I do think that a lot of the angst in terms of a particular solution being implemented has a lot to do with admin egos. In my experience, while one solution may be preferred for some good reasons, other solutions will work just fine. Give your advice, accept the end decision, implement the new decision, and shut up. The big caveat here is in ERP/MRP systems. Choosing the wrong Virtualization platform, firewall, Anti-Virus package, whatever can be a pain for the IT department but choosing the wrong ERP system can absolutely ravage a company. I have seen places decide on an ERP system that was inadequate or waaaaay too complex for what they were trying to accomplish, often because of someone in Upper Management having a buddy that sells said system.
I am lucky to be with a company that is mostly cooperative towards me because while there are jobs out there, I sure as heck wouldn't want to be voting with my feet right now. Two years ago I was getting a lot of calls from recruiters and the like seeing if I would be interested in positions they were trying to fill. In the last 9 months, those calls have been few and far between.
After the last Slashdot article on handwriting, I got to thinking about my own handwriting and broke out old papers that I wrote in school. You don't get to keep any of the AP tests, but I found essays that I wrote in my AP History class. Our teacher did a fantastic job of preparing us for the exam and tried to emulate the time constraints of the AP exam for standard class essay tests....meaning you were writing furiously to get the thing done. I was astonished at how little cursive I used. When I did use it, it was usually some hackish looking hybrid between cursive and print. My college essays, many of which also had pretty difficult time constraints, contained even less cursive. I have one exam where I have three and a half "Blue Books" filled entirely with print. Maybe cursive was faster for some, but print was fast enough for me and had the added bonus of legibility.
Maybe it works better for people who have large network of Facebook friends...but I have limited my Facebook friend group to either people I interact with an a reasonably regular basis as a way of asking them all "Hey, who is up to do this Saturday" and really good friends who have moved away. All in all, maybe 25-30 friends. I have three friends who are gay. Two of them are in relationships so the significant others get tagged as "friends" so I can also invite them to whatever event. That makes 20% of my friend's list openly gay. As they are my friends, we share some common interests that may be considered "gay" by some.... such as baking and yoga. I didn't seek out gay friends...two of them I knew before they even knew they were gay.
Myself? I'm a straight male who has been married 7 years and has never entertained the idea of intimacy with other men. Would having a decent percentage of gay friends tag me as gay?
I have to say that being unemployed is a completley different scenario though, unless you have a pretty decent amount of money to fall back on. I was jobless for nearly a year 7 years back or so. My wife was in school so I was the one in charge of paying the bills. I didn't enjoy going out and doing anything (Even if I had the money) and I couldn't engross myself in a project because I was worrying about my situation 24/7. I basically became a complete worthless human being because of being cripplingly depressed. Looking back I wish I would have handled it differently, but it was hard to shake the feeling. of course, it probably showed in my interviews, prolonging my time without a job.
I agree wholeheartedly. Sometimes my job can really suck but for the most part, I have to stop and giggle at the fact that I'm getting paid (and paid pretty well) to tinker around with computers/servers/software that someone else has paid for. Yeah, sometimes I get up in the morning and simply want to go back to sleep but most of the time I am reasonably excited to go to work. It makes me feel like a freak, but it also makes me realize how fortunate I am.
And like you, I'm a not a superstar at any aspect of technology. I pride myself on my ability to learn things quickly and take time to make sure I know what I am doing, so in the end I feel I do a lot of good things for the place I work.
I've been reading Slashdot on and off since somewhere between 1999-2001. I can't remember that much about the content from my earliest days, but all in all I can't remember that much talk ever about actual coding. Occasional XML format discussions, announcements on the latest version of pHp, maybe a C++ Book review...that is about it. Legal issues? There have been plenty and it seems to go in phases. There was the Rambus phase, SCO phase, now we seem to be in the Patent/Copyright/P2P phase. I agree that I would like to see more amateurish robotics type stuff come up but it seems whenever anything like that is posted the comments are "What a loser, why would he waste his time doing that" when it years past it may have been "Whoa, that is awesome" or "That's nothing, my robot is awesomer. Check it out here...."
I look at this in a few ways. Let me state first that I am not someone that making huge stands on environmentalism and do my share of hypocritical things. That said, just because we have coal does not mean that we should be chomping at the bit to burn it up and release harmful gasses into the environment. If alternative energy is viable in a given circumstance, there is no sense in not going that route.
My second thought is this....fossil fuels are pretty much a limited resource. We won't run out in our lifetime but some day the Earth will be running low on these traditions fuels. As we move towards alternative energy there will be less demand for them but I would imagine that there will always be a use for Coal and Oil in certain applications. Why not keep those resources in the ground to ensure the vast (but not unlimited) supply is there for future generations?
It just doesn't make sense to use up your finite energy resources that have the side effect of harming the environment when you can start to use cleaner, renewable resources.
I am not quoting a source and I am not entirely sure my information is correct but I think that the brand Vizio is "Manufactured" in California. By "Manufactured" I'm guessing that all of the parts, or at least all of the Electronic components are actually made overseas and the location in California performs the final assembly of the units. Mind you the final assembly may very well be just sticking the company logo on the front of the TV and printing out the manuals or something.
