It really is a new era in politics, and in general, how humans interact with each other.
In that public square over the last two years, we had a populist movement in the Tea Party that was, by its nature of being relatively grass roots, wildly inarticulate about the cure, if not the diagnosis. That movement was easily coopted by an already existing deregulatory/social politics arm of the GOP party.
This movement is that movement, but without the batshit and with some articulate arguments about the need for a fix. These ideas come at us in a new public square, on Twitter, and are pretty inclusive in an overarching "The Government is bought and paid for, Fox News is bought and paid for" theme. To view the movement through a twentieth century lense is to see it as unorganized, and thus, not powerful. As someone who deals with a very profitable crowdsourcing company, I see this slightly differently.
I think we are seeing the rest of America, that does not think the EPA is the devil, does not want to cut NOAA, IMLS, or Family Planning services because of rhetoric but ALSO believe we have a broken financial system and a political system purchased by a very small population. That is how I am seeing it.
The journalist, MPAA, and RIAA model indicate that when a business model becomes outdated, you solve that not by evolving to compete in a new landscape, but instead litigation and lobbying. Duh!
Now we just need a Paul Allen to step up and sue a senator for patent infringement, and maybe we'll get an ear in the Senate to put a stop to this craziness.
I thought we had learned our lessons in declaring X the Y Killer.
Sure, its happened every now and then(see Myspace/Facebook, HDDVD/Bluray), but as everyone here knows (and many lament about), Microsoft is still alive and well despite a resurgence by Apple, iPhones are still selling despite the allegedly-killer swarm of Android devices, websites still get hits despite content being routed more and more into apps, etc.
Or, people thought John Kerry was a raging flip flopper because he...flipped and flopped incessantly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXwCrpMHkYc&mode=related&search=
People perceived constantly changing answers and positions as flip flopping because WE ARE NOT STUPID, not because of any strange hard wiring in our heads. If you can watch the video and still say Kerry did not flip flop, however, you may just have a problem in YOUR wiring.
Beckerman
Your efforts are heroic in my eyes.
While the plight of the people being targeted by the RIAA is not a story or game, I can picture that deposition in a "Based on a true story" Grisham movie. It was that compelling to me.
Thank you for pursuing this and seeking the help of these communities. We are some of the only folks who see it happening, and only bringing this knowledge forward can help stop this madness.
Cheers.
The kind where you actually have to fix something that breaks.
Managers and many consultants, who only talk about fixing things, have the luxury of waiting until 8am before pushing hot air around(this does not include time spent in the mirror practicing buzzword-filled catch phrases of course)
Hi, I would like to cancel my subscription to this thread.
No really.
Please.
I really don't want this subscription, please let me cancel.
No you can't talk to my Dad.
Please just unsubscribe me.
Oh, 6 free months of this thread?
I'll pay you to unsubscribe me.
Therein lies AOL's yellow brick road to profit, make people pay to unsubscribe lol.
And if none of these great responses work, try this.
I tout myself ahead of time as only a software guy who knows nothing about hardware. A little iron filings into the rear fan quickly turns any software issue into a hardware issue, not my bag baby.
You're as bone headed as the people who claim that we should just continue as-is, since we can't definitevely prove that humans are causing this warming cycle(and I said cycle, because the Earth has warmed and cooled thousands of times before humans ever found a single fossil fuel leaking into their animal skin tent).
Anybody who is genuinely interested in the real science, and the real answer to this situation should be willing to listen to both sides without labeling people as 'corporate stooges' OR 'environmental wackos'. You're a liberal moron, not a scientist. Wake up.
To be a honest, I can't really understand Clinton apologists defending his use of it, while simultaneously being loudly critical of our current President. Either you think that these wiretaps have a legitimate purpose and are part of the Presidents protected and inherent rights in the consititution, or you do not.
To say that Echelon under Clinton was OK, but Bush oversteps his bounds is ridiculous for at least one reason. Which war was it that Clinton was fighting? He used the wiretapping to assist with Free Trade negogiations in a peacetime scenario. In todays scenario, we at least have some just cause, even if you don't like Carnivore and Echelon.
