Without question, the quality of the music has gone down. I no longer listen to American FM because it's nothing but crap. Same old music, same old formats, boring as hell. I listen to foreign radio stations now over the Internet like The Basement in Oz, Phantom FM in Dublin and The Edge in Toronto. I'm exposed to music from these venues I'll *never* hear here. I don't buy CDs anymore because they're really kind of irrelevant - however, wunna deze daze I'll check out the music stores. If I can download an album without DRM and a lot of restrictions on it, I have no problem paying for it. But they gotta make it easy and cheap to do. And NO RESTRICTIONS!
Massive Two Shits the best state for tech? I live next door in CT and I am DYING to get out of this #$%^ state. I considered MA but friends who live there say it's very expensive, and AFAICT tech was severely depressed there. And I couldn't find any good Linux sales jobs (I'm not a techie m'self). Maybe things have gotten better *this* year, things have *really* picked up at work in the past month, but it's too late, I've already applied to live in Canada.
Oh fer pete's sake, ANOTHER story freaking out about the bacteria that was always there but which never bothered us when we didn't know about it?!?!? This is almost as stupid as the "Your toothbrush is being contaminated by microscopic droplets of water when you flush your toilet" story that came out a few years ago and had everyone freaking out about e.coli in their toothbrushes. I ask you, people, when's the last time anyone ever died from using their keyboard?
I suppose now there will be a big run of Keyboard Condoms and Lysol and bleach and protective anti-bacterial bunnysuits for people who think they can thwart colds and sickness by sanitizing everything in their lives. I was *just* reading in the paper tonight that a study showed that people who used anti-bacterial soaps didn't suffer any appreciably fewer colds than people who didn't, mostly because it's the viruses that make us sick, not the bacteria in our lives. The bacteria that everyone's so phobic about actually keeps us *healthy* to a certain degree by keeping our immune system on its toes. Parental mania for sanitizing everything in site for little Kayla and Brandon, along with an abuse of antibiotics to treat viruses (which don't work against viruses) has led to a rise in asthma among kids.
Pardon me, I'm going to go clean my keyboard...with my tongue!!!
My brother and I have these discussions from time to time - he's a mechanical engineer for one of the big automakers, and I've been bitching to him about telematics and uber-computerization and warning him that Windows will *never* be allowed in any car *I* own. He does point out that the higher-end cars are the ones that are heavily computerized.
I drive a car made by his company and the Service Engine Light has *never* worked properly - it went on shortly after I bought the car but no one could find anything wrong to make it do that until a few years into owning it when something finally DID create a code. Then I had to take it to a dealership to have the computer chip flashed to correct the problem, except the numbnuts I was dealing with had no idea what I was talking about,they just wanted me to bring it in so they could "identify the problem" elsewhere in my car and fix it.
The point has been well-made that the more complex something is, the more that can go wrong with it. I would prefer a much more stripped-down car, I don't need a GPS and an email system and an electronic voice giving me verbal directions to get to the grocery store. I'm very practical about my technology - gimme good mileage and low maintenance, and I'm happy.
I don't believe this has anything to do with IP - it's all about protecting profits and forcing people to take their cars to inconvenient and overpriced dealerships to have simple problems taken care of. I'll ride an effing horse to work before I'll be shaken down every time I need an oil change.
Geez, maybe the reason why they have such a hard time attracting and retaining Arabic language experts is because anyone who even *remotely* knows anything about anything Arab very often winds up in a special suite at the Gitmo Hilton in Cuba.
One of these days I have GOT to visit just to see their renowned technofetish. Not to mention, of course, their used underpants vending machine fetish.;)
Over 11 billion smackeroos spent last year in response to spam? Clearly we get it because it *works*, kids. And at $155 an average sale, that's the kind of moolah that can add up pretty quickly. Y'know, now that I think about it, I could quit my job and make some *real* dough hawking augmentation products to the chronically underendowed...
Last week our general manager called me into his office to look at a piece of spam he'd gotten. It was full of a lot of "Praise Jesus!" and "Hallelujah!"-type exclamations, and it informed him that he had been Specially Chosen to help out with this Special Deal because he had a reputation as a Good Christian. It was the Nigerian 411 scam, Jeebus-style.
Videophones came out about twenty or thirty years ago and they were bust. Frankly, I don't want the world to see me as I usually look at home, although it might be cool for folks I don't get to see much, like my friends in Europe. But do y'all *really* want to see me right after I've gotten home from the gym, before I've had the chance to jump in the shower? I don't think anyone wants that...
