause—not in a way that wouldn't leave them open for a lawsuit (alas, I am old). But a "layoff"...that worked for them.
Over the two years since I was forced out of my previous job, I've been contacted twice by headhunters who said I exactly fit the profile for a wonderful job they had, and would I please consider it. When I read the job description, I realized it was either another job where HR had cribbed the exact wording of my official ex-job description...or it was my ex-job. I told them there was a certain employer I could, for contractual reasons, no longer work for. Yes, it turned out I was being asked to replace myself. I feel sorry for the other grunts that are still working there; I did my best to help them.
Advice for you: Learn to hide your accomplishments, or make them look like an accident. Just like I am about
Ripley: Lieutenant, what do those pulse-rifles fire?
Gorman: 10 millimeter explosive tip caseless. Standard light armor-piercing rounds. Why?
Ripley: Well, look where your team is. They're right under the primary heat exchangers.
Gorman: So?
I know I'm exposing my cluelessness by asking to have this joke explained to me...perhaps it's a reference to some pop culture? Some movie I haven't seen? I mean, if Gorman's team is under the heat exchangers (presumably) of a nuclear power plant), are they going to fire at the heat exchangers? I would think they are defending the heat exchangers or something. Maybe It's something I had to see to understand.
Not really. Even if the heat exchangers were not the intended targets, getting into a firefight with armor piercing incendiary rounds around a nuclear plant's cooling system might seem questionable to any ordinary person.:-)
I am going to be taking PMP training next month and I am thinking that Dilbert is going to be the manual.
I think Scott Adams has lost his edge since he got canned by the company he worked for; he's far too happy now that he is in "retirement". I won't ask what "PMP training" involves...
Yes, I am on my way Out (tm).
Yes, I was paid to build and maintain this and other systems, so that is in the past and done. I did my job, and did it well.
If these monkeys can't find the system documentation then it isn't my problem.
Now I am sitting back and watching the system degrade. Processes I created and documented are being sloppily followed, some not at all. Highly paid 'technical' people are spending days doing what takes me hours. Management doesn't care. Management doesn't want to know....
Until then, I am being paid. I am doing my job, and my primary job is to make the PHB manager happy.
I can no longer read Dilbert. It's too depressing, because it is too real.
Well, look at the bright side: perhaps if you succeed in making the PHB happy by being sufficiently apathetic, you may be allowed to remain in your hell-job indefinitely!
After I got laid off from the "inventive" company, I was hired by an international pharma giant. Things went well, until after about 2 years of my working 12 hour days, a new boss came on board. I knew things were going downhill when he started ignoring everything I said in meetings. (He was fine about collecting the award for "technical innovation" he got on the basis of my work, though.) Then one day, he gave me an assignment a small part of which involved writing an installation script. I knew buddy X, who worked for another manager had written almost exactly the same thing. He'd have to change maybe 3 lines of code, and it would be done. So I walked down 5 cubicles, and asked him for help. He gladly obliged. I emailed my boss and told him that part of the problem was done.
The next thing I knew, I was sitting in the boss's office, along with my immediate line supervisor (also known as a "straw boss")—receiving an official reprimand for crossing departmental lines without permission. I had *gasp* used another department's resources! I was slackjawed during the whole thing, I couldn't believe it was happening. I kept thinking, "Franz Kafka, are you watching this?" (I later figured out that this job that I had been given was never meant to work—it was something that my boss had been stuck with as a result of a request from another department (not the one whose "resources" I had "misappropriated"), and he had no intention of giving these other guys what they wanted. The thing I had truly done wrong was to knock myself out and bring the project to the point where it was difficult for him to think up reasons why it couldn't be done!
And then there was the 12 hour program. The PHB had asked another person (his favorite, slated to replace me) to write a simple program to look for duplicate "unique" keys in an XML file. OK, it was a fairly large file—probably a couple of hundred meg. The program took 12 hours to run. I looked at the XML transform, and the thing walked the entire XML tree in both directions for each key, looking to see if there was another identical key. Turned out it was a great excuse for my boss to explain why our projects were always late. I admit it was pure meanness on my part to write another program (in Perl) that did the same thing in two CPU seconds.
Here again, my problem was that I simply cared too much about the quality of my work, and about getting work done. It is a big, big mistake. The point of work in a corporation is not to actually do work. And, as you have noticed (and learned in your own "professional" life), I am not joking.