I think that I also heard that Vizio is in the top 10 in flat panel television sales in the United States. I myself got an excellent deal an a refurb Vizio 32" 1080p ($350 over a year ago) and have been very happy with it in terms of quality thus far.
Again, I have no source for this and a quick search turned up all sorts of conflicting results by dubious sources.
This may make me sound like a complete n00b idiot but I'll ask anyway..... Since UAC doesn't use something like SUDO in Linux where a password is needed, couldn't a piece of malicious software from a website simply run a little bit of Javascript to send an "Enter" keystroke in order to approve whatever UAC is asking for? Heck, even VBScript Sendkeys would seem to work for this. UAC can't possible ask you every time a web site runs any type of script. Or when the UAC box is up is the Operating System more or less locked out for anything other than local input somehow?
I'm a Libertarian. I actually vote *Gasp* Libertarian unless there is a candidate I really like from another party...which doesn't happen often.
I try to convince those who have Libertarian ideals to vote Libertarian but alas, the "Throwing your vote away" idea is too ingrained in society. At that point, who do you expect them to vote for? If they are "True" Republicans they certainly don't hold many left leaning ideals. They are kind of screwed.
Of course for a good deal of the population it doesn't matter what the labels "Democrat" and "Republican" ACTUALLY mean. That is the "Side" that they chose and intend to stick with them....they'll be damned if they will let silly little things like actual facts get in the way.
I really am not sure here, but perhaps the cost associated with creating patches for exploits could be thrown into the equation. It is a sort of backwards and stupid way of looking at things but if people did not spend time trying to exploit the insecurities of Windows to steal money or information from Windows Users, Microsoft would not have to spend money to fix these issues which have nothing to do with actual usability of the product. A security breach is only an issue if there are people out there who try to make use of it. Of course, there will always be people to exploit security holes.
MacOSX tells me whenever I ask it to run a file downloaded from the net for the first time.
So does Vista - in fact, if you have antivirus installed (and it properly integrates with OS by using the corresponding APIs), it will even make it scan the file before starting it for the first time.
Of course, One of the big complaints with Vista was that the OS got in your face every time you tried to do something that could cause problems, simply because Windows Users became acclimated to being logged in as Administrator and being able to do whatever the heck they wanted without question. Granted, Windows Vista was a little extreme with the amount of times that they asked if you wanted to allow something to run. I don't know for sure, but I do not think that you could adjust the alert levels in Vista. They changed this in Windows 7 so you can make your User Account control get in your face some of the time, all of the time, or none of the time.
You are assuming that working at a Union Job where you have no choice but to join the Union automatically makes you Pro-Union. I've known people who worked in Unionized manufacturing plants as well as Public School Teachers who loathed the Unions they were part of and blamed said Unions for a lot of things that were wrong at their shop or with the Public School System. I've also known some people in unions that didn't really care about the issue at all.
In general terms, you are probably correct in that a higher percentage of Union workers are pro-union as compared to non-union workers. However, I don't think you can state for a fact that all teachers will put a positive slant on them. Each individual teacher will have their own personal biases regarding just about everything they teach.
I'm getting way off topic, but this is A little anecdote that I like to tell about indoctorinating of children. This happened back when I was in Grade School, during an election year...I really don't remember if it was Reagan/Mondale or Bush/Dukakis. My teacher asked me who I would vote for if I could. I picked the Democratic candidate and she asked me why. I gave her my reasons (Which were probably very childish and stupid, but that isn't the point). She said..."And what would be the most important reason to vote for him?". I thought about it for awhile and said "Because he is a Democrat?" Said teacher was absolutely beaming with pride and told me that was the right answer. From that moment on until I was old enough to have a remote understanding of politics I actually thought that the Republicans were truly evil people and the Democrats were the good guys simply because a person who I was told to respect and learn from told me so. As a 2nd or 3rd grader, why would I think my teacher was just steering me towards her belief system? Pushing her views on me wrapped up as fact was an absolutely disgusting act, IMO.
TYPICALLY a burglar will be looking for small, higher dollar items that they can stash in their pockets so they can get out in a hurry. Seeing as how this guy decided he had enough time to sit down and chill on his victim's computer, I don't think we can assume any common sense. He was probably trying to single handedly rob the king size bed and refrigerator.
I agree with you to some extent. The place I work is small (somewhere in the 80-100 desktop/laptop range) and did not have any security/internet policies in place whatsoever. We are a subsidiary of a much larger foreign company and they asked us to draft something up. The job fell to me. I considered internet filtering and decided that we should block sites that could possibly cause liability issues for the company. My list? Porn sites, for a few reasons. I figure if someone sees there is the possibility of harassment charges. I figure if someone is into kiddie porn there is the potential for all types of problems. A lot of porn sites are malware havens. Hate/Racism/Homophobic sites. Again, as there are people of different ethnic backgrounds at the company and if people are browsing these sites they may feel that the workplace is hostile, possibility of investigations if the person is coordinating the crime at the workplace or something. That is about it. I did cut off streaming video for awhile because it was being used a lot and a T1 line for 90 people isn't a heck of a lot of bandwidth, especially when we have guys from offsite transferring files to our network and stuff.