Let's start with some intellectual honesty please.
To many managers who posted here:
Your job description does in fact not include being the best programmer, sysadmin, or help desk jockey. It is true that doing the specific work assigned your subordinates is not your specific duty.
However, while it isn't the specific role for you to do the work of your charges, it is your job to manage them doing that job.
It equates to trying to "manage" someone fishing, without knowing what fish were if you don't have an amount of knowledge about the specific function of your group.
This is OK in cases where you have a relationship where the fisherman has alot of say into the "management" process. But if you find that you feel you have an even mediocre understanding of the job function of your group, don't let this make you believe that you know how modern fish operate just because you once threw your line in years ago.
A good manager is one who seeks constant feedback from their group on how to manage, what needs to be managed, and who needs to get managed. A manager with mediocre or lower knowledge of the job their people do can only be good if they realize that in a fluid and changing IT world, they must allow themselves to be managed by their staff. I realize this sounds perhaps a bit egotistical, but it is just true.
That's ridiculous, and I'm hoping someone mods you with some negative points.
I'm not sure that people who don't have a right to be here(aka, legal immigration) should stay, and the government needs to cart them out. If your country had MILLIONS of vagrants a year wandering in, you'd want the same thing.
The only other thing I can think of that would apply to your assertion is the way our laws are handled. We should care less how your country does it, and decide for ourselves who we should do it.
Come up with some more examples instead of just speaking filth old klam. You're a victim to your media.
So despite the fact that Nasa estimated the cost to fix it in the billions, and despite the fact that there are tenative plans to launch a much more powerful and serviceable telescope in the near future, and despite the fact that right now our shuttles are dangerous and becoming geysers, and despite the fact that Nasa put out a report stating that the actual mission to fix the Hubble was too dangerous for astronaughts, this windbag of a senator(surprise surprise, an uninformed Democrat...sorry, but it's true) is going to demand we go ahead with fixing the Hubble.
Quite typical of senators from either party to try to run some technical show they have little clue about, and also quite typical for a senator to make a valiant attempt to unwisely spend our tax dollars.
Damn tired windbags.
One thing not mentioned in that write up is that if you want the Media Center PC, you will pay about 5-10 times what you pay for a Tivo box. Granted, there is no monthly subscription associated with Media Center usage, but the intial cost of the PC to run it along with enough storage to make it worthwhile, combined with the ease of interface and setup of a Tivo, the Tivo seems to be the choice I'll be telling my friends, family, and coworkers about.
Additionally, Tivo has a very select user base they are marketing to and creating new features for. I think they will be working harder on adding new features(ala Tivo-to-go, Home media option) than Microsoft will be on improving Media Center options.
For the price of a Tivo, the current features, and the potential of newly developed features, Tivo is unbeatable.
I watched Superman when I was 5, and jumped out of a tree to see if I could also fly.
I watched Karate Kid, and my brother took the abuse as I was practicing my new moves on him.
Kids are kids, and if parents aren't there to tell them "This is only a movie/game", I don't think that I should be forbidden from playing or buying such games or movies for it.
Stupid damn parents...
There is a big difference between a $100 tivo system with a 10-13 dollar monthly fee and a $1000 PC supporting Media Center.
Someone compared the Tivo-to-go features to what they use on their PC, but for features per dollar, Tivo has it in a big way right now. Additionally, my Tivo is easily expandable to larger storage drives and we expect Tivo to keep coming out with new features that will set it apart from the competition.
Perhaps there is a point that today, some other manufacturers are catching up, but Tivo has a huge grass roots base of customers that it won't want to lose. I'm personally confident that Tivo won't be resting on its laurels, and that as a Tivo customer, I'll be receiving alot of great upgrades.
Go tivo!