Ripley: Lieutenant, what do those pulse-rifles fire?
Gorman: 10 millimeter explosive tip caseless. Standard light armor-piercing rounds. Why?
Ripley: Well, look where your team is. They're right under the primary heat exchangers.
Gorman: So?
I know I'm exposing my cluelessness by asking to have this joke explained to me...perhaps it's a reference to some pop culture? Some movie I haven't seen? I mean, if Gorman's team is under the heat exchangers (presumably) of a nuclear power plant), are they going to fire at the heat exchangers? I would think they are defending the heat exchangers or something. Maybe It's something I had to see to understand.
Management don't care, why should you? It really can't be all that much of a problem. More a perception than a problem.
By all means go ahead and create/use a documentation system for your group but clearly there just isn't a requirement for anything more comprehensive.
All too true. The sooner you learn not to care, the sooner you will stop feeling the pain. Surrender to mediocrity; obey all rules and your managers without question. Above all, do not let your work interfere with your life. You will be a happier person, and probably get promoted. Listen to me, oh young ones...heed the words of the Ancient One: Despair!
Once upon a time, I worked in a relatively small organization within a Very Large Company. The VLC was renowned for its inventiveness, until a new manager came who felt that inventing things was much too expensive; it would be more profitable to just to put the word "Invent" on the corporate logo, and then re-sell stuff from countries who make things cheaply. Because our corporate logo was on these re-branded products, we must obviously have invented them. Thus, marketing ceased to be a partner of R&D, and instead replaced it. Clever, eh?
One of my contributions to the VLC was a simple document management system (DMS). My boss mentioned that all the engineers in our lab kept complaining that "they can't find anything"—specifically, nobody could find old documentation for code that was written by vanished civilizations of programmers that had previously labored at the lab. In fact, it turned out that this was a general problem among the labs of the VLC, and that they all wished mightily for a solution. Apart from really ancient projects (from, say 10 years ago), it was pretty difficult to find documentation for even recent projects, as each lab had a different way of organizing its documentation, different document formats, and no channels for distributing the documentation to other groups who might have a legitimate interest. So I brought in an easy-to-use and easily maintained DMS, pitched it to the engineers at our lab, and got them to use it. My boss then made me contact a bunch of other labs, and offer them the use of the same DMS. A lot of their engineers liked it, and there was much happiness. I got lots of pats on the back for what was really a pretty simple idea, and my boss loved me for it. A year later, I was laid off.
As I was the only one maintaining this system, and no one ever asked me to train a replacement, I doubt that this DMS—and its contents—survived, save perhaps as digital ghosts on some unlabeled backup media in a faraway storage cave. In a sense, I'm one of the perpetrators of information decay; I caused all the knowledge deposited in "my" DMS to get black-holed. Come to think of it, this is probably not a problem; I'm pretty sure they've laid off all the engineers by now.
I understood very well that simply setting up a DMS was not the cure for the I-can't-find-anything problem. It was a beginning, at best. What was needed was a comittment by the organization as a whole to make sure the information continued to be available for as long as the company exists. Because engineering practices change, so do documentation practices; documentation technologies themselves change—not to mention physical storage media and data encoding. My DMS probably should have been replaced with something better by now (if it had continued in use), and that means someone would have had to plan the transition, and move the old docs to the new system. Maybe the best thing to do is print everything as hard copy from time to time, and hire a librarian to keep track of this backup.
Considering how much has been said and written (and blathered) about "knowledge management", it's amazing how little attention is ever given to the temporal aspect of institutional knowledge. Every engineering company should have an Office of Knowledge that has as part of its responsibility not
Geez... That seems like a lot more trouble than merely taking off the cover of the phone and removing the two round bells. If you really didn't want to remove them (God forbid you should lose them in case you needed to return the phone) wrapping 2-3 layers of masking tape around the open end of the bells muted the bells quite nicely leaving you with nothing but a quiet and easy to tune out thumping sound when the phone rang.
Quite right. However the woman in my life wanted the phone to ring. I think we only had one at the time. So I would turn it off when I wanted to sleep late, or she was gone and I didn't want to be bothered, then turned it back on as required. I tried many variations of silencing and muffling techniques: taking out just one bell would produce a nice subdued "ting"; stuffing them both with kleenex worked very well too...maybe too well, as you could hardly hear it. You know, I've always hated telephones. But ever since I learned you can play games on them, I've had a cell phone. With the ringer on perma-off, of course.