Blocking anything that can be considered non-work related is obnoxious, but there are some things that I feel the company is better off without in the workplace.
I told a similar story up above (Although I threw in the towel and went to the Chiropractor after three years. I can't imagine having lived as I did for 12)...
One thing I failed to mention is that not only did the doctors never refer me to a chiropractor, they told me it would be outright stupid for me to do so. One of the specialists even laughed and said something to the effect of "Do that and I'll see you in here in a few months after you get your arm busted and shoulder dislocated." That statement alone kept me away from the Chiropractor for a bit longer.
Also, a real masseuse should have a diploma. My Sister in Law went to school for a year to become a massage therapist. She had to go through a few months of massaging rich middle aged women at a spa before getting hired at an actual, well respected orthopedic specialist's office to use massage to assist in physical therapy. She put in a lot of extra time (And took some kineseology type classes at a more traditional university) learning about the muscle/skeletal system. I've spent time talking with her about her work and the depth of knowledge she has in regards to the mechanics of the human body is staggering. Sadly, when she meets new people and tells them what she does for a living, they think she is a prostitute.
Well, since I'm not living in a country where kooks and liars are given the benefit of the doubt, let me say quite publicly that chiropractors are frauds, along with naturopaths, healing touch types and all the other absurd lying pieces of worthless trash out there who profit off of the superstition and naivety of those with more money than brains.
This is a personal anecdote, so as usual, everyone's miles may vary.
In Middle School, High School, and Early college I was a very athletic individual. One day as a Junior in college, I woke up and could barely lift my left leg to walk. My Pelvis, buttocks, and groin area had very intense sharp pain. It went away in a few days so I wasn't alarmed. It would come and go periodically until I was 23 and out of college. For three long years, at least 25 days out of the month I would get out of bed dragging my left uselessly behind me. It would get better if I continued to walk, but I can't walk every minute of my waking life. Even when it did get "Better" I could not put enough pressure on my leg to actually run..... If I tried and managed to withstand the pain (which was considerable) my leg would would simply give out.
Obviously early on I went to the doctor, then another doctor, then a specialist, then another specialist. I had X-Rays and CAT Scans done which turned up a minor bulging disc, certainly "nothing to be alarmed over" according to the doctors. They gave me painkillers and put me through physical therapy sessions which I attended religiously.
After three years of that, I was actually getting worse. I know I was feeling self pity at the time, but I actually entertained thoughts of suicide. I couldn't be active like I used to, my sex life sucked because I could barely move the proper way without being in agony. I was hooked on narcotic painkillers and was taking more and more and more....I quit going to physical therapy and went to the doctor only for the dope.
I said to hell with it, I'll try one of those "Quack" Chiropractors. I didn't believe in them either but the way I saw it I didn't have much to lose. I went three times a week for two months and nothing happened. The third month, however, I started getting out of bed pain free a few more days. By the end of the six month treatment the Chiropractor had come up with, the pain was gone. It is 6 years later now, and it has never come back. It took me an extra year to get rid of the raging narcotics addiction but I doubt I would have had my leg not improved.
Maybe my body healed itself, maybe the stress of entering the real world had caused it and was finally easing up, maybe I was finally reaping the benefits of physical therapy, maybe the Chiropractor acted as some type of placebo but from where I am sitting I know the pain was very very real and it sure looks like it was the chiropractor that fixed my problem and allowed me to stop living in Constant pain while traditional medicine did nothing while leading me down a path of addiction.
I think an individual deciding which seems more impressive to them is probably based on where their true interests are. As a BioChemist for the most part, I did not really think much about the structure of individual atoms after the first semester of introductory chem. For Chemists, it doesn't matter if the electrons are solid particles, light waves, or miniature flying spaghetti monsters. What does matter is which molecules want more electrons and which want fewer....and how badly they "want" to donate/accept said electrons. For me, the picture in the original article was pretty cool whereas the pictures in maddogs article is more along the lines of "HOLY SHIT! IT IS A REAL PICTURE OF AN AROMATIC HYDROCARBON!"
It reminds me of college. My room mate was a physics major. He'd come home with some physics problems relating to quantom and ask me if I could help him try to figure them out. Makes sense to him, I'm the one looking at molecular related things all day. When I saw the material, I was absolutely clueless. It was so far above anything I had studied in that area. I'm guessing he'd appreciate the first picture more.;)
Speaking as a chemist, could you explain what exactly this means? Up until this very moment I have been under the misguided notion that the nucleus of an atom was orbited by electrons within groups called "shells", and these worked very similarly to satellites around a planet. I've looked up and read (for around 5 minutes, so give me a little time to properly read up on it) that this is not the case, and that the "shells" model given to 16 year olds is (understandably) over-simplified.
I'm thinking that the Shells idea that you are considering is just describing it in a way that makes it easy to wrap your head around it for easier visualization. The only thing you really need to take from the "Shells" model is that the Electrons grouped in the same shell are going to be (Somewhat) similar in terms of Energy required to strip the electrons from the Shell. For Example - Calcium would have 2 electrons in it's outer "shell". We know those two electrons are pretty easy to take away. We also know that taking away an electron from the next "Shell" is damn near impossible. That is extremely easy to understand and even visualize but not entirely true in reality. Others, who seem to be more into the physics side of things broke down what reality is a little better.