Criminy, I wish those people would put even *half* the effort they're putting into "improving" email into improving their food...especially their chocolate (attention English people! Someone since the Aztecs has come up with the brilliant idea of adding in *sugar!*)
I suspect as long as men have penises, there will be spam in the world, because the world simply can no more rid itself of the fear of having an unnaturally small penis than it can of religious views, both of which may be equally irrational. If anyone ever had any doubt that spam *works*, one only needs to consult the recent lawsuit of the bozo who found out the hard way that there ISN'T a magic pill to turn your dong into a King Kong, or the penis-enlargement database that got hacked, to reveal the personal information of customers who'd bought the PL34Z Y0UR W0M3N N O W come-on (sn!cker). (Several of which were old enough and educated enough to know better.)
Many years ago, while doing a story on spam, I talked to Spamford Wallace who claimed a 7% response rate on spam which, if true (I had my doubts) would certainly make it worth one's while, no matter how badly it made you hated. I can only assume, now that I know how many small-dicked guys there are in the world (or, more accurately, normal-dicked guys who *fear* they're small-dicked guys), that penis enlargement ads are prolific because enough pindicks are responding to them. So that must mean others really DO think you can getrichquick, and refinance your home, or that you can order a nice Filipino wife who is dying to meet YOU!!!!! over the Internet.
...Sometimes I have the urge to just THROTTLE them. I think the only reason why I haven't so far is because every time I want to scream at my father for refusing to learn the simplest computer concepts, I remember how difficult I was learning math all through school, and he never, ever lost his patience with me no matter how many times he explained something to me. He must have secretly thought he'd sired a turnip rather tha a creature with brains.
I think I've finally got them understanding that they need to keep their virus files updated. I installed I Hate Spam on their computer, one of the simplest programs there is, and they couldn't handle *that* (but boy oh boy do they complain about spam!!!) I just *know* their computer is rife with adware and spyware, and that I should do something about it, but honestly, I can't handle another two-year learning process. I swear it must have taken me six months to teach them how to use email several years ago.
The thing that gets me about my father is that he's a mechanical engineer - not the sort of person you'd think would be so afraid of computers, esp. not after using them for a good fifteen years or so. But he is just *cowed* by the technology. I don't buy the excuse that he didn't grow up with computers, since I didn't either, and I managed to learn it, and I wasn't even CLOSE to being as technically savvy as my father has always been.
Then there are the friends who should *also* be able to learn this stuff and "can't". I know a lot of unemployed ex-telecom services people (don't we all!) and they can't find a job because they are rigorously stuck on providing sales or service to this one field they know. They know local and long distance and data services, but they can't see the overlap and branch out into the computer field. I mean WTF, I did it in reverse - I started out in computers and branched out into telecom services. Talk about tunnel vision! I was out to lunch with one of them last weekend and she wants to get out of telecom service and into customer service - not exactly an industry suffering from a dearth of applicants. I have encouraged her for years to branch out into computers - if you can learn the finer points of selling T-1s and DSL, IMO, you can learn computers and networking - but she has ignored me, as has everyone else currently pounding the pavement from the telecom services here. She was telling me how her son can't surf the Internet except through AOL's kid filter, and seems to think that's all she needs to do to keep him safe. I tried to tell her the kids are often savvier than the parents, and I completely *forgot* about Peacefire, but it went in one ear and out the other. Boy oh boy, people have time to warn their children not to let Uncle Joe or Father McFeeley touch their wee-wees, but they "don't have time" to learn how to use the computer properly, or check up on their kids to make sure they're not giving out directions to the family silver to any old schmuck they meet on AOL.
Argh, I didn't mean to rant - but that NY Times article REALLY struck a chord with me.
The only thing that surprises me is that it's taken Microsoft this long to include pop-up blocking in IE. I know they're usually the last to jump on the bandwagon, but I've had the blocking in Mozilla for a couple of years now, and usually even *Microsoft* isn't *this* slow...
Dunno, I can't say as I've ever felt like I was being treated like a moron just because I'm a chickie-boo. Not even when I ACTED like a dumb little chickie-boo doing undercover work to scope out the competition for the computer company I work for. OTOH, there have been several times I've wanted to throttle the shit out of some noodlehead at Circuit City, Best Buy, Nobody Beats The Wiz, etc. because they didn't know SHTML from shinola...
Yeah, we have our religious zealots and so do the Saudis, but there's one really BIG difference. *Our* religious zealots blow up abortion clinics and shoot doctors one by one; *their* religious zealots hijack planes and fly them into buildings. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two flavors of zealotry, but *our* zealots live in a country where they're not allowed to get away with nearly as much violence. Saudi society has embraced Wahabbism, the particularly violent flavor of Islam, and they make Operation Rescue look like a bunch of hippie pacifists.