Slashdot Mirror
What annoys me about Adobe's splash screens isn't that they exist, but that they are so hideously ugly. ... But not so long ago, Adobe Illustrator would fire up and you'd get this picture of Botticelli's Venus gracing your screen. A piece of fine art. It provoked a lot of positive reactions- it was literally a familiar face that you saw every time you fired up the application.
You're certainly entitled to your likes and dislikes, but if I want to see a favorite image, I'll load it myself, thank you. When I launch a program, I'm not doing art, I just want to use the program...and I don't want to see what amounts to an advertisement for the program before it graciously allows me to use it. There's often some sort of semi-hidden setting that allows you to hide the splashscreen, but I think it should be turned off by default—at least after the first time it's shown.
Why are you under the impression that global warming won't increase the amount of arable land?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090731-green-sahara.html
Bingo. One of the things that has always bothered me about the global the warming/climate change thesis that its advocates predict nothing but negative consequences. That's extremely improbable. Even if we grant that these theories are correct, it's clear that their proponents stress the negative impact because they need to induce fear to motivate funding and to justify the additional bureaucratic power that they crave.
'Anonymous' is not a group it is simply am activist promotional meme.
The word "meme" has been used in such a way that its meaning has become elastic to the point of being void. I take you to be saying that the notion of a group called "Anonymous" is something that has been floated by certain people to obtain media attention. If so, I agree, and admit that it's silly of me to attack an imaginary organization created for purposes of propaganda. So permit me to amend my statement: the people who have recently been conducting DoS attacks, hacking various web sites and data servers for political reasons and who are not associated with any government or corporate entity are vigilante thugs. (The ones associated with real organizations are thugs loyal to their particular organization.) You're quite right, precision in thought and writing is important, and I am always grateful when people force me to be more articulate.
People choose to engage in an activity in the name of 'Anonymous' or not. Whether some choose to behave in a digitally disruptive manner or publicly protest is up to them as individuals. No person who does something in the anonymously in the name of 'Anonymous' is responsible for the action of any other individual.
Maybe so, but creating an imaginary organization can have real and adverse legal consequences. It could provide a pretext for criminal conspiracy charges under RICO. A court might have very limited sympathy with the defense's claim that the organization in which the defendants publicly claimed membership really doesn't exist. I'm not saying that this is right, I'm saying this is a potential onerous legal consequence. Also, the nebulous nature of the Anonymous "organization" creates very obvious opportunities for action by agents provocateur of the government or other interests. If the government wants to discredit the stated beliefs and actions of individuals who are associated—at least in the public mind— with "Anonymous, then the available methods are obvious. You are naive anonymous children.
Any claim that 'Anonymous' are vigilante thugs is completely ludicrous, firstly as by far the majority of people who have conducted activist activity in the name of 'Anonymous' had nothing to do with the temporary digital disruptions of digital billboard service and secondly no physical violence of any kind or description was conducted.
What is a "billboard service"? Perhaps you are referring to recent DOS attacks against certain web sites. I agree that these are completely trivial publicity stunts. When they—whoever they are—disrupt, for example, electronic communications and services actually used by the Department of Justice in its operations, then we would be talking about "cyber warfare". However, it is entirely possible to be thuggish without engaging in hand-to-hand violence. Some anonymous group (notice my judicious use of the lower case "a") recently hacked Stratfor, and compromised the private data of many of its subscribers. I was one of them. (Stratfor offered me a deep discount for a one year trial, but I didn't renew—they charge far more than their service is worth.) As a result of this data breach, the bank has cancelled my credit card. They've given me a new one, but now I have to figure out all the automatic bill payments I had set up with that card, and convert them to the new account number. I also get to worry about what else is going to be done to me with whatever data was compromised by these thugs. The email address was a one-of, so that's not a serious problem, but still an invasion of my privacy.
I call them damned thugs. I don't know who the cowards are, but I call them thugs. And now I get to worry about the possible retribution that my statements may attract from them.
As for Barret Brown the supposed operative for 'Anonymous' his activity has more to do with profiting
If I need a piece of software but can't afford it (which is often, because I'm a young entrepreneur), I look for it on pirate sites.
There was a time in my life, when I was very young, stupid and wrong, when I used pretty much the same rationalization: I am poor, therefore I steal. Without condemning you for sins I committed in my own youth (and I do hope you are very young), I remind you that another person has worked hard to create these tools that you need, and that taking the fruits of his labors from him without payment is unjust. I also ask you to consider how you will feel in about 10 or 20 years, when after much hard work you create something valuable—and people steal it.
