Before Stonehenge, there was Woodhenge and Strawhenge. But a - but a big bad wolf came and blew them down, and three little piggies were relocated to the project.
Woden was pissed off at the druids for denying him as the one true God. He sent the Fenris wolf to destroy the earlier henges.
I grew up near a town called Hope, NJ. It was originally a planned religous community built by the Moravians in the mid-1700's (I think.) The Moravians built using stone, and the buildings still look great.
For example, the First National Bank of Hope. It was built in 1781 as a church. In 1911 it became the First National Bank of Hope, and it still is.
The Inn at Mill Race Pond used to be an old grist mill. Now the tavern is located in the chamber where the actual wheel was and the rest of it is a restauraunt/inn. It's been over ten years since last time I was there, but the food was incredible. If you live in NJ or Manhattan, and would like to do something really nice for your SO, book a room at the inn. Head out there for dinner, and spend the night at the inn. In the winter you can hop back on I-80 and head to the ski resorts the next day (Camelback is less than an hour away, Shawnee even closer.) The rest of the year, Millbrook Village is cool if you like historical stuff (people making candles and horseshoes and crap like that.) Or the Delaware Water Gap is only 12 miles west down I-80 if you like hiking. Nice trails and beautiful scenery. In the fall when the leaves are changing colors it's especially beautiful.
Besides these structures, there are also many Moravian-built houses that are still lived in today. I had a couple friends that lived in them when I was growing up. I'm not sure how practical building these structures would be today, but kudos to the Moravians for building some attractive buildings 225+ years ago that are still useful and desirable properties today.
Jeans take a well-trained eye to see through. Especially new jeans. After several washings the material thins out and the lines become more obvious. Hip-huggers are all the rage down here in FL, so most girls are wearing T-backs. My research shows that T-backs are fairly hard to identify through clothing, but hip-huggers offer more opportunity for line-of-sight observation.
OK, to be honest, if you can't see the lines through your jeans, then I probably can't either. If you're concerned about people seeing the lines through your khakhis try a T-back. They don't look especially comfortable, but then again, nothing other than boxers look like they would be comfortable to me.
I can't believe I'm giving fashion advice on Slashdot. Strange days, these.:)
Start paying a little closer attention. You don't need x-ray vision to be able to tell (unless she's wearing a T-back or G-string.) At first it might be hard to tell, but the more you practice you'll get better at it. It's kinda like the next level up from being able to tell if she's bra-less.
Damn, I probably just ruined my rep with all the hotties on Slashdot. Oh, wait...
I currently have the Privacy Manager service from Pacific Bell (SBC). Callers whose Caller-ID information is not received are given a recording telling them the called number does not accept calls without Caller-ID and gives them the option to record their name at which point the callee is called by the system and the caller's name is announced giving the callee the option to accept the call.
Anyway, since telemarketers currently do not transmit Caller-ID information, I get no telemarketing calls. None. Zip. Nada.
I loved Privacy Manager for the first couple months after it came out. After a while though, I started getting calls from outbound only numbers, some blatently labeled "Privacy Bypass." Many places started just recording their spiel where you are supposed to state your name. By that point I was back up to two calls a day that were bypassing it so I got rid of the service.
When I got it I figured it would be worth it for $4.95 a month. What sucked was I had to pay a $25 "set-up" fee to get the service, and I only kept it for three months. So it basically ended up costing me twice as much.
Re:Serious question on tabbed browsing
on
Hyatt Discusses Tabs
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
As far as MDI vs multiple windows, it's a tradeoff. With MDI you only need to minimize one app to get it out of the way, and don't have to sequence through a ton of browsers to get to something else - neither of which may be an issue for many people. With multiple windows you can see the titles for everything in the task bar, instead of on a tab bar, so it's a more consistent interface - again, may not be an issue depending on how you do things.
For me it's precisely the fact that it keeps all the titles out of the task bar. It's not that big of a deal if all I'm doing is browsing, but if I'm switching between multiple apps and browsing at the same time, it's great to have my open web pages separate from my open apps.
Also, as someone who usually keeps their taskbar hidden, it's very convenient to have that little tab bar right beneath my personal toolbar rather than having to pop up my taskbar or ALT-TAB to switch between pages.