So Robin thinks it's really not so different for Saudi Linux geeks as Western ones? I'm glad he had such a nice time with everyone, it's probably because he's a man. I'll bet *I* wouldn't have been allowed access to the Saudi nerds; it's probably against the law and would have garnered us all a public flogging.
It's going to be unpopular to say this, but the difference between Saddam, Enron, Worldcom, Hitler's guards, and SCO is that, at least AFAIK right now, SCO hasn't broken any actual laws. They may be doing some damned stupid things and making ridiculous claims, but it hasn't declared bankruptcy because of mismanagement (well, not yet anyway), has not cooked any books (as far as anyone knows), did not destroy old peoples' nest eggs, nor attempted to out-and-out defraud anyone.
They may still go down the tubes and look like complete idiots doing so - I am hoping they do, because I have no love for what SCO's doing - but I keep it in perspective because SCO just isn't in the same category as people who consciously defrauded others or committed acts of genocide.
Having worked for a company that got acquired by Worldcom, and being a lowly sales peon, I would not want to be judged for Bernie Ebbers' sins. There *was* no evidence of wrongdoing when I left (and there probably wasn't any because AFAIK it started after I left), and at the very worst Worldcom could be accused at that time of not being the slightest bit interested in providing decent service to their customers - but in all honesty, not too many telecom companies really do. I would not judge ex-SCO people too harshly - I would at least want to know what they did there.
Especially when I consider how often mismanagement rebounds on the poor schmucks who don't know what's going on.
[shrug] I've got Worldbomb...er, I mean Worldcom...on my resume and it's not a big deal for me. I just laugh and say the shenanigans started after I left, which is true (in fact, from what I've read, the book-cooking started just a few months after I left. Which just goes to show you, I quit and the whole damn outfit went to hell in a handbasket soon after!)
I guess if I worked for Enron I would simply make clear exactly what it was I did there...lest they think I was one of those pretenders acting like they were in high-level discussions on the phone when visitors dropped by. Very often the poor drones don't know what's going on anyway. Why hold *them* responsible for what happened at notorious companies?
...In Wicca that's "Whatever you do comes back to you." In Christianity it might be considered, "As you sow, so shall ye reap." Microsoft destroyed countless competitors offering free software against those that could not; now the exact same strategy is being used against them, and they're crying Foul (and occasionally, FUD). 'T'ain't workin'. There is no dynasty or empire so great that it can't be brought down. Just ask the Romans, the Mongols, the Brits, the Soviets, and very likely very shortly, the Americans.
>>Also a compitent admin can hide a Linux machine from looking like a Linux machine on the internet.
That doesn't help much. All it takes is one disgruntled employee to blow the whistle on them. That's how companies using unlicensed Microsoft products usually get busted.
I can't help you on the silent keyboards, but I would LUUUUUUUV a non-Windows keyboard - IOW, one WITHOUT all the annoying Windows keys that I accidentally hit and which pull up menus I don't want at that moment. I can't find them *anywhere*, and I've looked. What's even worse, the damn Windows keys are *compatible* with Linux! I'd hoped they'd go away when on a Linux box (I have two computers sharing devices through a KVM switch) and tragically, it happens in Linux too..
Money's been an issue for Iraq for quite some time, when Saddam controlled the oil fields but did nothing to use them to improve the quality of life for his people, unless you count building a gajillion mosques in a country that was in desperate need of hospitals and decent schools. It STILL may be an issue for the Iraqis because I doubt Halliburton is going to relinquish control over said oil fields...
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Without question, the quality of the music has gone down. I no longer listen to American FM because it's nothing but crap. Same old music, same old formats, boring as hell. I listen to foreign radio stations now over the Internet like The Basement in Oz, Phantom FM in Dublin and The Edge in Toronto. I'm exposed to music from these venues I'll *never* hear here. I don't buy CDs anymore because they're really kind of irrelevant - however, wunna deze daze I'll check out the music stores. If I can download an album without DRM and a lot of restrictions on it, I have no problem paying for it. But they gotta make it easy and cheap to do. And NO RESTRICTIONS!
Massive Two Shits the best state for tech? I live next door in CT and I am DYING to get out of this #$%^ state. I considered MA but friends who live there say it's very expensive, and AFAICT tech was severely depressed there. And I couldn't find any good Linux sales jobs (I'm not a techie m'self). Maybe things have gotten better *this* year, things have *really* picked up at work in the past month, but it's too late, I've already applied to live in Canada.