Do you truly have no alternatives? Can't you find shareware or freeware that will do the job? How about writing the tool yourself? If you are working on something that you hope will be of value to others, and you truly need this tool, then perhaps you should save up the money and buy it. A truly archaic concept, I know...
I believe what the gist you are trying to say but failed too articulate, IMHO, is that ... Authority without Accountability is never a good idea in the long run.
Cheez, you want me to be articulate? What a hard audience; in any case, I only do that for money. But as a special one-time favor, I will attack you articulately without charge: your confusion of "authority" with "power" is a solecism.
What I said was pretty much what I meant: there are logical difficulties with any claim that one belongs (or does not belong) to an anonymous organization. (OK, I should have defined "anonymous organization" as "an organization none of whose members are known to each other or to any outsider".) To elaborate, I think that "anonymous organization" is problematic in a way similar to "anarchist government". Of course, philosophical objections have never prevented people from saying things like, "I am a member of the Anarchist army" (e.g. the one that fought in the Spanish Civil War), or "I am a member of an anonymous group". That's because most people don't think like philosophers—they are neither sufficiently obsessive nor perverse.
And—do I really have to say this—I wasn't being entirely serious. Please forgive me for not being more amusing.
what's the name of your software?
I'd like to know that also, but I can understand why the writer didn't want to reveal any details—next thing you know, he'll be branded an enemy of the people, and Anonymous will ruin him. This is war, and all sides are saying "if you're not with us, we'll shoot you".
The more I think about it, the more I become convinced that the so-called "pirates" are victims of prejudicial nomenclature—a label hung on them by their enemies. Historically, the question of who is and who is not a "pirate" has been a matter of viewpoint. In fact, you could become a licensed pirate—er freebooter—by getting a letter of marque and reprisal from some needy country. "Freebooter" sounds much nicer than "pirate", doesn't it? Certainly, it';s no worse than "greedy CEO".
Before anyone gets voted up to the stratosphere or down to oblivion here, we should remind ourselves that there is no way to tell how legitimately or illegitimately he made his money until a breakdown of his income is published.
Is that how it's done in your country? Here in the U.S.A., we consider people innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Unless, of course, they piss off our owners.
Please define "it" for the rest of us. Because to most, "it" appears to be "anything that the people of anonymous take a fancy to this week".
Yeah, "Anonymous" is a bunch of vigilante thugs, as far as I'm concerned.
I have to wonder: if you're part of an anonymous group, then you don't know who else is a member of your group, right? So you can't very well disavow any action done by someone who says they're "Anonymous". It's just another guy wearing the same silly mask as you are--how do you know he's not a member of your group? For that matter, how do you know you are a member of the group? If "Anonymous" were serious, and if it were really a group, it would work out a way so that their actions can be authenticated as being those of the one, true "Anonymous". I'm sure they will welcome suggestions by the highly qualified (and mostly anonymous) members of this community.
Come the fuck on people. Its war. This is just like that Abu Ghraib bullshit. People die horribly all the time in these areas, and yet for some reason the thing that always outrages the moral cowards at home is when someone is humiliated. Its like the civilized mind cannot comprehend the atrocities of war, so they focus in on the level of wrong that they can identify with.
Of course war is horrible. I ask only that if we fight a war, then we do it for a very good reason. What, sir, is the reason we are fighting these local militias in Afghanistan? Why are we creating more hell on earth for these people? Yes, I know they are quite capable of doing this on their own, but I am not responsible for the behavior of Afghan tribesmen to each other; I do feel responsible for the conduct of my country's armed forces.
Speaking of our soldiers, why are we inflicting dreadful physical and psychological harm on our own by making them participate in an activity that will leave none of the survivors unscarred? I'm not a pacifist. In fact, I own a freaking arsenal, and like to practice gun control (hitting the target). I don't want to ever use my guns on anyone, but I would do so if presented with sufficient reason (imminent threat of harm to my family, and secondly to myself, for example).
I figure the same standards ought to apply to my country. Don't tell me "that's war". I know. Tell my why we're making war.