Another thing I like better about tabs (in Mozilla at least) is that they fit a longer description then the WinXP taskbar can manage. For instance, two articles on Slashdot opened in both Mozilla (using tabs) and IE (not using tabs):
Mozilla: "Slashdot | Microsoft to End DLL Conf..." IE: "Slashdot | Micro..."
In this case even the WinXP taskbar is sufficient to distinguish between the two pages. However, a lot of sites like to include a bunch of redundant crap at the beginning of their title tags, so the more descriptive tab becomes very useful.
Windows are just fine for simple browsing. Tabs really start to come in handy when you have several apps open at once for reference or cut-n-pasting.
Give either subscribers or highly regarded moderators* a crude moderation system for stories themselves, then lower the submission acceptance threshold.
I don't think the submission moderation idea is necessarily bad, but the threshold for submissions should be up to the indiviual users. It no big deal to me if Slashdot posts an article I'm not interested in. I simply don't read it--it's not like I'm being forced to read it or anything. I'd much rather that than having potentially interesting articles NOT being posted due to mods who's interests deviate from mine.
When he swore under oath that opening the source for Windows would be a threat to national security, I completely agreed. The number of security holes in Windows with the source remaining closed was bad enough. Now China gets to see the source, and we don't? Wouldn't that put them at an advantage over US companies that can't audit the code for security holes?
I noticed this recently. Side by side, my computer (Athlon 1700, 384MB RAM, 32MB TNT2 Ultra) runs SimCity 4 much slower than my friend's (Athlon 1400, 256MB RAM, 64MB Radeon 9700.) Mine spends a ton of time reading/writing on the hard disk despite the extra RAM.
Sure you'd expect better video performance from a better video card, but had didn't expect it would make such a difference in a non-FPS like SimCity 4. I imagine the extra video memory allows a lot more detail to be cached in the video card rather than [mis]managed by WinXP. Why windows needs 500MB of swap space to play this game when there is 384MB of physical memory is beyond me. I'm sure if I increased my physical memory to 1024MB it'd still be swapping though.
Re:Very interesting read..
on
NARAS vs. the RIAA
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Makes a great point, as you give the public more options to choose from, you get more of the publics cash....
The public will spend more money if there are more options. The fear of the MPAA/RIAA is that most of those options are going to come from non-members. Until it became practical to download audio/video they pretty much had a lock on widespread distribution of their types of content. Now basically anyone can do it. This puts non-memeber entities on level ground with them when it comes to digital media distribution. Their business model requires them to be the only game in town.
So you see them being dragged kicking and screaming into online distribution. They don't want to do it, but they don't have a choice. In the meantime they do everything to make it harder for people to distribute content over the Net. P2P software (or any software) that makes it easy to find and easily acquire music published by just anyone is a huge threat to them.
They'd like to keep the options narrowed down to what they can produce and profit from so that they get all the money.
I read the magazine article, not the one linked to so I don't know if this is mentioned in the web version. The idea is that people can use the nic-free cig to break the nicotine addiction. Then they can move onto breaking the psychological addiction.
Initially Vector was paying farmers in Argentina to grow the tabacco. The big tabacco companies found out about this, made some payoffs to the Argentinian government and had the crops burned for "lack of permits" or something like that. US tabacco growers were told that if they grew and of the nic-free tabacco, none of the big tabacco companies would deal with them anymore. So Vector turned to the Amish and they agreed to do it for $1.50/lb (going rate for tabacco is $.70/lb IIRC.)
The tactics of the big tabacco companies show that they are taking it as a serious threat. They also argue that the genetically modified plants could end up pollinating normal tabacco plants and rendering the resulting strains nicotine free. That would be my big concern.
I can't tell you how many illicit drug-related illnesses I've treated; overdoses, infections, complications, drug-induced abortions, etc, etc... the monetary cost is huge.
Does the War on Drugs seem to be helping this situation? Not according to any reasonable studies that I've read. Then take into account all the money that is spent on the War on Drugs and/or given to the drug warriors. We would be far better off taking that money and using it towards healthcare and education. At least then it would have a chance of making a positive difference. Law enforcement is doing nothing positive as far as reducing drug abuse. Drugs are still readily available all over the country.
