There are lots of shortcuts which I know people are going to claim I'm taking liberties, particularly if I'm providing an overly shortened version of their political viewpoint or if they are politically more astute than I am. But I'm holding the talking stick as I write this. I'm sure someone's going to tell me to go visit Wikipedia or even take a chair to wait my turn to go to Helen Waite, but everyone is permitted to make their own viewpoints known.
For Democrats (or democrats, Liberals, and liberals, it's big gov't supporting those who cannot care for those who cannot care for themselves. They believe in higher taxes, specifically for the rich, because they can afford to do so; e.g., the top 5% of wealthiest people pay 50% of taxes collected. So the question becomes what happens if the top 10% or 15% pay their fair share? They are supposed to look out for the little guy but the size of the gov't tends to become large enough there's more opportunity for corruption and mistakes. One the other hand, being larger means more people can be taken care of: if the umbrella is big enough, more people can get under it & stay dry.
For (Republicans and repulicans), it's big business; i.e., let nature take its course, the rich take richer, and instead of the poorer become poorer, they believe when the tide comes in, all of the boats float [higher]. This is definitely the party line in Supply Side Economics (i.e., Reagan. Anyway, if the fat cats want to prosper, they have to build more (and larger) places to generate revenue, and that requires people to work in these places. Their boats float higher and the jobs boat float higher as well. But one group's income grows geometrically or exponentially and others don't even reach linear increases. (I wonder which is which?)
And finally, there's (Libertarians and libertarian), which has permeated throughout the technical world, particularly online. Best summarized as: "get your *&^%$#%$ hands out of my pocket, off my machine and go away." There's an entire platform dealing with elimination of taxes, yadda, yadda. I think the news|media, et alia believe techies to be [at least] libertarians.
In each of these cases, I believe there are two forms of spelling:
Democrat and democrat (or Liberal and liberal), Republicans and republicans, and Libertarians and libertarians; all depending upone how ardently someone endorses a particular viewpoint.
When one hears fiscal conservative, you can place a wager they are a Democrat who is trying to ride two horses at the same time. By & large, Indiana is (r|R)epublican. The Democrats sneak in, which I believe makes things interesting. But when you see signs up for your consideration,, you don't see the elephant unless you are are a conservative. Thos running on the opposite party do not mark their signs.
What really sucks is to hear bipartisan agreement. So many holes have been plugged to prevent another party from making it possible for another party (yes, there are exceptions who have won and are in positions right now), but do you hear of tripartisan or multipartisan agreements?
Is there a reason why? You bet. When it's one opponent, it's a zero sum game. What you do't get, the opponent gets. When their are two or more opponents, it becomes a game of cutthroat as seen racquetball or handball. Yeah, it also creates a risk of a coalition gov't, but it also provides better options for people to choose from. Will it increase voter turnout? Who knows. But when the candidates, and specifically the parties, become an oligopoly, the ability of the parties to outguess each other because an oligopoly is considerably more complex. It can be done (class project from college 20+ years ago), but it's tough enough to keep God busy for awhile.
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Old, old, old political joke: If you let me pet your elephant, I'll let you kiss my ass.
As far as 100 goes, there was a quote on the google/ig page the other day from George Burns to the effect "The key is to reach 100. Very few people die past 100."
<sarcasm>And finally, it was terrific to see Bloomberg had the stones to bring up something for which he's become a proponent: tagging all {illegal|temporary} immigrants with an RFID chip to permit proper identification.</sarcasm> News.Google shows nothing about this subject but www.Google sure as heck does.
The average wikipedian is not only immeasurably better educated than our best journalists
better educated or more knowledgeable about a particular subject?
If it's the latter, I don't think there's any disagreement about that. How many talking heads would you need to keep on staff to cover every topic at a Master or PhD level?
Besides, a journalist can be a quick learner and frequently interviews experts. (or should be)
What bothers me about those in the media is listening to "...same exact...", "...exactly the same...,...exact same...,...such & such...for Tom & I... (it should be Tom & me)[1], problems with further and farther, less and fewer. The other pet peeve I have is when they've been on the scene for eighteen hours and have to look down at their notepad every ten seconds to make sure they have their facts straight.
(Should someone say something about grammar|spelling|punctuation Nazis, I sincerely appreciate your invocation of Godwin's law and conceding "the discussion" with your first post.)
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[1]
Although this is a realtime situation undergoing change in grammar. I'm one who will hold out (for now)
We should hear "the smorning" and "the safternoon" in change as well. It seems difficult for many to say, "this moorning" and "this afternoon."
I'd think it has more to do with how well it's tested before being put into production as well as monitoring some of the online resources where people affiliated with the software in question are going to post issues and|or fixes. If you're grabbing software, closed or open, installing it, and putting it into production without any testing of compatibility with your current environment, then shame on you. Do you put proprietary (inhouse) software into production (e.g., on a web server) without thorough testing? If not, then why do are you doing it with others' software?
"That's not a bug, that's a feature" - isn't that Microsoft's mantra?
That phrase was around before Microsoft.
There is, however, a philosophy which trickles down from one of their founders (WHG III):
"People don't want bug fixes, they want new features."
This is partly why I said about seeing Microsoft held as accountable as anyone else for any computer mistakes (oops, that's what they say on TV), er, bugs they leave behind in their work.
This is not to mention Microsoft's Month of Code[1] which Billy the Kid introduced -- remember? Everyone was supposed[2] to have dropped what they were doing and fix security issues. This would preclude someone from cracking Windows and introducing something which might making Windows appear to be the software at fault.
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[1] I hope Google hasn't minded my theft of their phrase of (and over) time to poke at MS. But it does fit.