I couldn't agree more. My method of contributing to the solution of this problem (the existence of the TSA) is to make their day just a little bit worse, in hopes that I can tip them over the edge into resigning a job that no honorable man or woman should hold. So I offer job counseling: "Isn't there a concentration camp you should be guarding?", or "You know, male prostitutes generally enjoy more respect and job satisfaction than a TSA employee". On my last walk through the X ray chamber, they wanted to grope me because their machine had detected "anomalies" on my body. (It was my metal suspender clips; I politely offered to take them off, hold up my pants and walk through the machine again. They said this was against the rules...I had to get the rubber glove treatment. That's when I got...kinda mean.) The first thing I did rather surprised me: informed that I would be groped, I said "hell no!".
Of course this put me in an untenable position—I was visiting my eighty one year old aunt in the Old Country, and for her, I had to get on that damn plane. Besides, my daughter was with me. I was eventually going to have to climb down, but how? Then they gave me an opening: they threatened to call the police. (In case you don't know it, these poor jerks don't even have police powers—they cannot arrest you.) I said "great"! I want you to call the police. I am not afraid of the police." When the cop came, I made a big deal out of how glad I was able to see a real police officer, and how I respected his job (effectively playing him off against the TSA grunts). I asked him to search me. Unfortunately, that didn't fly, but he did offer to witness the search to make sure everything was on the up-and-up. I took the deal because I had to fly...had this been a recreational trip, I would have found out what happens when you really refuse the grope.
I couldn't help but notice how surprised the TSA grunts were when I refused the grope. Do most people just quietly submit to this violation of human dignity and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States?
Please don't think I was having fun. It has gotten to the point where I get the sweats just thinking about going into an airport. I do not enjoy verbally abusing people. I would have much preferred just to go get on my plane without any fuss. Somehow, I feel a moral imperative to not submit quietly to things I know are wrong. Do not go gently into that night, my friends.
Erratum:
Never mind a few million people of other nationalities[...]
Including approximately two million German civilians of all ages and gender killed after the war during the ethnic cleansing of Eastern and Central European lands, where Germans had been living for many centuries. To be sure, Churchill and Roosevelt regretted this unpleasantness—but they wanted to keep Stalin happy, and Stalin wanted to hang on to that chunk of Poland that Hitler had given him. So the Poles got a chunk of Germany to "compensate" them, and, in turn, they expropriated and drove out the previous German tenants. In ex-Czechoslovakia, things went just as badly for the Sudeten Germans who lived there. To quote Eduard Bene upon his return in the wake of Allied troops: "Woe, woe woe, thrice woe to the Germans, we will liquidate you!". [After the Reich, Giles Macdonogh, 2007, Basic Books, New York, N.Y.]
Yes, I know; of course they deserved it.
I don't understand you "erratum" comment, by the way: do you truly think only Jews suffered persecution during the Second World War? Here's a quote from a pretty reliable source:
3. How many non-Jewish civilians were murdered during World War II? Answer: While it is impossible to ascertain the exact number, the recognized figure is approximately 5,000,000. Among the groups which the Nazis and their collaborators murdered and persecuted were: Gypsies, Serbs, Polish intelligentsia, resistance fighters from all the nations, German opponents of Nazism, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, habitual criminals, and the "anti-social," e.g. beggars, vagrants, and hawkers.
I'd reply, but I'm afraid the Mossad would treat me as a terrorist.
That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Ergo, you're wrong.
Sure, you can ignore me. But your ergo is a non sequitur, I'm afraid: The fact that an assertion is made without an argument does not prove it false.
This forum is not suitable for lengthy philosophical discussions, so I usually don't bother. I'm planning to start a blog in the next few months--I'll try to write an essay on this topic.
Meanwhile, you might read up on what Karl Popper had to say about the falsifiability criterion.
For the climate scientist it is a matter of science. For all others it is a matter of belief (in what the climate scientists tell you is happening).
Ah, I get it! It's the old priesthood-and-you'd-better-believe-us- or-you're-gonna-die thing. How quaint.
You say yourself that drastic climate changes have happened in the past, and that such changes became manifest over long periods of time. Historically, there have been minor climatic excursions, usually lasting less than a century; these are quirks, and usually were local and not worldwide.
By definition, climatic changes are long-term phenomena. You clearly know this, but then go on to write as though data trends over a few years or decades are informative about how the climate is changing. It is not so.
In particular, isolated temperature measurements, such as this Antarctic high temperature, tell you nothing about how the climate is changing. They are merely weather .