Allocating money towards education can help reduce drug abuse. Allocating money towards healthcare can help subsidize the healthcare costs of the people that are going to be abusing drugs regardless of education or law enforcement.
Someone else mentioned how the WoD is there to deter people from taking advantage of children and the weak. This is NOT what the WoD does. I'm sure there are some fuck-ups out there that sell drugs to children, but despite the propoganda, drug dealers don't as a rule hang out around playground pushing crack to children--any dealer with a brain knows that users with disposible income will come to him on their own. Why recruit children?
The WoD creates an artificially high cost of drugs, so possibly this would entice a dealer to push drugs. If drugs are legalized, the cost of drugs drops drastically, and then there's no money to be made by two-bit dealers.
My biggest concern with legalization is what RJ Reynolds and those types will do with it. They'll no doubt find a way to mix highly addictive substances with stuff like pot to get people addicted. The tabacco industry, breweries, distilleries, and pharmaceutical companies are the "pushers" that we really need to concerned with.
How about some slashdot hangover remedies for those of us that will need them tomorrow. The tried and true remedy is to sleep until January 3rd, but what about for those of us that have to get up tomorrow?
Re:Flavor- Who gives a F-ck. This is sick
on
Lab-Grown Steak
·
· Score: 2
...no more need to graze cattle on large tracts of land...
It makes me wonder, if people stop eating meat, what will happen to all those cattle? Should we just set them all free? Keep them as pets? Set up massive zoos for them?
Really now, I think if the vegans have their way the cattle population will be decimated to the point of near extinction. How cruel.
Bash (or any of the other unix shells) is way more flexible. For one thing, the pipes and redirection in the DOS shell are a joke. In Unix you can redirect your standard input, output, and error messages easily. This is one of the key things that make unix tools so powerful--the ability to redirect and pipe things through several different tools at once.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know Windows doesn't have much in the way of scripting built into the shell either. I don't think the whole:LABEL / if errorlevel / GOTO LABEL thing even counts as scripting. bash and the other unix shells I've used allow functions, for loops, and tons of other stuff.
There is a world of difference between the capabilities of the DOS shell and a unix shell environment.
I think this peacefully co-exists with the GD tradition. The bootlegs are still legal, so nothing is lost. If the money is used to ensure that there is plenty of bandwidth to download the soundboard recordings, a lot has been gained from the fans' point of view. I can't wait to see how this pans out.
ME: Hello? HER: Hello, I'm calling on behalf of the Star Ledger to let you know that you can have the paper delivered right to your door. ME: But I don't know how to read. HER: [ponders for a moment whether I might actually be telling the truth.] ME: [lets the silence drag out.] HER: Oh, ok sir, sorry to have bothered you.
This one's a bit off-topic, but I figured I'd mention it because it turns an otherwise annoying situation in something a bit humorous: I've had unfortunately bad luck with getting phone numbers that are one digit off from 24 hour businesses (cab companies, locksmiths.)
Phone rings at 2:30AM: ME: Hello? HIM: [drunkenly] I locked my keys in the car and I need you to get them out. ME: No problem sir, we can be there in 30 minutes or less--guaranteed or your money back. HIM: Cool, I'm outside the Gold Club. I'm the only car here because everyone left. ME: Great, we'll have someone there to help you shortly. HIM: Thanks. ME: [ends call, shuts off ringer, goes back to sleep.]
This may seem a little cruel, but if you are going to drunkenly mis-dial and wake me up at 2:30am, too friggin bad buddy.
That's not the end of the phone companies' little in-house arms race either. A couple months ago I paid a $20 setup fee and about $5 a month for BellSouth's "Privacy Director". It was great for the first two or three months. Now I'm regularly getting multiple calls each day from numbers that show up as "Privacy Bypass" on my caller ID, one of which has left the same recorded message on my machine for nearly five days straight now.
I'm feeling pretty ripped off because of the $20 setup fee. If the service had lasted a year before becoming useless I'd be less aggravated.
What really gets me is that I'm getting more of these calls now than I was before I got the service. Guess I better try the Telezapper tones on my answering machine and see if that works. BTW, I've heard that you only need the first tone in order to get the auto-dialers to hang up.