[2] I'm guessing supposed could be like should: ought to but not necessarily will.
...when I see Microsoft on the list of responsible parties; i.e., they can be held accountable as well as anyone [else].
I don't think there's been a single issue which has come up with the gov't where they've agreed to some type of compromise, only to return to their prior behavior within a fairly short period of time (and the gov't hasn't yanked their leash to bring them back to the table).
I'm not anti-Microsoft. They've been a good source of income for a long period of time.
This is new to you? When some of the books which contained fan-written stories which came out, it was said they were supposed to support this type of relationship - this would have been in the 70s - the same timeframe Spock Must Die! [1], etc. came out. (
I think this (The New Voyages) - fan written short stories is the one which started the buzz. I'd have to do some box digging in the garage. I've got all of the loose books which appeared on the shelves at that time (ca. '77-'80).
I think the others at that time which were interpreted to push this lifestyle (perhaps more) were the Phoenix books[2].
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I'll resort to ROT13 spoilers for those who are going to track them down on Amazon for $1-$2 and read them. BTW, your shipping will cost more.
[1] Gur Xyvatbaf ner trggvat bhg bs unaq naq vg gheaf bhg gurl'ir chg n sbepr svryq nebhaq Betnavn. Gur Ragrecevfr nggrzcgf gb fraq Fcbpx ivn irel ybat qvvfgnapr genafcbegre nf n gnpulba ornz juvpu vf obhaprq onpx, perngvat gjb Fcbpxf. Bar erny, gur bgure abg.
[2]n qhcyvpngrq, qryvpngr, znfphyngrq Xvex jub vf frag gb uvqr va gur Ebzhyna Rzcver nf n "cevapr" bs fbzr glcr. Fcbpx vf pbasebagrq jvgu gur snpg ur pna'g gryy bar Xvex sebz gur bgure naq arvgure pna gur Xvexf.
Or, as a guy in college said when a girl walked by, "I wouldn't kick that girl out of bed for eating crackers....would I, 'Crackers'?" (patting his crotch at the appropriate time.
Making such a mistake so early in his college career (first week of school) and earning the nickname of Crackers. When addressed as such, the ladies wanted to know the derivation and he always had to tap dance around it.
As a reasonably small (1'900 students), midwestern, non-denominational Christian university, there were a lot of sensitive ears and everyone knew everyone else. Should he have responded honestly to the wrong person, he might have found his social life a bit empty for some time.
(But it was still fun to watch him deal with the name across a couple of years)
(all of this known, first-hand)
Hospitals are sieves...for the most part. I can cite a current situation where things were kept very clandestine due to the extreme nature of what was going on. The press largely chose to skip over it which shocked me.
Nurses aren't unfireable, per se, regardless of how endangered a species they appear to be. It just costs more to lure some of them out of hiding. Nurses are, however, almost the lifeblood of a facility as there are few things they can't & don't do, out of care for the patients as much as pure necessity. You don't see orderlies any more. It's not unusual for a minimum of the staff, working directly or indirectly for the hospital, to be more than 1/3 nurses. There's only one thing which nurses do not cope with very well: hospitals which offshore nurses; i.e., bring in 3rd-world nurses. There is almost nothing they won't do -- trumping the nurses we believe so strongly in. Fortunately, this is a rare, rare situation.
The group (en masse) which has virtuallyno accountability to the hospital is that which has a lot of M.D. and other related abbreviated diplomas and licenses. They rarely work directly for the hospital but instead, for a separate organization which more or less dovetails into hospitals' structures such that it's as if they are working for the hospital. The bridge is usually someone who works in a department labelled (or similarly labelled) Medical Affairs.
Something hospital staff (including MDs, RNs[1], and even housekeeping have to be reminded of is not to talk about what they see, hear, or participate in or outside of the hospital. (re: patients) Most people would be surprised how much "indirect" shop talk takes place after a shift over a few drinks and even with specific clues left out, it's possible to identify whom they are talking about. What's worse is when they do it in the hallways or elevators and may be sharing hearing space with family or friends of the patient(s) they are discussing.
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[1] You'll notice I abhore using the "grocer's apostrophe" with acronyms. I hate seeing "MD's", "RN's", "PC's". It's gotten so bad people will post ads in real newspapers ala "Schedule Party's With Us!".
Actually, the purpose for this footnote was to point out how many nurses and technicians (doctors don't seem to do it very much) say, "I'm headed to the OR|ER room".
Why can't they "RunAs" for installs (when needed)?
On a similar note, near the end of my mainframe days as a systems programmer & tech support, I worked in a group where everyone worked with God privileges even though they weren't needed 7x24.
I didn't. I usually only had one window open on the 3270 emulator running on OS/2 (this was near the demise) and my coworkers would have tons, but nothing which had regular privileges. If someone (another IS/IT/MIS) staff member went to one of my teammates who were closer physically to them, they'd say, "I don't have that problem." and leave them hanging, not even willing to bring up a "standard" account to see if they could repeat the problem. Once people found out I worked with Joe Q. Citizen privileges, except when needed, I'd either test it or switch to a userid where I could test it.
In the case of Microsoft, if they spent a lot of time working & testing as something other than "Administrator" (userid or privileges), they might get a better appreciation for their users' plights & frustrations. And if they're caught switching back to Administrator unnecessarily, or forgetting to go back to a regular user after fixing a problem as Administrator, then it's time for a public flogging - make them spend the next week as the buildmeister, relieving the person who would earn that privilege when their code breaks the build (is that how it's still decided?).
In terms of those who perform testing, if they're testing as an end-user, how many of them actually need Administrator privileges?