The climatologists who assert that conclusions about "climate change" can be drawn from such isolated data points are either fools or liars. (I am not accusing you, of course — your only fault is that you are insufficiently critical of those who claim to speak with authority.)
To be charitable, I will grant that these climatologists are acting in what they consider to be a good cause. They honestly believe that something dreadful is going to happen, that it's our fault, and that it is something we can remedy. They know that only precise measurements, gathered over a period of at least a century, would carry any weight in proving that the global climate is truly trending toward warming. (or cooling, for that matter—indeed, I'd be very surprised if it wasn't one or the other; the climate has always been changing!)
But the climatologists fear an apocalypse. They have no definitive proof, but they are afraid...so they lie. They figure that most people don't understand the difference between weather and climate anyway, and that a few little white lies will help them to save humanity.
It would be far less charitable of me to point out that funding for orthodox climatic research is much easier to obtain than for non-religious, open-minded research. That would be tantamount to saying that scientific thought follows the money. And that would indeed be uncharitable of me.
I all seriousness, I understand the folks who don't believe in global warming. I don't understand how they reach their conclusions, but what I guess I can't wrap my head around is how staunch they seem to be that global warming is absolutely not possible.
I find it odd that you characterize adherence to the "global warming" hypothesis as a matter of belief. I thought this was intended to be a scientific matter. If it's a matter of faith, then everybody can choose whether to believe in it or not, right? So what's your beef? Or are we having a religious war...
From the source you cite:
Correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't "non-conventional fuel" stuff like solar, wind and tidal power? If so, then this isn't exactly a subsidy for oil production, is it? Of course, this money goes to oil companies, which are — by your lights— intrinsically evil. It may not be a terribly good idea, but it's not a subsidy for oil production.
Also, if you're going to cite a source, you should find a neutral one, not one with a political agenda that you happen to find agreeable.
As for the notion that the recent wars have been about oil, that's just complete nonsense. The actual reasons for the Iraq and Afghan wars don't make even that much sense. Stop seeing conspiracies where stupidity provides a sufficient explanation.
... As we speak I am putting the final points together to automate part of the security system. Once it is in place, then the time to make changes reduces (again, mind you, I did the first part of this years ago - which has not changed since). Once this is in place a nice front end will allow users to modify their own security, according to the business rules which will be in the master driver program. Nice, hey. End result - one slacker on the team has nothing to do anymore.
This is just one of dozens of projects I can keep myself busy with, and show that I am doing 'work' to the PHB .. which could keep me going until the PHB is replaced or fixed.
We seem to think alike. I did pretty much the same thing for the last year or so that I was at my previous (and last) employer. I called my policy "aggressive helpfulness". Basically, "aggressive helpfulness" is to find stuff that needs fixing—and fix it so well that nobody can deny that my changes are an improvement. Under the circumstances, it was a form of guerrilla warfare. For example, there were 12 pages of instructions for the non-programmers who worked on transforming our XML documents to HTML Help and PDF. They consisted of many, many manual steps, each of which was an opportunity for error. For me, the worst part was the sheer tedium of the process. They wanted me to help out doing these manual transformations. (Considering how long it all took, and how many times you screwed up entering all those individual commands, they needed all they help they could get during crunch time!) I took one look at the instructions (written by The Favorite, of course), and said (to myself) "no way". So I wrote a Perl program that did all the file manipulations, XSL transforms, and miscellaneous command line stuff. Then I slapped together a Perl/Tk GUI front end. When I was done, all you had to do was bring up the GUI, browse for the files you wanted to process, check a couple of options, and click "Go".
I didn't do these things to convince my boss that I was useful; the guy hated me for reasons that I will never completely understand, and nothing would change his opinion of me, nor his intent to break me. I did it because it was imperative to have "accomplishments" to list on my annual "self evaluations". (I don't know if you are familiar with "self evaluations". Basically, they are an HR technique that dates back to Stalinist-Communist "self-criticism" sessions. You get up in front of an audience, and confess your failings. In this case, the audience was my straw boss, my real boss (Demonic Manager), and his boss (Bum Boy).) I was required to list my "failures" on the "self assessment". They were usually something like "Did not complete project X because management decided to cancel it", or "Could not write French manual because I do not know French". But I made sure my guerrilla projects were listed on the plus side of the form. As the existence of these fixes could not be denied (everyone was using them), I usually managed to pull out fairly high marks on these "self evaluations". So there was no way they could fire me for cause—not in a way that wouldn't leave them open for a lawsuit (alas, I am old). But a "layoff"...that worked for them.