Seriously, I'm just happy to have a steady paycheck coming in, even though I'm only making 33% of what I was making two years ago. Also, I'm happy to be back working at an IT job and not working in a liquor store (that was a hellish six months I spent earlier this year.)
Considering that we're a start up company and I'm the only one that actually works full-time for the company I didn't really even expect a bonus -- the owner isn't even collecting a salary yet.
However, my boss, cool guy that he is, used his frequent flier miles to get me tickets to fly home for Christmas. Easily the best Christmas bonus I've received in 10+ years working in IT.
I suppose the least I could do for him is plug our company on Slashdot. For webhosting and online project management check us out. Ugh, that sounds cheesy. Tis the season I suppose.
Yeah, surely it *can't* be hard to set up a system where an editor types in a few keywords for each story.
Or maybe they could set up some kind of system to display a list of articles that have already been posted on Slashdot. They could scan through it for articles that look similar.
Oh, wait... Or maybe a page that displays summaries for the most recently posted articles. Maybe a system like that is too difficult to implement?
Yes. Look up "civil forfeiture" on Google and you'll find tons of references to people who've had their posessions confiscated by the police. The local police get to keep what they confiscate or sell it if they choose. You'll run across tons of cases where the police confiscated property and never returned it, even after the victims were proven innocent.
The civil forfeiture laws are worse than a lot of the laws we bitch about on here. The War on Drugs opened the door for this, and believe me, they will try to extend it to any area they can. Allowing the police to profit from confiscating property only gives them incentive to manufacture crimes where there are none.
The current civil forfeiture laws are horrible, but law enforcement will fight tooth and nail to keep them in effect. The potential for these laws to be abused makes the DMCA look fairly innoccuos in comparison.
FEAR.org has some info regarding these laws as well.
Don't think that just because you're not a pot-head or a "hacker" that it can't happen to you!
Slashdot Mirror
Before Stonehenge, there was Woodhenge and Strawhenge. But a - but a big bad wolf came and blew them down, and three little piggies were relocated to the project.
- doh-bup-dee-dee-daa.
Woden was pissed off at the druids for denying him as the one true God. He sent the Fenris wolf to destroy the earlier henges.
yaa-da-daa-da-daa-daa-daa-baa-daa-daa-bup-doh-doh
V-head junkies could go off at any minute. I had to be careful... er, no I haven't been playing too much Max Payne.
I grew up near a town called Hope, NJ. It was originally a planned religous community built by the Moravians in the mid-1700's (I think.) The Moravians built using stone, and the buildings still look great.
For example, the First National Bank of Hope. It was built in 1781 as a church. In 1911 it became the First National Bank of Hope, and it still is.
The Inn at Mill Race Pond used to be an old grist mill. Now the tavern is located in the chamber where the actual wheel was and the rest of it is a restauraunt/inn. It's been over ten years since last time I was there, but the food was incredible. If you live in NJ or Manhattan, and would like to do something really nice for your SO, book a room at the inn. Head out there for dinner, and spend the night at the inn. In the winter you can hop back on I-80 and head to the ski resorts the next day (Camelback is less than an hour away, Shawnee even closer.) The rest of the year, Millbrook Village is cool if you like historical stuff (people making candles and horseshoes and crap like that.) Or the Delaware Water Gap is only 12 miles west down I-80 if you like hiking. Nice trails and beautiful scenery. In the fall when the leaves are changing colors it's especially beautiful.
Besides these structures, there are also many Moravian-built houses that are still lived in today. I had a couple friends that lived in them when I was growing up. I'm not sure how practical building these structures would be today, but kudos to the Moravians for building some attractive buildings 225+ years ago that are still useful and desirable properties today.
Jeans take a well-trained eye to see through. Especially new jeans. After several washings the material thins out and the lines become more obvious. Hip-huggers are all the rage down here in FL, so most girls are wearing T-backs. My research shows that T-backs are fairly hard to identify through clothing, but hip-huggers offer more opportunity for line-of-sight observation.
:)
OK, to be honest, if you can't see the lines through your jeans, then I probably can't either. If you're concerned about people seeing the lines through your khakhis try a T-back. They don't look especially comfortable, but then again, nothing other than boxers look like they would be comfortable to me.
I can't believe I'm giving fashion advice on Slashdot. Strange days, these.