This is not a flame. If someone wants to be on the "editorial board" they need to be a little more careful when they post stories. Otherwise, resign and let those of us who can write do so.
Let's be real. I have foot surgery this week and will be restricted to the couch for at least a month (as in, potentially longer). Time for NetFlix!! I'm more than willing to deal with this type of thing when others appear unable.
From the top story:
"...and it's integration..."
(it's means it is)
If someonoe declares "grammar Nazi!", let's remember two things:
1) Do you really want to fulfill Godwin's law so quickly? (one message?)
2) Those who call others "grammar Nazis"[1] are usually "grammar idiots".
[1] The punctuation Nazis can pretend I wrote Nazi's.
In lieu of #1, a good diagnostician, preferably one with a reputation of pissing off comrades (good diagnosticians are iconoclasts), can be very good at digging to the root of problems over that of a run of the mill GP. If they can't...then you're definitely headed for #2 and #3.
There are some GPs floating about who are coming up through the ranks and are very cool. I switched to one about twelve or thirteen years ago and over the previous six or seven years, he's added to his practice. They have similar outlooks & philosophies, but complementary skills. If one can't fix you up, they'll get you to the partner who can. It's not unusual for them to direct you to the herb aisle before putting pen to script pad. They're very up on alternative treatments in general; e.g. acupuncture, and now that most insurances pay for it, it saves prolonged trial & error treatments.
Good points! Incredible how important the human body's largest organ is and we know so little.
Isn't leprosy still on the "uncurable" list? Is it even on the "containable"; i.e., halt it where it is, point? akin to tuberculosis. My mom got it when she was young and as a school teacher, has to get x-rays of her lungs every year to show it's still dormant.
One other area to touch on is rehashed so often you'd think people catch on: misuse of anti-bacteria related issues...yet there are a lot of peabrains running loose in an unorganized conspiracy to sink modern medicine. You'd think all of the parties involved were backwoods hillbillies with no educations, IQs smaller than their shoe size, and fewer teeth than toes.[1]
There are three guilty parties: 1) patients; 2) doctors; 3) people in general.
1. Patients are guilty because they think doctors are just quoting a pamphlet when they tell them, "take all of the pills, don't stop just because you start feeling better." And what do people do? that's a rhetorical question. Boom. Compromised antibiotic.
2a. Doctors are guilty because patients come to them when they are ill and it's a cold. The patients harangue them into giving them an antibiotic because they think it'll make them feel better, despite Dr. Quack telling them antibiotics don't work with viruses. Finally, the script pad comes out and voila! Compromised antibiotic!
2b. Doctors are also guilty because each hospital has at least one group where the medical staff and pharmacy administration interact; e.g., "P&T" (Pharmacy & Therapeutics). Issues such as what the formulary items should be, how to deal with non-formulary items, and importantly: what drugs can be administered when. It's supposed to be binding, but doctors don't work for hospitals, so they'll basically do what they want when it comes to that type of thing. The policy can be to only use some new antibiotic for specific patients or diseases|cases and doctors will be more concerned if their shoe is untied when they place the script for the brand new bug-killer and can proudly tell the patient, "We've got somoething brand new and it's going to make you feel a lot better very soon." Shazam! The beginning of the end of that antibiotic. Another compromised antibiotic.
3. Society in general and the marketing departments of various household goods: all of the various soaps & cleansers which promise to kill bugs when you use them. You're only supposed to use soap to clean your hands off - remove the stuff which doesn't belong there - remove as in get it off of your hands, not kill some of the bugs and leave a small number of immune ones in place. Eugenics takes over and we begin breeding superbugs.
[1]
Wait. Isn't that a description of NASCAR fans? Sorry for the mixup.
They quit #)(*$&#)(*$ spamming my inboxes!
(and I know I'm not the only one who feels this way)
Until that time, they're a desperate company, doing everything they can to remain afloat, clutching to the porcelain as the cool water swirls around them, hoping they can move beyond the point Iridium[1] did: interesting concept, then {flush}.
If VOIP (pleaes don't throw a stat showing it's [already] hotter than a whorehouse on dollar days), really catches on - you know the phone services won't take it lying down...and that's when it'll be time to make sure you've got a hot dog & beer in hand to watch the game.
[1] Of course, Iridium screwed the pooch from the beginning, proudly declaring their name was based upon the fact they had the same number of satellites as the element Iridium had electrons...until someone pointed out an obvious discrepancy. Some quick huddlng and the response was, "Well, actually we chose the name because we thought it sounded cool."
er, right. That's when the clock begins counting down until an entry at FuckedCompany.com is prepared and submitted.
We've got a history established where people taught -> new math -> students who taught -> new math -> students ->... -> current engineers and we're seeing plenty of problems with meters|feet, up|down, left|right, top|bottom (whilst we're at it, let's just interchange all of the quark properties) with some very expensive toy$. This likely includes plenty of [relatively] smaller pricetag$ (yet still bad enough - on a scale of "defense contractor bad"). Ye, NA$A still wants us to throw money at them as though it's coming off of a broken photocopier which won't stop printing. ("We promise we'll use a few more decimal points and be more careful next time!") There's no accountability until so much money has been wasted it would produce such a clog in a pipe Roto-Rooter would rather go out of business than take on. Perhaps the only space activities can be those which have a human involved, even for token purposes? That seems to be the only time space-type activities are taken seriously.