Slashdot Mirror
It really is a new era in politics, and in general, how humans interact with each other. In that public square over the last two years, we had a populist movement in the Tea Party that was, by its nature of being relatively grass roots, wildly inarticulate about the cure, if not the diagnosis. That movement was easily coopted by an already existing deregulatory/social politics arm of the GOP party. This movement is that movement, but without the batshit and with some articulate arguments about the need for a fix. These ideas come at us in a new public square, on Twitter, and are pretty inclusive in an overarching "The Government is bought and paid for, Fox News is bought and paid for" theme. To view the movement through a twentieth century lense is to see it as unorganized, and thus, not powerful. As someone who deals with a very profitable crowdsourcing company, I see this slightly differently. I think we are seeing the rest of America, that does not think the EPA is the devil, does not want to cut NOAA, IMLS, or Family Planning services because of rhetoric but ALSO believe we have a broken financial system and a political system purchased by a very small population. That is how I am seeing it.
"We also /wanted/ the Kin to fail after like 9 minutes on the market as a learning experience for our Win7 phone team"
ESXi is free these days, it seems like a good option. If you are just looking to virtualize desktops, though, look elsewhere.
Get rid of the crap services out there and recover those IP's.
The journalist, MPAA, and RIAA model indicate that when a business model becomes outdated, you solve that not by evolving to compete in a new landscape, but instead litigation and lobbying. Duh!
Dear Microsoft, Seriously? Anyone remember the Microsoft Kin, launched in 2010? If the iPhone has died, then the Microsoft offering was a stillborn. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20009336-56.html
Now we just need a Paul Allen to step up and sue a senator for patent infringement, and maybe we'll get an ear in the Senate to put a stop to this craziness.
I thought we had learned our lessons in declaring X the Y Killer. Sure, its happened every now and then(see Myspace/Facebook, HDDVD/Bluray), but as everyone here knows (and many lament about), Microsoft is still alive and well despite a resurgence by Apple, iPhones are still selling despite the allegedly-killer swarm of Android devices, websites still get hits despite content being routed more and more into apps, etc.
Or, people thought John Kerry was a raging flip flopper because he...flipped and flopped incessantly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXwCrpMHkYc&mode=related&search= People perceived constantly changing answers and positions as flip flopping because WE ARE NOT STUPID, not because of any strange hard wiring in our heads. If you can watch the video and still say Kerry did not flip flop, however, you may just have a problem in YOUR wiring.
You know what to do slashdotters...help unmuzzle this guy and email his boss: mary.glackin@noaa.gov
Beckerman Your efforts are heroic in my eyes. While the plight of the people being targeted by the RIAA is not a story or game, I can picture that deposition in a "Based on a true story" Grisham movie. It was that compelling to me. Thank you for pursuing this and seeking the help of these communities. We are some of the only folks who see it happening, and only bringing this knowledge forward can help stop this madness. Cheers.
"What kind of IT work require 24 hour on-call?"
The kind where you actually have to fix something that breaks.
Managers and many consultants, who only talk about fixing things, have the luxury of waiting until 8am before pushing hot air around(this does not include time spent in the mirror practicing buzzword-filled catch phrases of course)
Either you are joking, or you are trying to bribe your MS rep into going easy on you during this years true-ups.
Hi, I would like to cancel my subscription to this thread. No really. Please. I really don't want this subscription, please let me cancel. No you can't talk to my Dad. Please just unsubscribe me. Oh, 6 free months of this thread? I'll pay you to unsubscribe me. Therein lies AOL's yellow brick road to profit, make people pay to unsubscribe lol.
And if none of these great responses work, try this. I tout myself ahead of time as only a software guy who knows nothing about hardware. A little iron filings into the rear fan quickly turns any software issue into a hardware issue, not my bag baby.
You're as bone headed as the people who claim that we should just continue as-is, since we can't definitevely prove that humans are causing this warming cycle(and I said cycle, because the Earth has warmed and cooled thousands of times before humans ever found a single fossil fuel leaking into their animal skin tent). Anybody who is genuinely interested in the real science, and the real answer to this situation should be willing to listen to both sides without labeling people as 'corporate stooges' OR 'environmental wackos'. You're a liberal moron, not a scientist. Wake up.