Start paying a little closer attention. You don't need x-ray vision to be able to tell (unless she's wearing a T-back or G-string.) At first it might be hard to tell, but the more you practice you'll get better at it. It's kinda like the next level up from being able to tell if she's bra-less.
Damn, I probably just ruined my rep with all the hotties on Slashdot. Oh, wait...
I currently have the Privacy Manager service from Pacific Bell (SBC). Callers whose Caller-ID information is not received are given a recording telling them the called number does not accept calls without Caller-ID and gives them the option to record their name at which point the callee is called by the system and the caller's name is announced giving the callee the option to accept the call.
Anyway, since telemarketers currently do not transmit Caller-ID information, I get no telemarketing calls. None. Zip. Nada.
I loved Privacy Manager for the first couple months after it came out. After a while though, I started getting calls from outbound only numbers, some blatently labeled "Privacy Bypass." Many places started just recording their spiel where you are supposed to state your name. By that point I was back up to two calls a day that were bypassing it so I got rid of the service.
When I got it I figured it would be worth it for $4.95 a month. What sucked was I had to pay a $25 "set-up" fee to get the service, and I only kept it for three months. So it basically ended up costing me twice as much.
As far as MDI vs multiple windows, it's a tradeoff. With MDI you only need to minimize one app to get it out of the way, and don't have to sequence through a ton of browsers to get to something else - neither of which may be an issue for many people. With multiple windows you can see the titles for everything in the task bar, instead of on a tab bar, so it's a more consistent interface - again, may not be an issue depending on how you do things.
For me it's precisely the fact that it keeps all the titles out of the task bar. It's not that big of a deal if all I'm doing is browsing, but if I'm switching between multiple apps and browsing at the same time, it's great to have my open web pages separate from my open apps.
Also, as someone who usually keeps their taskbar hidden, it's very convenient to have that little tab bar right beneath my personal toolbar rather than having to pop up my taskbar or ALT-TAB to switch between pages.
Another thing I like better about tabs (in Mozilla at least) is that they fit a longer description then the WinXP taskbar can manage. For instance, two articles on Slashdot opened in both Mozilla (using tabs) and IE (not using tabs):
Mozilla: "Slashdot | Hyatt Discusses Tabs"
IE: "Slashdot | Hyatt..."
Mozilla: "Slashdot | Microsoft to End DLL Conf..."
IE: "Slashdot | Micro..."
In this case even the WinXP taskbar is sufficient to distinguish between the two pages. However, a lot of sites like to include a bunch of redundant crap at the beginning of their title tags, so the more descriptive tab becomes very useful.
Windows are just fine for simple browsing. Tabs really start to come in handy when you have several apps open at once for reference or cut-n-pasting.
Give either subscribers or highly regarded moderators* a crude moderation system for stories themselves, then lower the submission acceptance threshold.
I don't think the submission moderation idea is necessarily bad, but the threshold for submissions should be up to the indiviual users. It no big deal to me if Slashdot posts an article I'm not interested in. I simply don't read it--it's not like I'm being forced to read it or anything. I'd much rather that than having potentially interesting articles NOT being posted due to mods who's interests deviate from mine.
What's the corporate punishment for treason?
.01% of Microsoft's daily income.
It's probably a huge fine amounting to about
When he swore under oath that opening the source for Windows would be a threat to national security, I completely agreed. The number of security holes in Windows with the source remaining closed was bad enough. Now China gets to see the source, and we don't? Wouldn't that put them at an advantage over US companies that can't audit the code for security holes?
I noticed this recently. Side by side, my computer (Athlon 1700, 384MB RAM, 32MB TNT2 Ultra) runs SimCity 4 much slower than my friend's (Athlon 1400, 256MB RAM, 64MB Radeon 9700.) Mine spends a ton of time reading/writing on the hard disk despite the extra RAM.
Sure you'd expect better video performance from a better video card, but had didn't expect it would make such a difference in a non-FPS like SimCity 4. I imagine the extra video memory allows a lot more detail to be cached in the video card rather than [mis]managed by WinXP. Why windows needs 500MB of swap space to play this game when there is 384MB of physical memory is beyond me. I'm sure if I increased my physical memory to 1024MB it'd still be swapping though.
Makes a great point, as you give the public more options to choose from, you get more of the publics cash....