Launch an astronaut (no monkeys or dogs), watch soomething happen, splashdown. It sounds like waste, but when someone's life is at stake, it seems to force them to keep their eye on the ballgame (not just the ball). Otherwise, they try to maneuver hardware as though it's a mechanical erector set-based gaming system shown at E3 with no consequences...they can just hit the [reset] button when they smurf up (aka "give us some more money so we can practice some more"). When it's just hardware, success amounts to lots of geeks & nerds jumping up & down, toastinig with double-strength kool-aid, then taking turns to run to the bathroom to stroke off. Besides, there are lots of people looking to hit space, and there'd be no dearth of volunteers to keep NA$A honest. When there's a risk (which there wasn't in this case), they'll be careful (not more careful). Think of it as akin to packing your own parachute. If you have something at stake, really at stake, you tend to be a bit more paranoid about your work.
Without knowing the context of some of the messages, some of the messages labelled legitimate can easily be spam.
They read every bit like other messages which are spam. Remember, spam is:
Unsolicited Bulk Email.
Reading those messages without knowing the user's history with the senders, they may or may not be legitimate.
Many have softened and gone with the FTC's definition where it must be business-oriented, but as far as many in the anti in the community can be, it can be political[1], religious, charitable, or any other form of message. Just because the headers look legitimate doesn't mean it's not spam. It just means it's closer to U-CAN-SPAM compliant than 99.9% of what we receive (and those who have the ability to enforce it).
If it's not COI (Confirmed Opt-In), it's spam. (and anyone who says Double Opt-In is using SpammerSpeak to sucker you in)
The problem with Opt-In is you can sit down and enter any number of email addresses and they begin receiving crap without confirming their intent to do so.
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[1] Pick a party, any party, Democrat, Republican, Naked Tree Frog Humpers, you name it. Send email asking why their representative on the news stated a particular viewpoint when it seemed to conflict with their current platform. Try adding an appended statement your message doesn't grant being added to a list. It won't matter. Any incoming email message will have the headers stripped and automagically [sic] added to their spam list. Once you find the right person to harrass, let them know you're going to start with the local media and work your way up from there to let them know they are spamming innocent parties. It might take awhile, but if you're lucky, they'll remove you.
mail blasts (not spam - spam is what everyone else sends) went out and there were a lot of unhappy people around the world. After the vote count was over, what do you suppose his take was? 11%. His campaign chief said they were stepping onto the cutting edge and leading the way where others will follow in the future. Peabrain candidate. For hiring that chief. Peabrain campaign chief.
He's the kind of guy you'd like to teach to play fetch, then throw the ball into the street.
(if you steal that, just remember, I'm a huckleberry)
1. Q: Do you believe advancements in science are made in linear progressions? (and can be projected as such) I might take one big jump in a short period of time to get near the target, then a longer period of time to finish. But I wouldn't trust linear projections. Besides, that's what we have the media for, particularly local affiliates.
2. All projects, at least, in software, are 90% done.
If someone asks you the status, the answer is "90%".
Does anyone know what it it is for physics, or engineering in general?
3. I can't believe anyone [else] forgot to post this one (after scanning the postings):
What's from China is Ralsky and his slimeball buddies (there was a pretty decent DNA match, so they must be slimeballs) connect from the US and blast everyone from there. If China wants to isolate its people from the real world, let's cut the cables going in and let Ralsky et alia find another swimming pool to p-ss in.
Didn't J. Peterman ("Seinfeld") teach us Burma is Myanmar?
Are we going to revert to calling Sri Lanka (now that it's in the news again of late) Ceylon?
We've had New Math. Thanks to the Internet and technical people who have invented New English, now we've got New Geography. (or is that retro-Geography?)
Remember, Microsoft has filed and received a patent for the Microsoft Office file formats in XML.
All it takes is for Microsoft to take their ball & bat to go home via some trojan in the guise of a special security alert, (Patches O'Houlihan appearing to make the official announcements on Patch Tuesday...between teaching rounds of the ADAA -American Dodgeball Association of America ). Tada! MS Office only writes to XML format and Microsoft has an enforceable patent in place. This puts a fence between two companies or even two departments. It's all or nothing. And if you (corporation) attempt to migrate (not all at once), writing is a one-way street. Anyone can read. But that's passive.
The only way to get around it would be a widespread migration away from MS Office in a very, very short period of time.
Realistically, how fast do you think that will happen? Don't use your office by saying, "We can do it!" Look at how many Fortune 100 or 500 or 1000 companies which would have to jump into the fray during a long weekend.
(Microsoft is still waiting on a substantial number of corporations to migrate from Windows 2000, MS Office 2000, and VS6. And they're chasing their tails trying to find out how to convince businesses to migrate by paying lots of money for new software, new hardware, increased TCO. What makes you think they're going to switch to non-MS Office? Seriously. Even the storytellers Huey, Dewey, and Louie, er, Microsoft's vast Sales, Marketing, and PR departments are pounding their heads. They've never faced a defeat like this -- and it's their own damn fault!)
You'd rather find out DARPA has handed out a $10B contract to a "regular" defense contractor to solve this particular problem in ten years, only to find out at year #9, they will need a seven year extension and have cost overruns of another $8B?
A couple of years, a few million dollars as one carrot, the other two are establishing legitimacy in a captitalistic market looking for established technology, and finally, chest thumping in the geek world is a very, very tiny investment by comparison.
Wouldn't you think?
I spent last Summer & Fall headed via an eight mile drive to the "Yellow House" practically every night (plus weekends), knowing I was going to get to see new friends who were working on the same fun things and no matter how boring world was, I was going to get to challenging stuff and watch te jeep run around like a madman. I'd do it project after project if I got the chance.
I'm salivating to find out there's another swing of the bat and am waiting to find out what's going to happen locally.