To be a honest, I can't really understand Clinton apologists defending his use of it, while simultaneously being loudly critical of our current President. Either you think that these wiretaps have a legitimate purpose and are part of the Presidents protected and inherent rights in the consititution, or you do not. To say that Echelon under Clinton was OK, but Bush oversteps his bounds is ridiculous for at least one reason. Which war was it that Clinton was fighting? He used the wiretapping to assist with Free Trade negogiations in a peacetime scenario. In todays scenario, we at least have some just cause, even if you don't like Carnivore and Echelon. Let's start with some intellectual honesty please.
To many managers who posted here: Your job description does in fact not include being the best programmer, sysadmin, or help desk jockey. It is true that doing the specific work assigned your subordinates is not your specific duty. However, while it isn't the specific role for you to do the work of your charges, it is your job to manage them doing that job. It equates to trying to "manage" someone fishing, without knowing what fish were if you don't have an amount of knowledge about the specific function of your group. This is OK in cases where you have a relationship where the fisherman has alot of say into the "management" process. But if you find that you feel you have an even mediocre understanding of the job function of your group, don't let this make you believe that you know how modern fish operate just because you once threw your line in years ago. A good manager is one who seeks constant feedback from their group on how to manage, what needs to be managed, and who needs to get managed. A manager with mediocre or lower knowledge of the job their people do can only be good if they realize that in a fluid and changing IT world, they must allow themselves to be managed by their staff. I realize this sounds perhaps a bit egotistical, but it is just true.
Power outages are the only thing that keeps my users from breaking their machines.
That's ridiculous, and I'm hoping someone mods you with some negative points. I'm not sure that people who don't have a right to be here(aka, legal immigration) should stay, and the government needs to cart them out. If your country had MILLIONS of vagrants a year wandering in, you'd want the same thing. The only other thing I can think of that would apply to your assertion is the way our laws are handled. We should care less how your country does it, and decide for ourselves who we should do it. Come up with some more examples instead of just speaking filth old klam. You're a victim to your media.
So despite the fact that Nasa estimated the cost to fix it in the billions, and despite the fact that there are tenative plans to launch a much more powerful and serviceable telescope in the near future, and despite the fact that right now our shuttles are dangerous and becoming geysers, and despite the fact that Nasa put out a report stating that the actual mission to fix the Hubble was too dangerous for astronaughts, this windbag of a senator(surprise surprise, an uninformed Democrat...sorry, but it's true) is going to demand we go ahead with fixing the Hubble. Quite typical of senators from either party to try to run some technical show they have little clue about, and also quite typical for a senator to make a valiant attempt to unwisely spend our tax dollars. Damn tired windbags.
One thing not mentioned in that write up is that if you want the Media Center PC, you will pay about 5-10 times what you pay for a Tivo box. Granted, there is no monthly subscription associated with Media Center usage, but the intial cost of the PC to run it along with enough storage to make it worthwhile, combined with the ease of interface and setup of a Tivo, the Tivo seems to be the choice I'll be telling my friends, family, and coworkers about.
Additionally, Tivo has a very select user base they are marketing to and creating new features for. I think they will be working harder on adding new features(ala Tivo-to-go, Home media option) than Microsoft will be on improving Media Center options.
For the price of a Tivo, the current features, and the potential of newly developed features, Tivo is unbeatable.
Props to the makers of BG, best SciFi series out in years. I'm an addict.
I watched Superman when I was 5, and jumped out of a tree to see if I could also fly. I watched Karate Kid, and my brother took the abuse as I was practicing my new moves on him. Kids are kids, and if parents aren't there to tell them "This is only a movie/game", I don't think that I should be forbidden from playing or buying such games or movies for it. Stupid damn parents...
There is a big difference between a $100 tivo system with a 10-13 dollar monthly fee and a $1000 PC supporting Media Center. Someone compared the Tivo-to-go features to what they use on their PC, but for features per dollar, Tivo has it in a big way right now. Additionally, my Tivo is easily expandable to larger storage drives and we expect Tivo to keep coming out with new features that will set it apart from the competition. Perhaps there is a point that today, some other manufacturers are catching up, but Tivo has a huge grass roots base of customers that it won't want to lose. I'm personally confident that Tivo won't be resting on its laurels, and that as a Tivo customer, I'll be receiving alot of great upgrades. Go tivo!