The public will spend more money if there are more options. The fear of the MPAA/RIAA is that most of those options are going to come from non-members. Until it became practical to download audio/video they pretty much had a lock on widespread distribution of their types of content. Now basically anyone can do it. This puts non-memeber entities on level ground with them when it comes to digital media distribution. Their business model requires them to be the only game in town.
So you see them being dragged kicking and screaming into online distribution. They don't want to do it, but they don't have a choice. In the meantime they do everything to make it harder for people to distribute content over the Net. P2P software (or any software) that makes it easy to find and easily acquire music published by just anyone is a huge threat to them.
They'd like to keep the options narrowed down to what they can produce and profit from so that they get all the money.
I read the magazine article, not the one linked to so I don't know if this is mentioned in the web version. The idea is that people can use the nic-free cig to break the nicotine addiction. Then they can move onto breaking the psychological addiction.
Initially Vector was paying farmers in Argentina to grow the tabacco. The big tabacco companies found out about this, made some payoffs to the Argentinian government and had the crops burned for "lack of permits" or something like that. US tabacco growers were told that if they grew and of the nic-free tabacco, none of the big tabacco companies would deal with them anymore. So Vector turned to the Amish and they agreed to do it for $1.50/lb (going rate for tabacco is $.70/lb IIRC.)
The tactics of the big tabacco companies show that they are taking it as a serious threat. They also argue that the genetically modified plants could end up pollinating normal tabacco plants and rendering the resulting strains nicotine free. That would be my big concern.
I can't tell you how many illicit drug-related illnesses I've treated; overdoses, infections, complications, drug-induced abortions, etc, etc... the monetary cost is huge.
Does the War on Drugs seem to be helping this situation? Not according to any reasonable studies that I've read. Then take into account all the money that is spent on the War on Drugs and/or given to the drug warriors. We would be far better off taking that money and using it towards healthcare and education. At least then it would have a chance of making a positive difference. Law enforcement is doing nothing positive as far as reducing drug abuse. Drugs are still readily available all over the country.
Allocating money towards education can help reduce drug abuse. Allocating money towards healthcare can help subsidize the healthcare costs of the people that are going to be abusing drugs regardless of education or law enforcement.
Someone else mentioned how the WoD is there to deter people from taking advantage of children and the weak. This is NOT what the WoD does. I'm sure there are some fuck-ups out there that sell drugs to children, but despite the propoganda, drug dealers don't as a rule hang out around playground pushing crack to children--any dealer with a brain knows that users with disposible income will come to him on their own. Why recruit children?
The WoD creates an artificially high cost of drugs, so possibly this would entice a dealer to push drugs. If drugs are legalized, the cost of drugs drops drastically, and then there's no money to be made by two-bit dealers.
My biggest concern with legalization is what RJ Reynolds and those types will do with it. They'll no doubt find a way to mix highly addictive substances with stuff like pot to get people addicted. The tabacco industry, breweries, distilleries, and pharmaceutical companies are the "pushers" that we really need to concerned with.
How about some slashdot hangover remedies for those of us that will need them tomorrow. The tried and true remedy is to sleep until January 3rd, but what about for those of us that have to get up tomorrow?
...no more need to graze cattle on large tracts of land...
It makes me wonder, if people stop eating meat, what will happen to all those cattle? Should we just set them all free? Keep them as pets? Set up massive zoos for them?
Really now, I think if the vegans have their way the cattle population will be decimated to the point of near extinction. How cruel.
So, what kind of information do you think one cannot convey through the internet by the means of text and pictures, but through Flash-media?
.exe and .hqx formats fool you, it's Flash, but in self-extracting format in order to conserve bandwidth.
Everything important in life I learned from Jake. A true American hero.
Don't let the
Bash (or any of the other unix shells) is way more flexible. For one thing, the pipes and redirection in the DOS shell are a joke. In Unix you can redirect your standard input, output, and error messages easily. This is one of the key things that make unix tools so powerful--the ability to redirect and pipe things through several different tools at once.
:LABEL / if errorlevel / GOTO LABEL thing even counts as scripting. bash and the other unix shells I've used allow functions, for loops, and tons of other stuff.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know Windows doesn't have much in the way of scripting built into the shell either. I don't think the whole
There is a world of difference between the capabilities of the DOS shell and a unix shell environment.