Slashdot Mirror
There are lots of shortcuts which I know people are going to claim I'm taking liberties, particularly if I'm providing an overly shortened version of their political viewpoint or if they are politically more astute than I am. But I'm holding the talking stick as I write this. I'm sure someone's going to tell me to go visit Wikipedia or even take a chair to wait my turn to go to Helen Waite, but everyone is permitted to make their own viewpoints known.
For Democrats (or democrats, Liberals, and liberals, it's big gov't supporting those who cannot care for those who cannot care for themselves. They believe in higher taxes, specifically for the rich, because they can afford to do so; e.g., the top 5% of wealthiest people pay 50% of taxes collected. So the question becomes what happens if the top 10% or 15% pay their fair share? They are supposed to look out for the little guy but the size of the gov't tends to become large enough there's more opportunity for corruption and mistakes. One the other hand, being larger means more people can be taken care of: if the umbrella is big enough, more people can get under it & stay dry.
For (Republicans and repulicans), it's big business; i.e., let nature take its course, the rich take richer, and instead of the poorer become poorer, they believe when the tide comes in, all of the boats float [higher]. This is definitely the party line in Supply Side Economics (i.e., Reagan. Anyway, if the fat cats want to prosper, they have to build more (and larger) places to generate revenue, and that requires people to work in these places. Their boats float higher and the jobs boat float higher as well. But one group's income grows geometrically or exponentially and others don't even reach linear increases. (I wonder which is which?)
And finally, there's (Libertarians and libertarian), which has permeated throughout the technical world, particularly online. Best summarized as: "get your *&^%$#%$ hands out of my pocket, off my machine and go away." There's an entire platform dealing with elimination of taxes, yadda, yadda. I think the news|media, et alia believe techies to be [at least] libertarians.
In each of these cases, I believe there are two forms of spelling: Democrat and democrat (or Liberal and liberal), Republicans and republicans, and Libertarians and libertarians; all depending upone how ardently someone endorses a particular viewpoint.
When one hears fiscal conservative, you can place a wager they are a Democrat who is trying to ride two horses at the same time. By & large, Indiana is (r|R)epublican. The Democrats sneak in, which I believe makes things interesting. But when you see signs up for your consideration,, you don't see the elephant unless you are are a conservative. Thos running on the opposite party do not mark their signs.
What really sucks is to hear bipartisan agreement. So many holes have been plugged to prevent another party from making it possible for another party (yes, there are exceptions who have won and are in positions right now), but do you hear of tripartisan or multipartisan agreements?
Is there a reason why? You bet. When it's one opponent, it's a zero sum game. What you do't get, the opponent gets. When their are two or more opponents, it becomes a game of cutthroat as seen racquetball or handball. Yeah, it also creates a risk of a coalition gov't, but it also provides better options for people to choose from. Will it increase voter turnout? Who knows. But when the candidates, and specifically the parties, become an oligopoly, the ability of the parties to outguess each other because an oligopoly is considerably more complex. It can be done (class project from college 20+ years ago), but it's tough enough to keep God busy for awhile.
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Old, old, old political joke:
If you let me pet your elephant, I'll let you kiss my ass.
(FYI: there's a remake of Logan's Run underway.)
As far as 100 goes, there was a quote on the google/ig page the other day from George Burns to the effect "The key is to reach 100. Very few people die past 100."
<sarcasm>And finally, it was terrific to see Bloomberg had the stones to bring up something for which he's become a proponent: tagging all {illegal|temporary} immigrants with an RFID chip to permit proper identification.</sarcasm> News.Google shows nothing about this subject but www.Google sure as heck does.
Anyone want to bet it's the right hand?
The average wikipedian is not only immeasurably better educated than our best journalists
better educated or more knowledgeable about a particular subject?
If it's the latter, I don't think there's any disagreement about that. How many talking heads would you need to keep on staff to cover every topic at a Master or PhD level?
Besides, a journalist can be a quick learner and frequently interviews experts. (or should be)
What bothers me about those in the media is listening to "...same exact...", "...exactly the same...,
(Should someone say something about grammar|spelling|punctuation Nazis, I sincerely appreciate your invocation of Godwin's law and conceding "the discussion" with your first post.)
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[1]
Although this is a realtime situation undergoing change in grammar. I'm one who will hold out (for now)
We should hear "the smorning" and "the safternoon" in change as well. It seems difficult for many to say, "this moorning" and "this afternoon."
I'd think it has more to do with how well it's tested before being put into production as well as monitoring some of the online resources where people affiliated with the software in question are going to post issues and|or fixes. If you're grabbing software, closed or open, installing it, and putting it into production without any testing of compatibility with your current environment, then shame on you. Do you put proprietary (inhouse) software into production (e.g., on a web server) without thorough testing? If not, then why do are you doing it with others' software?
"That's not a bug, that's a feature" - isn't that Microsoft's mantra?
That phrase was around before Microsoft.
There is, however, a philosophy which trickles down from one of their founders (WHG III):
"People don't want bug fixes, they want new features."
This is partly why I said about seeing Microsoft held as accountable as anyone else for any computer mistakes (oops, that's what they say on TV), er, bugs they leave behind in their work.
This is not to mention Microsoft's Month of Code[1] which Billy the Kid introduced -- remember? Everyone was supposed[2] to have dropped what they were doing and fix security issues. This would preclude someone from cracking Windows and introducing something which might making Windows appear to be the software at fault.
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[1] I hope Google hasn't minded my theft of their phrase of (and over) time to poke at MS. But it does fit.
[2] I'm guessing supposed could be like should: ought to but not necessarily will.
I don't think there's been a single issue which has come up with the gov't where they've agreed to some type of compromise, only to return to their prior behavior within a fairly short period of time (and the gov't hasn't yanked their leash to bring them back to the table).