While I more or less agree with you, I have tried a few Windows Vista to Windows 7 upgrades (Possibly Windows 7 Beta to Windows 7 RC or something...can't remember if that is allowed) and they all seem to have gone flawlessly. I wanted to mess around with the Migration tool and I have to say all in all I have been impressed. I think I would be comfortable with the process on someone's main machine....something I never would have considered with past versions of Windows. Note by "Upgrade" I mean booting up the computer in the old OS, sticking the Windows 7 Disc in, and letting it run....not booting from the install CD. I never got this type of upgrade to work on previous versions...ever.
Obviously a fresh install is preferable due to the special oddities that a Windows install will develop after installing a few pieces of software.
Wow. You must have ran into some really friendly Linux hax0rs. I would have all been like "You're Wireless Securitys dont work? Havent you never heard of "Open Source" you n00b luser? It means you can fix it yerself. Install Emacs unless you are a VI loony, debug your own damn driver, recompile yer kernel, and everything will be fine. Than you can release youre new driver (Which probably sucks anyway because you seem like a real id10t) and make a man document that says "I am r00t, bow b4 me! If you can't figure out how to install this it is only bcause you are dumb so don't bother me about it."
If u couldn't handle this u shouldnt run Linux because I dont want to be associated with lusers like yourself.
As WrongMonkey said, it sounds like you went to a pretty "Movie Stereotype" High School. My experience was different. One of my best friends was easily the best all around athlete as well as the smartest person at my high school. Basketball was his real interest and he spend a lot of time honing his abilities. Unfortunately for him, he stopped growing at about 6'3" so any serious future basketball playing got tossed out of the Window. Years later, he still plays ball in the Faculty league at Notre Dame where he is a professor. I would put myself in the top five or so in my class in intelligence and was also a pretty darn good athlete in high school. I didn't have anyone that could compete with me in short distance running (50 yards to 1/4 mile), had a 40 inch vertical, and was deceptively strong. Unfortunately I topped out at 5'10" cutting my organized sports career shorter than I would Have liked.;(
Football was the sport I was referring to when I was talking about strategy but don't kid yourself if you don't think intelligence doesn't play a part in other sports. The friend I talked about above, myself, and two other intelligent, height challenged individuals played in a lot of 3 on 3/4 on 4 tournaments up until our mid 20's. We beat teams that all appearances suggested that we didn't even belong on the court with because we played smart and played as a team. It is amazing what some really quick thinking can do to make up for inferior physical skills.
When off the court/field/gym my friends and I mostly did nerdy stuff (And still do to this day when we get together). Talk about computers/science/philosophy, have LAN parties, play strategy board games, play AD&D, that sort of thing. I guess I get angry when I see people who like sports get lumped into this category of being idiots because of how much sports enriched (and continue to enrich) my life. Maybe it was never your thing, perhaps due to complete lack of interest or early exposure, perhaps due to being born with a frame that didn't lend itself to organized sports but try to open your mind and see how it could be enjoyable for others. Who knows, you might find yourself enjoying them.;)
Why do so many people on here think sports and anything remotely intellectual are mutually exclusive?
I may have to turn in my geek card here, but I have to admit that A. I don't think about science, math, and computers 24/7/365 and B. I enjoy watching and playing some sports. Getting outside to run around a bit and toss a ball around can be great exercise, make your healthier, and in turn make your brain work on those intellectual things just a little better. Watching a game with the right group of friends can be a lot of fun. Some people even understand sports enough to know the strategy involved, which can become quite complex and interesting to discuss while giving a bit of a mental workout.
I can't really comment on the overall sleaziness of this technique without having seen pictures of the booth babes and/or "Lustful acts". Please provide this information so I can wh...er....whine about how outraged I am!
But seriously....how much were they paying these Booth Babes? Sitting there around a bunch of smelly horny nerds that have been encouraged to be even more obnoxious than usual....and having to go out on a date with the most obnoxious one has to be taxing for any woman.
Honestly, if by "Top Tier Security Products" you mean "Symantec Endpoint Security" (which is Symantec Anti-Virus Corporate Edition Version 11) I would have to disagree with you. I was a pretty ardent supporter of their product years ago. The Symantec System Center allowed for some pretty easy centralized management, updating, virus alerts, and installation of Client and Server AV. The fact is that nowadays it simply is not that effective at detecting and is almost completely worthless at cleaning Virus and Malware (They added "Support" for Malware somewhere around version 8.0 or 9.0) infections. The company I work for had a three year maintenance deal that is going to expire and I will look elsewhere. I really can't remember the last time that it actually helped me in any way.
Symantec Endpoint Security also bogs down computers pretty well, especially if it is actively running a scan. Even on newer boxes it becomes frustratingly slow to do anything if a scan is running. Compare that to Nod32 which is barely noticeable when running an active scan and seems to do a much better job at detection and cleanup, although I have experience with it only on a few machines.
Others may have different experiences but for me, even Symantec Corporate offerings are no longer very good.