Over the two years since I was forced out of my previous job, I've been contacted twice by headhunters who said I exactly fit the profile for a wonderful job they had, and would I please consider it. When I read the job description, I realized it was either another job where HR had cribbed the exact wording of my official ex-job description...or it was my ex-job. I told them there was a certain employer I could, for contractual reasons, no longer work for. Yes, it turned out I was being asked to replace myself. I feel sorry for the other grunts that are still working there; I did my best to help them.
Advice for you: Learn to hide your accomplishments, or make them look like an accident. Just like I am about
Ripley: Lieutenant, what do those pulse-rifles fire? Gorman: 10 millimeter explosive tip caseless. Standard light armor-piercing rounds. Why? Ripley: Well, look where your team is. They're right under the primary heat exchangers. Gorman: So?
I know I'm exposing my cluelessness by asking to have this joke explained to me...perhaps it's a reference to some pop culture? Some movie I haven't seen? I mean, if Gorman's team is under the heat exchangers (presumably) of a nuclear power plant), are they going to fire at the heat exchangers? I would think they are defending the heat exchangers or something. Maybe It's something I had to see to understand.
Not really. Even if the heat exchangers were not the intended targets, getting into a firefight with armor piercing incendiary rounds around a nuclear plant's cooling system might seem questionable to any ordinary person. :-)
* GASP! * You want the terrorists to win!
; )
I am going to be taking PMP training next month and I am thinking that Dilbert is going to be the manual.
I think Scott Adams has lost his edge since he got canned by the company he worked for; he's far too happy now that he is in "retirement". I won't ask what "PMP training" involves...
Yes, I am on my way Out (tm). Yes, I was paid to build and maintain this and other systems, so that is in the past and done. I did my job, and did it well. If these monkeys can't find the system documentation then it isn't my problem.
Now I am sitting back and watching the system degrade. Processes I created and documented are being sloppily followed, some not at all. Highly paid 'technical' people are spending days doing what takes me hours. Management doesn't care. Management doesn't want to know. ...
Until then, I am being paid. I am doing my job, and my primary job is to make the PHB manager happy.
I can no longer read Dilbert. It's too depressing, because it is too real.
Well, look at the bright side: perhaps if you succeed in making the PHB happy by being sufficiently apathetic, you may be allowed to remain in your hell-job indefinitely!
After I got laid off from the "inventive" company, I was hired by an international pharma giant. Things went well, until after about 2 years of my working 12 hour days, a new boss came on board. I knew things were going downhill when he started ignoring everything I said in meetings. (He was fine about collecting the award for "technical innovation" he got on the basis of my work, though.) Then one day, he gave me an assignment a small part of which involved writing an installation script. I knew buddy X, who worked for another manager had written almost exactly the same thing. He'd have to change maybe 3 lines of code, and it would be done. So I walked down 5 cubicles, and asked him for help. He gladly obliged. I emailed my boss and told him that part of the problem was done.
The next thing I knew, I was sitting in the boss's office, along with my immediate line supervisor (also known as a "straw boss")—receiving an official reprimand for crossing departmental lines without permission. I had *gasp* used another department's resources! I was slackjawed during the whole thing, I couldn't believe it was happening. I kept thinking, "Franz Kafka, are you watching this?" (I later figured out that this job that I had been given was never meant to work—it was something that my boss had been stuck with as a result of a request from another department (not the one whose "resources" I had "misappropriated"), and he had no intention of giving these other guys what they wanted. The thing I had truly done wrong was to knock myself out and bring the project to the point where it was difficult for him to think up reasons why it couldn't be done!
And then there was the 12 hour program. The PHB had asked another person (his favorite, slated to replace me) to write a simple program to look for duplicate "unique" keys in an XML file. OK, it was a fairly large file—probably a couple of hundred meg. The program took 12 hours to run. I looked at the XML transform, and the thing walked the entire XML tree in both directions for each key, looking to see if there was another identical key. Turned out it was a great excuse for my boss to explain why our projects were always late. I admit it was pure meanness on my part to write another program (in Perl) that did the same thing in two CPU seconds.
Here again, my problem was that I simply cared too much about the quality of my work, and about getting work done. It is a big, big mistake. The point of work in a corporation is not to actually do work. And, as you have noticed (and learned in your own "professional" life), I am not joking.