I suppose now there will be a big run of Keyboard Condoms and Lysol and bleach and protective anti-bacterial bunnysuits for people who think they can thwart colds and sickness by sanitizing everything in their lives. I was *just* reading in the paper tonight that a study showed that people who used anti-bacterial soaps didn't suffer any appreciably fewer colds than people who didn't, mostly because it's the viruses that make us sick, not the bacteria in our lives. The bacteria that everyone's so phobic about actually keeps us *healthy* to a certain degree by keeping our immune system on its toes. Parental mania for sanitizing everything in site for little Kayla and Brandon, along with an abuse of antibiotics to treat viruses (which don't work against viruses) has led to a rise in asthma among kids.
Pardon me, I'm going to go clean my keyboard...with my tongue!!!
I drive a car made by his company and the Service Engine Light has *never* worked properly - it went on shortly after I bought the car but no one could find anything wrong to make it do that until a few years into owning it when something finally DID create a code. Then I had to take it to a dealership to have the computer chip flashed to correct the problem, except the numbnuts I was dealing with had no idea what I was talking about,they just wanted me to bring it in so they could "identify the problem" elsewhere in my car and fix it.
The point has been well-made that the more complex something is, the more that can go wrong with it. I would prefer a much more stripped-down car, I don't need a GPS and an email system and an electronic voice giving me verbal directions to get to the grocery store. I'm very practical about my technology - gimme good mileage and low maintenance, and I'm happy.
I don't believe this has anything to do with IP - it's all about protecting profits and forcing people to take their cars to inconvenient and overpriced dealerships to have simple problems taken care of. I'll ride an effing horse to work before I'll be shaken down every time I need an oil change.
Over 11 billion smackeroos spent last year in response to spam? Clearly we get it because it *works*, kids. And at $155 an average sale, that's the kind of moolah that can add up pretty quickly. Y'know, now that I think about it, I could quit my job and make some *real* dough hawking augmentation products to the chronically underendowed...
Anyway, the GM is a Conservative Jew.
Criminy, I wish those people would put even *half* the effort they're putting into "improving" email into improving their food...especially their chocolate (attention English people! Someone since the Aztecs has come up with the brilliant idea of adding in *sugar!*)
Many years ago, while doing a story on spam, I talked to Spamford Wallace who claimed a 7% response rate on spam which, if true (I had my doubts) would certainly make it worth one's while, no matter how badly it made you hated. I can only assume, now that I know how many small-dicked guys there are in the world (or, more accurately, normal-dicked guys who *fear* they're small-dicked guys), that penis enlargement ads are prolific because enough pindicks are responding to them. So that must mean others really DO think you can getrichquick, and refinance your home, or that you can order a nice Filipino wife who is dying to meet YOU!!!!! over the Internet.
It's a stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid world...
I think I've finally got them understanding that they need to keep their virus files updated. I installed I Hate Spam on their computer, one of the simplest programs there is, and they couldn't handle *that* (but boy oh boy do they complain about spam!!!) I just *know* their computer is rife with adware and spyware, and that I should do something about it, but honestly, I can't handle another two-year learning process. I swear it must have taken me six months to teach them how to use email several years ago.
The thing that gets me about my father is that he's a mechanical engineer - not the sort of person you'd think would be so afraid of computers, esp. not after using them for a good fifteen years or so. But he is just *cowed* by the technology. I don't buy the excuse that he didn't grow up with computers, since I didn't either, and I managed to learn it, and I wasn't even CLOSE to being as technically savvy as my father has always been.
Then there are the friends who should *also* be able to learn this stuff and "can't". I know a lot of unemployed ex-telecom services people (don't we all!) and they can't find a job because they are rigorously stuck on providing sales or service to this one field they know. They know local and long distance and data services, but they can't see the overlap and branch out into the computer field. I mean WTF, I did it in reverse - I started out in computers and branched out into telecom services. Talk about tunnel vision! I was out to lunch with one of them last weekend and she wants to get out of telecom service and into customer service - not exactly an industry suffering from a dearth of applicants. I have encouraged her for years to branch out into computers - if you can learn the finer points of selling T-1s and DSL, IMO, you can learn computers and networking - but she has ignored me, as has everyone else currently pounding the pavement from the telecom services here. She was telling me how her son can't surf the Internet except through AOL's kid filter, and seems to think that's all she needs to do to keep him safe. I tried to tell her the kids are often savvier than the parents, and I completely *forgot* about Peacefire, but it went in one ear and out the other. Boy oh boy, people have time to warn their children not to let Uncle Joe or Father McFeeley touch their wee-wees, but they "don't have time" to learn how to use the computer properly, or check up on their kids to make sure they're not giving out directions to the family silver to any old schmuck they meet on AOL.