Slashdot Mirror
I do think that a lot of the angst in terms of a particular solution being implemented has a lot to do with admin egos. In my experience, while one solution may be preferred for some good reasons, other solutions will work just fine. Give your advice, accept the end decision, implement the new decision, and shut up. The big caveat here is in ERP/MRP systems. Choosing the wrong Virtualization platform, firewall, Anti-Virus package, whatever can be a pain for the IT department but choosing the wrong ERP system can absolutely ravage a company. I have seen places decide on an ERP system that was inadequate or waaaaay too complex for what they were trying to accomplish, often because of someone in Upper Management having a buddy that sells said system.
I am lucky to be with a company that is mostly cooperative towards me because while there are jobs out there, I sure as heck wouldn't want to be voting with my feet right now. Two years ago I was getting a lot of calls from recruiters and the like seeing if I would be interested in positions they were trying to fill. In the last 9 months, those calls have been few and far between.
Same with AP history tests, in my experience.
After the last Slashdot article on handwriting, I got to thinking about my own handwriting and broke out old papers that I wrote in school. You don't get to keep any of the AP tests, but I found essays that I wrote in my AP History class. Our teacher did a fantastic job of preparing us for the exam and tried to emulate the time constraints of the AP exam for standard class essay tests....meaning you were writing furiously to get the thing done. I was astonished at how little cursive I used. When I did use it, it was usually some hackish looking hybrid between cursive and print. My college essays, many of which also had pretty difficult time constraints, contained even less cursive. I have one exam where I have three and a half "Blue Books" filled entirely with print. Maybe cursive was faster for some, but print was fast enough for me and had the added bonus of legibility.
Maybe it works better for people who have large network of Facebook friends...but I have limited my Facebook friend group to either people I interact with an a reasonably regular basis as a way of asking them all "Hey, who is up to do this Saturday" and really good friends who have moved away. All in all, maybe 25-30 friends. I have three friends who are gay. Two of them are in relationships so the significant others get tagged as "friends" so I can also invite them to whatever event. That makes 20% of my friend's list openly gay. As they are my friends, we share some common interests that may be considered "gay" by some.... such as baking and yoga. I didn't seek out gay friends...two of them I knew before they even knew they were gay.
Myself? I'm a straight male who has been married 7 years and has never entertained the idea of intimacy with other men. Would having a decent percentage of gay friends tag me as gay?
I have to say that being unemployed is a completley different scenario though, unless you have a pretty decent amount of money to fall back on. I was jobless for nearly a year 7 years back or so. My wife was in school so I was the one in charge of paying the bills. I didn't enjoy going out and doing anything (Even if I had the money) and I couldn't engross myself in a project because I was worrying about my situation 24/7. I basically became a complete worthless human being because of being cripplingly depressed. Looking back I wish I would have handled it differently, but it was hard to shake the feeling. of course, it probably showed in my interviews, prolonging my time without a job.
I agree wholeheartedly. Sometimes my job can really suck but for the most part, I have to stop and giggle at the fact that I'm getting paid (and paid pretty well) to tinker around with computers/servers/software that someone else has paid for. Yeah, sometimes I get up in the morning and simply want to go back to sleep but most of the time I am reasonably excited to go to work. It makes me feel like a freak, but it also makes me realize how fortunate I am.
And like you, I'm a not a superstar at any aspect of technology. I pride myself on my ability to learn things quickly and take time to make sure I know what I am doing, so in the end I feel I do a lot of good things for the place I work.
I've been reading Slashdot on and off since somewhere between 1999-2001. I can't remember that much about the content from my earliest days, but all in all I can't remember that much talk ever about actual coding. Occasional XML format discussions, announcements on the latest version of pHp, maybe a C++ Book review...that is about it. Legal issues? There have been plenty and it seems to go in phases. There was the Rambus phase, SCO phase, now we seem to be in the Patent/Copyright/P2P phase. I agree that I would like to see more amateurish robotics type stuff come up but it seems whenever anything like that is posted the comments are "What a loser, why would he waste his time doing that" when it years past it may have been "Whoa, that is awesome" or "That's nothing, my robot is awesomer. Check it out here...."
I look at this in a few ways. Let me state first that I am not someone that making huge stands on environmentalism and do my share of hypocritical things. That said, just because we have coal does not mean that we should be chomping at the bit to burn it up and release harmful gasses into the environment. If alternative energy is viable in a given circumstance, there is no sense in not going that route.
My second thought is this....fossil fuels are pretty much a limited resource. We won't run out in our lifetime but some day the Earth will be running low on these traditions fuels. As we move towards alternative energy there will be less demand for them but I would imagine that there will always be a use for Coal and Oil in certain applications. Why not keep those resources in the ground to ensure the vast (but not unlimited) supply is there for future generations?
It just doesn't make sense to use up your finite energy resources that have the side effect of harming the environment when you can start to use cleaner, renewable resources.
I am not quoting a source and I am not entirely sure my information is correct but I think that the brand Vizio is "Manufactured" in California. By "Manufactured" I'm guessing that all of the parts, or at least all of the Electronic components are actually made overseas and the location in California performs the final assembly of the units. Mind you the final assembly may very well be just sticking the company logo on the front of the TV and printing out the manuals or something.