I'm not anti-Microsoft. They've been a good source of income for a long period of time.
But facts are facts.
Until then, this is factors beyond a pipe dream.
This is new to you? When some of the books which contained fan-written stories which came out, it was said they were supposed to support this type of relationship - this would have been in the 70s - the same timeframe Spock Must Die! [1], etc. came out. (
I think this (The New Voyages) - fan written short stories is the one which started the buzz. I'd have to do some box digging in the garage. I've got all of the loose books which appeared on the shelves at that time (ca. '77-'80).
I think the others at that time which were interpreted to push this lifestyle (perhaps more) were the Phoenix books[2].
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I'll resort to ROT13 spoilers for those who are going to track them down on Amazon for $1-$2 and read them. BTW, your shipping will cost more.
[1] Gur Xyvatbaf ner trggvat bhg bs unaq naq vg gheaf bhg gurl'ir chg n sbepr svryq nebhaq Betnavn. Gur Ragrecevfr nggrzcgf gb fraq Fcbpx ivn irel ybat qvvfgnapr genafcbegre nf n gnpulba ornz juvpu vf obhaprq onpx, perngvat gjb Fcbpxf. Bar erny, gur bgure abg.
[2]n qhcyvpngrq, qryvpngr, znfphyngrq Xvex jub vf frag gb uvqr va gur Ebzhyna Rzcver nf n "cevapr" bs fbzr glcr. Fcbpx vf pbasebagrq jvgu gur snpg ur pna'g gryy bar Xvex sebz gur bgure naq arvgure pna gur Xvexf.
Or, as a guy in college said when a girl walked by, "I wouldn't kick that girl out of bed for eating crackers....would I, 'Crackers'?" (patting his crotch at the appropriate time.
Making such a mistake so early in his college career (first week of school) and earning the nickname of Crackers. When addressed as such, the ladies wanted to know the derivation and he always had to tap dance around it.
As a reasonably small (1'900 students), midwestern, non-denominational Christian university, there were a lot of sensitive ears and everyone knew everyone else. Should he have responded honestly to the wrong person, he might have found his social life a bit empty for some time.
(But it was still fun to watch him deal with the name across a couple of years)
Just make sure your definition of movie exceeds The Magic Chex Box on YouTube.
(all of this known, first-hand)
Hospitals are sieves...for the most part. I can cite a current situation where things were kept very clandestine due to the extreme nature of what was going on. The press largely chose to skip over it which shocked me.
Nurses aren't unfireable, per se, regardless of how endangered a species they appear to be. It just costs more to lure some of them out of hiding. Nurses are, however, almost the lifeblood of a facility as there are few things they can't & don't do, out of care for the patients as much as pure necessity. You don't see orderlies any more. It's not unusual for a minimum of the staff, working directly or indirectly for the hospital, to be more than 1/3 nurses. There's only one thing which nurses do not cope with very well: hospitals which offshore nurses; i.e., bring in 3rd-world nurses. There is almost nothing they won't do -- trumping the nurses we believe so strongly in. Fortunately, this is a rare, rare situation.
The group (en masse) which has virtually no accountability to the hospital is that which has a lot of M.D. and other related abbreviated diplomas and licenses. They rarely work directly for the hospital but instead, for a separate organization which more or less dovetails into hospitals' structures such that it's as if they are working for the hospital. The bridge is usually someone who works in a department labelled (or similarly labelled) Medical Affairs.
Something hospital staff (including MDs, RNs[1], and even housekeeping have to be reminded of is not to talk about what they see, hear, or participate in or outside of the hospital. (re: patients) Most people would be surprised how much "indirect" shop talk takes place after a shift over a few drinks and even with specific clues left out, it's possible to identify whom they are talking about. What's worse is when they do it in the hallways or elevators and may be sharing hearing space with family or friends of the patient(s) they are discussing.
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[1] You'll notice I abhore using the "grocer's apostrophe" with acronyms. I hate seeing "MD's", "RN's", "PC's". It's gotten so bad people will post ads in real newspapers ala "Schedule Party's With Us!".
Actually, the purpose for this footnote was to point out how many nurses and technicians (doctors don't seem to do it very much) say, "I'm headed to the OR|ER room".
Why can't they "RunAs" for installs (when needed)?
On a similar note, near the end of my mainframe days as a systems programmer & tech support, I worked in a group where everyone worked with God privileges even though they weren't needed 7x24.
I didn't. I usually only had one window open on the 3270 emulator running on OS/2 (this was near the demise) and my coworkers would have tons, but nothing which had regular privileges. If someone (another IS/IT/MIS) staff member went to one of my teammates who were closer physically to them, they'd say, "I don't have that problem." and leave them hanging, not even willing to bring up a "standard" account to see if they could repeat the problem. Once people found out I worked with Joe Q. Citizen privileges, except when needed, I'd either test it or switch to a userid where I could test it.
In the case of Microsoft, if they spent a lot of time working & testing as something other than "Administrator" (userid or privileges), they might get a better appreciation for their users' plights & frustrations. And if they're caught switching back to Administrator unnecessarily, or forgetting to go back to a regular user after fixing a problem as Administrator, then it's time for a public flogging - make them spend the next week as the buildmeister, relieving the person who would earn that privilege when their code breaks the build (is that how it's still decided?).
In terms of those who perform testing, if they're testing as an end-user, how many of them actually need Administrator privileges?
I would suggest you talk to PT Barnum
The better quote (for this context) I've seen attributed to PT is this:
"No one ever became poor underestimating human intelligence."
("became poor" has been seen as "gone broke" and other similar fragments.
Grammar tip: "Effect" is a verb. "Affect" is a noun.
Really?