Argh, I didn't mean to rant - but that NY Times article REALLY struck a chord with me.
The only thing that surprises me is that it's taken Microsoft this long to include pop-up blocking in IE. I know they're usually the last to jump on the bandwagon, but I've had the blocking in Mozilla for a couple of years now, and usually even *Microsoft* isn't *this* slow...
Dunno, I can't say as I've ever felt like I was being treated like a moron just because I'm a chickie-boo. Not even when I ACTED like a dumb little chickie-boo doing undercover work to scope out the competition for the computer company I work for. OTOH, there have been several times I've wanted to throttle the shit out of some noodlehead at Circuit City, Best Buy, Nobody Beats The Wiz, etc. because they didn't know SHTML from shinola...
Yeah, we have our religious zealots and so do the Saudis, but there's one really BIG difference. *Our* religious zealots blow up abortion clinics and shoot doctors one by one; *their* religious zealots hijack planes and fly them into buildings. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two flavors of zealotry, but *our* zealots live in a country where they're not allowed to get away with nearly as much violence. Saudi society has embraced Wahabbism, the particularly violent flavor of Islam, and they make Operation Rescue look like a bunch of hippie pacifists.
So Robin thinks it's really not so different for Saudi Linux geeks as Western ones? I'm glad he had such a nice time with everyone, it's probably because he's a man. I'll bet *I* wouldn't have been allowed access to the Saudi nerds; it's probably against the law and would have garnered us all a public flogging.
I want to buy a car. I'm thinking of buying a Ford. But before I do, I'll ask Chrysler's opinion on it...
Having worked for a company that got acquired by Worldcom, and being a lowly sales peon, I would not want to be judged for Bernie Ebbers' sins. There *was* no evidence of wrongdoing when I left (and there probably wasn't any because AFAIK it started after I left), and at the very worst Worldcom could be accused at that time of not being the slightest bit interested in providing decent service to their customers - but in all honesty, not too many telecom companies really do. I would not judge ex-SCO people too harshly - I would at least want to know what they did there.
Especially when I consider how often mismanagement rebounds on the poor schmucks who don't know what's going on.
[shrug] I've got Worldbomb...er, I mean Worldcom...on my resume and it's not a big deal for me. I just laugh and say the shenanigans started after I left, which is true (in fact, from what I've read, the book-cooking started just a few months after I left. Which just goes to show you, I quit and the whole damn outfit went to hell in a handbasket soon after!) I guess if I worked for Enron I would simply make clear exactly what it was I did there...lest they think I was one of those pretenders acting like they were in high-level discussions on the phone when visitors dropped by. Very often the poor drones don't know what's going on anyway. Why hold *them* responsible for what happened at notorious companies?
...In Wicca that's "Whatever you do comes back to you." In Christianity it might be considered, "As you sow, so shall ye reap." Microsoft destroyed countless competitors offering free software against those that could not; now the exact same strategy is being used against them, and they're crying Foul (and occasionally, FUD). 'T'ain't workin'. There is no dynasty or empire so great that it can't be brought down. Just ask the Romans, the Mongols, the Brits, the Soviets, and very likely very shortly, the Americans.
>>Also a compitent admin can hide a Linux machine from looking like a Linux machine on the internet.
That doesn't help much. All it takes is one disgruntled employee to blow the whistle on them. That's how companies using unlicensed Microsoft products usually get busted.
Wicked! I don't see a Windows key *anywhere* on that keyboard! Thanks for the heads-up!
I can't help you on the silent keyboards, but I would LUUUUUUUV a non-Windows keyboard - IOW, one WITHOUT all the annoying Windows keys that I accidentally hit and which pull up menus I don't want at that moment. I can't find them *anywhere*, and I've looked. What's even worse, the damn Windows keys are *compatible* with Linux! I'd hoped they'd go away when on a Linux box (I have two computers sharing devices through a KVM switch) and tragically, it happens in Linux too..
Money's been an issue for Iraq for quite some time, when Saddam controlled the oil fields but did nothing to use them to improve the quality of life for his people, unless you count building a gajillion mosques in a country that was in desperate need of hospitals and decent schools. It STILL may be an issue for the Iraqis because I doubt Halliburton is going to relinquish control over said oil fields...