I think that I also heard that Vizio is in the top 10 in flat panel television sales in the United States. I myself got an excellent deal an a refurb Vizio 32" 1080p ($350 over a year ago) and have been very happy with it in terms of quality thus far.
Again, I have no source for this and a quick search turned up all sorts of conflicting results by dubious sources.
This may make me sound like a complete n00b idiot but I'll ask anyway..... Since UAC doesn't use something like SUDO in Linux where a password is needed, couldn't a piece of malicious software from a website simply run a little bit of Javascript to send an "Enter" keystroke in order to approve whatever UAC is asking for? Heck, even VBScript Sendkeys would seem to work for this. UAC can't possible ask you every time a web site runs any type of script. Or when the UAC box is up is the Operating System more or less locked out for anything other than local input somehow?
I'm a Libertarian. I actually vote *Gasp* Libertarian unless there is a candidate I really like from another party...which doesn't happen often.
I try to convince those who have Libertarian ideals to vote Libertarian but alas, the "Throwing your vote away" idea is too ingrained in society. At that point, who do you expect them to vote for? If they are "True" Republicans they certainly don't hold many left leaning ideals. They are kind of screwed.
Of course for a good deal of the population it doesn't matter what the labels "Democrat" and "Republican" ACTUALLY mean. That is the "Side" that they chose and intend to stick with them....they'll be damned if they will let silly little things like actual facts get in the way.
I really am not sure here, but perhaps the cost associated with creating patches for exploits could be thrown into the equation. It is a sort of backwards and stupid way of looking at things but if people did not spend time trying to exploit the insecurities of Windows to steal money or information from Windows Users, Microsoft would not have to spend money to fix these issues which have nothing to do with actual usability of the product. A security breach is only an issue if there are people out there who try to make use of it. Of course, there will always be people to exploit security holes.
MacOSX tells me whenever I ask it to run a file downloaded from the net for the first time.
So does Vista - in fact, if you have antivirus installed (and it properly integrates with OS by using the corresponding APIs), it will even make it scan the file before starting it for the first time.
Of course, One of the big complaints with Vista was that the OS got in your face every time you tried to do something that could cause problems, simply because Windows Users became acclimated to being logged in as Administrator and being able to do whatever the heck they wanted without question. Granted, Windows Vista was a little extreme with the amount of times that they asked if you wanted to allow something to run. I don't know for sure, but I do not think that you could adjust the alert levels in Vista. They changed this in Windows 7 so you can make your User Account control get in your face some of the time, all of the time, or none of the time.
You are assuming that working at a Union Job where you have no choice but to join the Union automatically makes you Pro-Union. I've known people who worked in Unionized manufacturing plants as well as Public School Teachers who loathed the Unions they were part of and blamed said Unions for a lot of things that were wrong at their shop or with the Public School System. I've also known some people in unions that didn't really care about the issue at all.
In general terms, you are probably correct in that a higher percentage of Union workers are pro-union as compared to non-union workers. However, I don't think you can state for a fact that all teachers will put a positive slant on them. Each individual teacher will have their own personal biases regarding just about everything they teach.
I'm getting way off topic, but this is A little anecdote that I like to tell about indoctorinating of children. This happened back when I was in Grade School, during an election year...I really don't remember if it was Reagan/Mondale or Bush/Dukakis. My teacher asked me who I would vote for if I could. I picked the Democratic candidate and she asked me why. I gave her my reasons (Which were probably very childish and stupid, but that isn't the point). She said..."And what would be the most important reason to vote for him?". I thought about it for awhile and said "Because he is a Democrat?" Said teacher was absolutely beaming with pride and told me that was the right answer. From that moment on until I was old enough to have a remote understanding of politics I actually thought that the Republicans were truly evil people and the Democrats were the good guys simply because a person who I was told to respect and learn from told me so. As a 2nd or 3rd grader, why would I think my teacher was just steering me towards her belief system? Pushing her views on me wrapped up as fact was an absolutely disgusting act, IMO.
TYPICALLY a burglar will be looking for small, higher dollar items that they can stash in their pockets so they can get out in a hurry. Seeing as how this guy decided he had enough time to sit down and chill on his victim's computer, I don't think we can assume any common sense. He was probably trying to single handedly rob the king size bed and refrigerator.
I agree with you to some extent. The place I work is small (somewhere in the 80-100 desktop/laptop range) and did not have any security/internet policies in place whatsoever. We are a subsidiary of a much larger foreign company and they asked us to draft something up. The job fell to me. I considered internet filtering and decided that we should block sites that could possibly cause liability issues for the company. My list? Porn sites, for a few reasons. I figure if someone sees there is the possibility of harassment charges. I figure if someone is into kiddie porn there is the potential for all types of problems. A lot of porn sites are malware havens. Hate/Racism/Homophobic sites. Again, as there are people of different ethnic backgrounds at the company and if people are browsing these sites they may feel that the workplace is hostile, possibility of investigations if the person is coordinating the crime at the workplace or something. That is about it. I did cut off streaming video for awhile because it was being used a lot and a T1 line for 90 people isn't a heck of a lot of bandwidth, especially when we have guys from offsite transferring files to our network and stuff.