I think this peacefully co-exists with the GD tradition. The bootlegs are still legal, so nothing is lost. If the money is used to ensure that there is plenty of bandwidth to download the soundboard recordings, a lot has been gained from the fans' point of view. I can't wait to see how this pans out.
Reminds me of one of my favorites:
RING
RING
ME: Hello?
HER: Hello, I'm calling on behalf of the Star Ledger to let you know that you can have the paper delivered right to your door.
ME: But I don't know how to read.
HER: [ponders for a moment whether I might actually be telling the truth.]
ME: [lets the silence drag out.]
HER: Oh, ok sir, sorry to have bothered you.
This one's a bit off-topic, but I figured I'd mention it because it turns an otherwise annoying situation in something a bit humorous: I've had unfortunately bad luck with getting phone numbers that are one digit off from 24 hour businesses (cab companies, locksmiths.)
Phone rings at 2:30AM:
ME: Hello?
HIM: [drunkenly] I locked my keys in the car and I need you to get them out.
ME: No problem sir, we can be there in 30 minutes or less--guaranteed or your money back.
HIM: Cool, I'm outside the Gold Club. I'm the only car here because everyone left.
ME: Great, we'll have someone there to help you shortly.
HIM: Thanks.
ME: [ends call, shuts off ringer, goes back to sleep.]
This may seem a little cruel, but if you are going to drunkenly mis-dial and wake me up at 2:30am, too friggin bad buddy.
That's not the end of the phone companies' little in-house arms race either. A couple months ago I paid a $20 setup fee and about $5 a month for BellSouth's "Privacy Director". It was great for the first two or three months. Now I'm regularly getting multiple calls each day from numbers that show up as "Privacy Bypass" on my caller ID, one of which has left the same recorded message on my machine for nearly five days straight now.
I'm feeling pretty ripped off because of the $20 setup fee. If the service had lasted a year before becoming useless I'd be less aggravated.
What really gets me is that I'm getting more of these calls now than I was before I got the service. Guess I better try the Telezapper tones on my answering machine and see if that works. BTW, I've heard that you only need the first tone in order to get the auto-dialers to hang up.
We wont get laid off
Seriously, I'm just happy to have a steady paycheck coming in, even though I'm only making 33% of what I was making two years ago. Also, I'm happy to be back working at an IT job and not working in a liquor store (that was a hellish six months I spent earlier this year.)
Considering that we're a start up company and I'm the only one that actually works full-time for the company I didn't really even expect a bonus -- the owner isn't even collecting a salary yet.
However, my boss, cool guy that he is, used his frequent flier miles to get me tickets to fly home for Christmas. Easily the best Christmas bonus I've received in 10+ years working in IT.
I suppose the least I could do for him is plug our company on Slashdot. For webhosting and online project management check us out. Ugh, that sounds cheesy. Tis the season I suppose.
Yeah, surely it *can't* be hard to set up a system where an editor types in a few keywords for each story.
Or maybe they could set up some kind of system to display a list of articles that have already been posted on Slashdot. They could scan through it for articles that look similar.
Oh, wait... Or maybe a page that displays summaries for the most recently posted articles. Maybe a system like that is too difficult to implement?
Too bad that got marked as a troll. That should have been modded as informative if anything.
Yes. Look up "civil forfeiture" on Google and you'll find tons of references to people who've had their posessions confiscated by the police. The local police get to keep what they confiscate or sell it if they choose. You'll run across tons of cases where the police confiscated property and never returned it, even after the victims were proven innocent.
The civil forfeiture laws are worse than a lot of the laws we bitch about on here. The War on Drugs opened the door for this, and believe me, they will try to extend it to any area they can. Allowing the police to profit from confiscating property only gives them incentive to manufacture crimes where there are none.
The current civil forfeiture laws are horrible, but law enforcement will fight tooth and nail to keep them in effect. The potential for these laws to be abused makes the DMCA look fairly innoccuos in comparison.
FEAR.org has some info regarding these laws as well.
Don't think that just because you're not a pot-head or a "hacker" that it can't happen to you!
I've still got one of those old IBM keyboards somewhere. I had to replace it though because it kept waking up the neighbors...