Effect as a noun:
"It produced an effect similar to the aurora borealis."
Affect as a verb:
"Hunger will affect my performance negatively unless I eat.."
You'd have a better cause going after people who use the "Grocer's Apostrophe" or compose|comprise.
This is not a flame. If someone wants to be on the "editorial board" they need to be a little more careful when they post stories. Otherwise, resign and let those of us who can write do so.
Let's be real. I have foot surgery this week and will be restricted to the couch for at least a month (as in, potentially longer). Time for NetFlix!! I'm more than willing to deal with this type of thing when others appear unable.
From the top story:
"...and it's integration..."
(it's means it is)
If someonoe declares "grammar Nazi!", let's remember two things:
1) Do you really want to fulfill Godwin's law so quickly? (one message?)
2) Those who call others "grammar Nazis"[1] are usually "grammar idiots".
[1] The punctuation Nazis can pretend I wrote Nazi's.
Google is your friend...
In lieu of #1, a good diagnostician, preferably one with a reputation of pissing off comrades (good diagnosticians are iconoclasts), can be very good at digging to the root of problems over that of a run of the mill GP. If they can't...then you're definitely headed for #2 and #3.
There are some GPs floating about who are coming up through the ranks and are very cool. I switched to one about twelve or thirteen years ago and over the previous six or seven years, he's added to his practice. They have similar outlooks & philosophies, but complementary skills. If one can't fix you up, they'll get you to the partner who can. It's not unusual for them to direct you to the herb aisle before putting pen to script pad. They're very up on alternative treatments in general; e.g. acupuncture, and now that most insurances pay for it, it saves prolonged trial & error treatments.
Good points! Incredible how important the human body's largest organ is and we know so little.
Isn't leprosy still on the "uncurable" list? Is it even on the "containable"; i.e., halt it where it is, point? akin to tuberculosis. My mom got it when she was young and as a school teacher, has to get x-rays of her lungs every year to show it's still dormant.
One other area to touch on is rehashed so often you'd think people catch on: misuse of anti-bacteria related issues...yet there are a lot of peabrains running loose in an unorganized conspiracy to sink modern medicine. You'd think all of the parties involved were backwoods hillbillies with no educations, IQs smaller than their shoe size, and fewer teeth than toes.[1]
There are three guilty parties: 1) patients; 2) doctors; 3) people in general.
1. Patients are guilty because they think doctors are just quoting a pamphlet when they tell them, "take all of the pills, don't stop just because you start feeling better." And what do people do? that's a rhetorical question. Boom. Compromised antibiotic.
2a. Doctors are guilty because patients come to them when they are ill and it's a cold. The patients harangue them into giving them an antibiotic because they think it'll make them feel better, despite Dr. Quack telling them antibiotics don't work with viruses. Finally, the script pad comes out and voila! Compromised antibiotic!
2b. Doctors are also guilty because each hospital has at least one group where the medical staff and pharmacy administration interact; e.g., "P&T" (Pharmacy & Therapeutics). Issues such as what the formulary items should be, how to deal with non-formulary items, and importantly: what drugs can be administered when. It's supposed to be binding, but doctors don't work for hospitals, so they'll basically do what they want when it comes to that type of thing. The policy can be to only use some new antibiotic for specific patients or diseases|cases and doctors will be more concerned if their shoe is untied when they place the script for the brand new bug-killer and can proudly tell the patient, "We've got somoething brand new and it's going to make you feel a lot better very soon." Shazam! The beginning of the end of that antibiotic. Another compromised antibiotic.
3. Society in general and the marketing departments of various household goods: all of the various soaps & cleansers which promise to kill bugs when you use them. You're only supposed to use soap to clean your hands off - remove the stuff which doesn't belong there - remove as in get it off of your hands, not kill some of the bugs and leave a small number of immune ones in place. Eugenics takes over and we begin breeding superbugs.
[1] Wait. Isn't that a description of NASCAR fans? Sorry for the mixup.
I won't even considering using Vonage until:
They quit #)(*$&#)(*$ spamming my inboxes!
(and I know I'm not the only one who feels this way)
Until that time, they're a desperate company, doing everything they can to remain afloat, clutching to the porcelain as the cool water swirls around them, hoping they can move beyond the point Iridium[1] did: interesting concept, then {flush}.
If VOIP (pleaes don't throw a stat showing it's [already] hotter than a whorehouse on dollar days), really catches on - you know the phone services won't take it lying down...and that's when it'll be time to make sure you've got a hot dog & beer in hand to watch the game.
[1] Of course, Iridium screwed the pooch from the beginning, proudly declaring their name was based upon the fact they had the same number of satellites as the element Iridium had electrons...until someone pointed out an obvious discrepancy. Some quick huddlng and the response was, "Well, actually we chose the name because we thought it sounded cool."
er, right. That's when the clock begins counting down until an entry at FuckedCompany.com is prepared and submitted.
We've got a history established where people taught -> new math -> students who taught -> new math -> students ->
Launch an astronaut (no monkeys or dogs), watch soomething happen, splashdown. It sounds like waste, but when someone's life is at stake, it seems to force them to keep their eye on the ballgame (not just the ball). Otherwise, they try to maneuver hardware as though it's a mechanical erector set-based gaming system shown at E3 with no consequences...they can just hit the [reset] button when they smurf up (aka "give us some more money so we can practice some more"). When it's just hardware, success amounts to lots of geeks & nerds jumping up & down, toastinig with double-strength kool-aid, then taking turns to run to the bathroom to stroke off. Besides, there are lots of people looking to hit space, and there'd be no dearth of volunteers to keep NA$A honest. When there's a risk (which there wasn't in this case), they'll be careful (not more careful). Think of it as akin to packing your own parachute. If you have something at stake, really at stake, you tend to be a bit more paranoid about your work.