Blocking anything that can be considered non-work related is obnoxious, but there are some things that I feel the company is better off without in the workplace.
I told a similar story up above (Although I threw in the towel and went to the Chiropractor after three years. I can't imagine having lived as I did for 12)...
One thing I failed to mention is that not only did the doctors never refer me to a chiropractor, they told me it would be outright stupid for me to do so. One of the specialists even laughed and said something to the effect of "Do that and I'll see you in here in a few months after you get your arm busted and shoulder dislocated." That statement alone kept me away from the Chiropractor for a bit longer.
Also, a real masseuse should have a diploma. My Sister in Law went to school for a year to become a massage therapist. She had to go through a few months of massaging rich middle aged women at a spa before getting hired at an actual, well respected orthopedic specialist's office to use massage to assist in physical therapy. She put in a lot of extra time (And took some kineseology type classes at a more traditional university) learning about the muscle/skeletal system. I've spent time talking with her about her work and the depth of knowledge she has in regards to the mechanics of the human body is staggering. Sadly, when she meets new people and tells them what she does for a living, they think she is a prostitute.
Well, since I'm not living in a country where kooks and liars are given the benefit of the doubt, let me say quite publicly that chiropractors are frauds, along with naturopaths, healing touch types and all the other absurd lying pieces of worthless trash out there who profit off of the superstition and naivety of those with more money than brains.
This is a personal anecdote, so as usual, everyone's miles may vary.
In Middle School, High School, and Early college I was a very athletic individual. One day as a Junior in college, I woke up and could barely lift my left leg to walk. My Pelvis, buttocks, and groin area had very intense sharp pain. It went away in a few days so I wasn't alarmed. It would come and go periodically until I was 23 and out of college. For three long years, at least 25 days out of the month I would get out of bed dragging my left uselessly behind me. It would get better if I continued to walk, but I can't walk every minute of my waking life. Even when it did get "Better" I could not put enough pressure on my leg to actually run..... If I tried and managed to withstand the pain (which was considerable) my leg would would simply give out.
Obviously early on I went to the doctor, then another doctor, then a specialist, then another specialist. I had X-Rays and CAT Scans done which turned up a minor bulging disc, certainly "nothing to be alarmed over" according to the doctors. They gave me painkillers and put me through physical therapy sessions which I attended religiously.
After three years of that, I was actually getting worse. I know I was feeling self pity at the time, but I actually entertained thoughts of suicide. I couldn't be active like I used to, my sex life sucked because I could barely move the proper way without being in agony. I was hooked on narcotic painkillers and was taking more and more and more....I quit going to physical therapy and went to the doctor only for the dope.
I said to hell with it, I'll try one of those "Quack" Chiropractors. I didn't believe in them either but the way I saw it I didn't have much to lose. I went three times a week for two months and nothing happened. The third month, however, I started getting out of bed pain free a few more days. By the end of the six month treatment the Chiropractor had come up with, the pain was gone. It is 6 years later now, and it has never come back. It took me an extra year to get rid of the raging narcotics addiction but I doubt I would have had my leg not improved.
Maybe my body healed itself, maybe the stress of entering the real world had caused it and was finally easing up, maybe I was finally reaping the benefits of physical therapy, maybe the Chiropractor acted as some type of placebo but from where I am sitting I know the pain was very very real and it sure looks like it was the chiropractor that fixed my problem and allowed me to stop living in Constant pain while traditional medicine did nothing while leading me down a path of addiction.
I think an individual deciding which seems more impressive to them is probably based on where their true interests are. As a BioChemist for the most part, I did not really think much about the structure of individual atoms after the first semester of introductory chem. For Chemists, it doesn't matter if the electrons are solid particles, light waves, or miniature flying spaghetti monsters. What does matter is which molecules want more electrons and which want fewer....and how badly they "want" to donate/accept said electrons. For me, the picture in the original article was pretty cool whereas the pictures in maddogs article is more along the lines of "HOLY SHIT! IT IS A REAL PICTURE OF AN AROMATIC HYDROCARBON!"
It reminds me of college. My room mate was a physics major. He'd come home with some physics problems relating to quantom and ask me if I could help him try to figure them out. Makes sense to him, I'm the one looking at molecular related things all day. When I saw the material, I was absolutely clueless. It was so far above anything I had studied in that area. I'm guessing he'd appreciate the first picture more. ;)
Speaking as a chemist, could you explain what exactly this means? Up until this very moment I have been under the misguided notion that the nucleus of an atom was orbited by electrons within groups called "shells", and these worked very similarly to satellites around a planet. I've looked up and read (for around 5 minutes, so give me a little time to properly read up on it) that this is not the case, and that the "shells" model given to 16 year olds is (understandably) over-simplified.
I'm thinking that the Shells idea that you are considering is just describing it in a way that makes it easy to wrap your head around it for easier visualization. The only thing you really need to take from the "Shells" model is that the Electrons grouped in the same shell are going to be (Somewhat) similar in terms of Energy required to strip the electrons from the Shell. For Example - Calcium would have 2 electrons in it's outer "shell". We know those two electrons are pretty easy to take away. We also know that taking away an electron from the next "Shell" is damn near impossible. That is extremely easy to understand and even visualize but not entirely true in reality. Others, who seem to be more into the physics side of things broke down what reality is a little better.