Ripley: Lieutenant, what do those pulse-rifles fire? Gorman: 10 millimeter explosive tip caseless. Standard light armor-piercing rounds. Why? Ripley: Well, look where your team is. They're right under the primary heat exchangers. Gorman: So?
I know I'm exposing my cluelessness by asking to have this joke explained to me...perhaps it's a reference to some pop culture? Some movie I haven't seen? I mean, if Gorman's team is under the heat exchangers (presumably) of a nuclear power plant), are they going to fire at the heat exchangers? I would think they are defending the heat exchangers or something. Maybe It's something I had to see to understand.
Management don't care, why should you? It really can't be all that much of a problem. More a perception than a problem. By all means go ahead and create/use a documentation system for your group but clearly there just isn't a requirement for anything more comprehensive.
All too true. The sooner you learn not to care, the sooner you will stop feeling the pain. Surrender to mediocrity; obey all rules and your managers without question. Above all, do not let your work interfere with your life. You will be a happier person, and probably get promoted. Listen to me, oh young ones...heed the words of the Ancient One: Despair!
Once upon a time, I worked in a relatively small organization within a Very Large Company. The VLC was renowned for its inventiveness, until a new manager came who felt that inventing things was much too expensive; it would be more profitable to just to put the word "Invent" on the corporate logo, and then re-sell stuff from countries who make things cheaply. Because our corporate logo was on these re-branded products, we must obviously have invented them. Thus, marketing ceased to be a partner of R&D, and instead replaced it. Clever, eh?
One of my contributions to the VLC was a simple document management system (DMS). My boss mentioned that all the engineers in our lab kept complaining that "they can't find anything"—specifically, nobody could find old documentation for code that was written by vanished civilizations of programmers that had previously labored at the lab. In fact, it turned out that this was a general problem among the labs of the VLC, and that they all wished mightily for a solution. Apart from really ancient projects (from, say 10 years ago), it was pretty difficult to find documentation for even recent projects, as each lab had a different way of organizing its documentation, different document formats, and no channels for distributing the documentation to other groups who might have a legitimate interest. So I brought in an easy-to-use and easily maintained DMS, pitched it to the engineers at our lab, and got them to use it. My boss then made me contact a bunch of other labs, and offer them the use of the same DMS. A lot of their engineers liked it, and there was much happiness. I got lots of pats on the back for what was really a pretty simple idea, and my boss loved me for it. A year later, I was laid off.
As I was the only one maintaining this system, and no one ever asked me to train a replacement, I doubt that this DMS—and its contents—survived, save perhaps as digital ghosts on some unlabeled backup media in a faraway storage cave. In a sense, I'm one of the perpetrators of information decay; I caused all the knowledge deposited in "my" DMS to get black-holed. Come to think of it, this is probably not a problem; I'm pretty sure they've laid off all the engineers by now.
I understood very well that simply setting up a DMS was not the cure for the I-can't-find-anything problem. It was a beginning, at best. What was needed was a comittment by the organization as a whole to make sure the information continued to be available for as long as the company exists. Because engineering practices change, so do documentation practices; documentation technologies themselves change—not to mention physical storage media and data encoding. My DMS probably should have been replaced with something better by now (if it had continued in use), and that means someone would have had to plan the transition, and move the old docs to the new system. Maybe the best thing to do is print everything as hard copy from time to time, and hire a librarian to keep track of this backup.
Considering how much has been said and written (and blathered) about "knowledge management", it's amazing how little attention is ever given to the temporal aspect of institutional knowledge. Every engineering company should have an Office of Knowledge that has as part of its responsibility not
Geez... That seems like a lot more trouble than merely taking off the cover of the phone and removing the two round bells. If you really didn't want to remove them (God forbid you should lose them in case you needed to return the phone) wrapping 2-3 layers of masking tape around the open end of the bells muted the bells quite nicely leaving you with nothing but a quiet and easy to tune out thumping sound when the phone rang.
Quite right. However the woman in my life wanted the phone to ring. I think we only had one at the time. So I would turn it off when I wanted to sleep late, or she was gone and I didn't want to be bothered, then turned it back on as required. I tried many variations of silencing and muffling techniques: taking out just one bell would produce a nice subdued "ting"; stuffing them both with kleenex worked very well too...maybe too well, as you could hardly hear it. You know, I've always hated telephones. But ever since I learned you can play games on them, I've had a cell phone. With the ringer on perma-off, of course.