Without knowing the context of some of the messages, some of the messages labelled legitimate can easily be spam.
They read every bit like other messages which are spam. Remember, spam is:
Unsolicited Bulk Email.
Reading those messages without knowing the user's history with the senders, they may or may not be legitimate.
Many have softened and gone with the FTC's definition where it must be business-oriented, but as far as many in the anti in the community can be, it can be political[1], religious, charitable, or any other form of message. Just because the headers look legitimate doesn't mean it's not spam. It just means it's closer to U-CAN-SPAM compliant than 99.9% of what we receive (and those who have the ability to enforce it).
If it's not COI (Confirmed Opt-In), it's spam. (and anyone who says Double Opt-In is using SpammerSpeak to sucker you in)
The problem with Opt-In is you can sit down and enter any number of email addresses and they begin receiving crap without confirming their intent to do so.
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[1] Pick a party, any party, Democrat, Republican, Naked Tree Frog Humpers, you name it. Send email asking why their representative on the news stated a particular viewpoint when it seemed to conflict with their current platform. Try adding an appended statement your message doesn't grant being added to a list. It won't matter. Any incoming email message will have the headers stripped and automagically [sic] added to their spam list. Once you find the right person to harrass, let them know you're going to start with the local media and work your way up from there to let them know they are spamming innocent parties. It might take awhile, but if you're lucky, they'll remove you.
mail blasts (not spam - spam is what everyone else sends) went out and there were a lot of unhappy people around the world. After the vote count was over, what do you suppose his take was? 11%. His campaign chief said they were stepping onto the cutting edge and leading the way where others will follow in the future. Peabrain candidate. For hiring that chief. Peabrain campaign chief.
He's the kind of guy you'd like to teach to play fetch, then throw the ball into the street.
(if you steal that, just remember, I'm a huckleberry)
1. Q: Do you believe advancements in science are made in linear progressions? (and can be projected as such) I might take one big jump in a short period of time to get near the target, then a longer period of time to finish. But I wouldn't trust linear projections. Besides, that's what we have the media for, particularly local affiliates.
2. All projects, at least, in software, are 90% done.
If someone asks you the status, the answer is "90%".
Does anyone know what it it is for physics, or engineering in general?
3. I can't believe anyone [else] forgot to post this one (after scanning the postings):
"The power of the sun...in the palm of my hand."
What's from China is Ralsky and his slimeball buddies (there was a pretty decent DNA match, so they must be slimeballs) connect from the US and blast everyone from there. If China wants to isolate its people from the real world, let's cut the cables going in and let Ralsky et alia find another swimming pool to p-ss in.
Patella - the kneecap - means "little dish" - can you guess where I'm going with this?
I'm guessing security at the gates won't let any of us in the US carry a baseball bat with us on board.
Would one of you Britons be willing to give us a quick tour of the troublemakers' homes? (ala "Tour of Hollywood Stars' Homes)
Oh, and how much would you charge us to bring a cricket bat along as well as idle the engine when we reach each house?
If it worked in skating, I have a suspicion it might be effective in spamming.
"Would you like one kneecap or two?"
Didn't J. Peterman ("Seinfeld") teach us Burma is Myanmar?
Are we going to revert to calling Sri Lanka (now that it's in the news again of late) Ceylon?
We've had New Math. Thanks to the Internet and technical people who have invented New English, now we've got New Geography. (or is that retro-Geography?)
Remember, Microsoft has filed and received a patent for the Microsoft Office file formats in XML.
All it takes is for Microsoft to take their ball & bat to go home via some trojan in the guise of a special security alert, (Patches O'Houlihan appearing to make the official announcements on Patch Tuesday...between teaching rounds of the ADAA -American Dodgeball Association of America ). Tada! MS Office only writes to XML format and Microsoft has an enforceable patent in place. This puts a fence between two companies or even two departments. It's all or nothing. And if you (corporation) attempt to migrate (not all at once), writing is a one-way street. Anyone can read. But that's passive.
The only way to get around it would be a widespread migration away from MS Office in a very, very short period of time.
Realistically, how fast do you think that will happen? Don't use your office by saying, "We can do it!" Look at how many Fortune 100 or 500 or 1000 companies which would have to jump into the fray during a long weekend.
(Microsoft is still waiting on a substantial number of corporations to migrate from Windows 2000, MS Office 2000, and VS6. And they're chasing their tails trying to find out how to convince businesses to migrate by paying lots of money for new software, new hardware, increased TCO. What makes you think they're going to switch to non-MS Office? Seriously. Even the storytellers Huey, Dewey, and Louie, er, Microsoft's vast Sales, Marketing, and PR departments are pounding their heads. They've never faced a defeat like this -- and it's their own damn fault!)
You'd rather find out DARPA has handed out a $10B contract to a "regular" defense contractor to solve this particular problem in ten years, only to find out at year #9, they will need a seven year extension and have cost overruns of another $8B?
A couple of years, a few million dollars as one carrot, the other two are establishing legitimacy in a captitalistic market looking for established technology, and finally, chest thumping in the geek world is a very, very tiny investment by comparison.
Wouldn't you think?
I spent last Summer & Fall headed via an eight mile drive to the "Yellow House" practically every night (plus weekends), knowing I was going to get to see new friends who were working on the same fun things and no matter how boring world was, I was going to get to challenging stuff and watch te jeep run around like a madman. I'd do it project after project if I got the chance.
I'm salivating to find out there's another swing of the bat and am waiting to find out what's going to happen locally.