While I more or less agree with you, I have tried a few Windows Vista to Windows 7 upgrades (Possibly Windows 7 Beta to Windows 7 RC or something...can't remember if that is allowed) and they all seem to have gone flawlessly. I wanted to mess around with the Migration tool and I have to say all in all I have been impressed. I think I would be comfortable with the process on someone's main machine....something I never would have considered with past versions of Windows. Note by "Upgrade" I mean booting up the computer in the old OS, sticking the Windows 7 Disc in, and letting it run....not booting from the install CD. I never got this type of upgrade to work on previous versions...ever.
Obviously a fresh install is preferable due to the special oddities that a Windows install will develop after installing a few pieces of software.
This is typically how my Linux experiences go....
Wow. You must have ran into some really friendly Linux hax0rs. I would have all been like "You're Wireless Securitys dont work? Havent you never heard of "Open Source" you n00b luser? It means you can fix it yerself. Install Emacs unless you are a VI loony, debug your own damn driver, recompile yer kernel, and everything will be fine. Than you can release youre new driver (Which probably sucks anyway because you seem like a real id10t) and make a man document that says "I am r00t, bow b4 me! If you can't figure out how to install this it is only bcause you are dumb so don't bother me about it."
If u couldn't handle this u shouldnt run Linux because I dont want to be associated with lusers like yourself.
As WrongMonkey said, it sounds like you went to a pretty "Movie Stereotype" High School. My experience was different. One of my best friends was easily the best all around athlete as well as the smartest person at my high school. Basketball was his real interest and he spend a lot of time honing his abilities. Unfortunately for him, he stopped growing at about 6'3" so any serious future basketball playing got tossed out of the Window. Years later, he still plays ball in the Faculty league at Notre Dame where he is a professor. I would put myself in the top five or so in my class in intelligence and was also a pretty darn good athlete in high school. I didn't have anyone that could compete with me in short distance running (50 yards to 1/4 mile), had a 40 inch vertical, and was deceptively strong. Unfortunately I topped out at 5'10" cutting my organized sports career shorter than I would Have liked. ;(
Football was the sport I was referring to when I was talking about strategy but don't kid yourself if you don't think intelligence doesn't play a part in other sports. The friend I talked about above, myself, and two other intelligent, height challenged individuals played in a lot of 3 on 3/4 on 4 tournaments up until our mid 20's. We beat teams that all appearances suggested that we didn't even belong on the court with because we played smart and played as a team. It is amazing what some really quick thinking can do to make up for inferior physical skills.
When off the court/field/gym my friends and I mostly did nerdy stuff (And still do to this day when we get together). Talk about computers/science/philosophy, have LAN parties, play strategy board games, play AD&D, that sort of thing. I guess I get angry when I see people who like sports get lumped into this category of being idiots because of how much sports enriched (and continue to enrich) my life. Maybe it was never your thing, perhaps due to complete lack of interest or early exposure, perhaps due to being born with a frame that didn't lend itself to organized sports but try to open your mind and see how it could be enjoyable for others. Who knows, you might find yourself enjoying them. ;)
Why do so many people on here think sports and anything remotely intellectual are mutually exclusive?
I may have to turn in my geek card here, but I have to admit that A. I don't think about science, math, and computers 24/7/365 and B. I enjoy watching and playing some sports. Getting outside to run around a bit and toss a ball around can be great exercise, make your healthier, and in turn make your brain work on those intellectual things just a little better. Watching a game with the right group of friends can be a lot of fun. Some people even understand sports enough to know the strategy involved, which can become quite complex and interesting to discuss while giving a bit of a mental workout.
I can't really comment on the overall sleaziness of this technique without having seen pictures of the booth babes and/or "Lustful acts". Please provide this information so I can wh...er....whine about how outraged I am!
But seriously....how much were they paying these Booth Babes? Sitting there around a bunch of smelly horny nerds that have been encouraged to be even more obnoxious than usual....and having to go out on a date with the most obnoxious one has to be taxing for any woman.
Honestly, if by "Top Tier Security Products" you mean "Symantec Endpoint Security" (which is Symantec Anti-Virus Corporate Edition Version 11) I would have to disagree with you. I was a pretty ardent supporter of their product years ago. The Symantec System Center allowed for some pretty easy centralized management, updating, virus alerts, and installation of Client and Server AV. The fact is that nowadays it simply is not that effective at detecting and is almost completely worthless at cleaning Virus and Malware (They added "Support" for Malware somewhere around version 8.0 or 9.0) infections. The company I work for had a three year maintenance deal that is going to expire and I will look elsewhere. I really can't remember the last time that it actually helped me in any way.
Symantec Endpoint Security also bogs down computers pretty well, especially if it is actively running a scan. Even on newer boxes it becomes frustratingly slow to do anything if a scan is running. Compare that to Nod32 which is barely noticeable when running an active scan and seems to do a much better job at detection and cleanup, although I have experience with it only on a few machines.
Others may have different experiences but for me, even Symantec Corporate offerings are no longer very good.