Add a mere 3% edge in detecting when bouncers would be sent to bounce may not be sufficient to prevent odds reducing brain damage over repeated attempts.
i.e. lust for money and sex which is the root of evil. Don't objectify what is within us as deep character flaws and propensities. Jealousy, greed, lust, (and the other 4 vices) can have violent expression, especially when the perpetrator perceives a difference in power and has a reason to believe any act committed would not be easily found out.
All I want is a trustworthy election system that has auditable controls, manual and automated methods of recount, verifiable by the public, and with strict rules for what to do when results are alledged to be suspect. Accountability, transparency of process, and enforcement of applicable laws where criminal action is found is key, regardless of system adopted.
Okay, and one more thing (starting my more opinionated seque).
I want the option to always be able to vote:
E) NONE OF THE ABOVE
If a majority were able to vote NONE OF THE ABOVE, then we the people could have the power to veto the current slate of candidates and force a new election with new candidates. If we don't want to live in a nation governed by the latte white whine party (best populism corporations can buy) or tea party revolutionary pity potty funded by billionaires (Koch bros.) and CEOs, we need to the power to say NO more effectively than any Republican representative in Congress.
Why couldn't we reject all the evil or suspect candidates instead of just the voting for whomever or whatever we hope is the least evil option? The election rules we have now (that 2.1 party system along with with the referendums ginned up by astroturfing corporations) which seems to ensure evil continues in some form or another. What sort of nation will we end up with when elections come down to which candidate sucks less than the other? Any 'third party' candidate is now typically funded deviously by one of the other parties, with the cynical intent to sap votes from one of a passionate subset of the chief opponent's party when it is believed that the margin for election will be close. (This has happened in Ohio and Florida in the last couple of elections.)
Bonus rhetorical arguments (understand there may be a high snark content):
A related problem is how political campaigns are running now versus prior to 1960's. We used to read speeches and transcripts of debates, position & policy papers, etc. and we'd go to "whistle stops" to see and hear a candidate speak in person, and the campaign season was a few months, not 18 months to 4 years. Now we watch TV, listen to radio, read blogs, maybe read a Sunday paper, perhaps some of us try to emulate and argue like some talk show host, while billions are spent on attack ads (TV, radio, web, and newspapers) and specifically designed to elicit fear and loathing in a demoralizing manner, instead of utilizing more honest debate, compare and contrast, logical reasoning regarding benefits and costs and social morals, etc. Each October, we now must endure the unreal Candidate Horror Show each October, with a guaranteed slimey, fear and hate-inducing October Surprise!
Even our flag-waving patriotic US Chamber of Commerce (where Greed is sacred, ordained by God, and globally necessity ) feels there's nothing to question as it funds many of these foul ads using money, not just from big businesses wanting the status quo, but those wishing to encourage outsourcing, outsourcing companies in India, ever eager to take more of our jobs. Our US CoC has ongoing seminars to encourage corporations to do just that while waving the flag, at least for shareholders. How long until Indian and the other workers benefiting from outsourcing by US corporations demand some representation in our electoral college and Congress? Sure, India's CEO's have some big powerful lobbyists and legal firms working hard for them along with CoC, generating enabling legislation and buying the Congressional votes to pass it, but it's not quite the same as being from the proud state of Montana and casting the state's handful of votes in the name of it's citiz
mantle, perhaps snuggled between a couple of Emperor Penguin statues.
It could be fun to buy the filing cabinet's in which SCO's version of Novel's letters were found and put it in a 'haunted house' tableau for geeks. Maybe any pens embossed with the name of Boies's law firm. Of course any paper stock certificates. How about any left over servers, tape backups, CDs, DVDs etc. that, they might have laying about? I hope they still have more CDs sets of those 'scanned' in source code pages they tried to foist on IBM as satisfying discovery for the SCO source code. Those might make a heck of a mobile or chandelier.
I do hope the OS software developers get a chance to take home any memento they might want.
It's not just Comcast. Time-Warner and Charter are getting in their hits against their subscribing citizens as well.
Time-Warner's idea of great telephone service is responding within 1 business day to a customer reporting phone outage. I recall AT&T being out in 2 to 4 hours, rain or shine, weekends included.
Time-Warner is also clearing out the unwanted waste from their bandwith, of stuff like like PBS, BBC news, and Dr. Who. This makes room for HNN, more on-demand channels, more FOX channels, and of course HD home shopping channels and, wait for it, more reality shows, from in multiple languages. Because that's what the public is supposedly demanding. Which must be why they already offer so many consumer-beloved 'paid-time' info-mercials and endless reruns. Cable TV is become '1000' channels of mostly Hi-Def garbage. I'm pricing antenna systems, etc.
Charter's latest assault 'committed' upon our fellow citizens is to require zipcodes appended to email IDs! This change starts in 5 days, so get all your email lists, PayPal, banking, shopping and other web IDs updated! No clue as to whether it's a 5 digit or 9 digit zip code number. Or how linked to IP address, etc. No attempt at an explanation of how this will stop spambots and other email delivered worms and virii. No mention of how this will staunch the gloomy and fearsome spread of terrorism. It's just declared good for us.
(Don't try invoicing Charter for the time and inconvenience this causes you, loss of companionship due to friends, business associates and relatives reacting too slow to your change notice, and then suing in Small Claims court for their non-payment. That sort of thing is just another senseless attack on shareholder profits and CEO bonuses.)
Below is a snippet from their e-announcement to their precious, vulnerable user consumers:
v~v~v~v~v snip start v~v~v~v~v
Dear Charter High-Speed(R) Internet Customer,
Your privacy and security when checking email through Charter.net is being enhanced. Starting on November 11, your email login will include the zip code from your service address, in addition to your email address and password.
Charter is committed to maintaining your privacy, and this additional login credential through Charter.net is just one more way to ensure its protection.
^~^~^~^~^ snip end ^~^~^~^~^
This has to be some lazy, pointy-haired managers idea to make tracking customers, advertising, and marketing easier for them. I'm not an expert, only 30 years in IT, but I see no security advantage in this. I can see where eager shareholders might understand zip-codes but not Open ID or improving user options.
It's not enough these cable operators have combined forces to wage War on Net Neutrality, using carpet-bombing of contributions to Congress, as well as seeking legislation enabling greater, longer, more invasive IP 'protection', presuming their customers are all merciless IP thieves. Yes, we're utterly lacking in basic business appreciation, devoid of any understanding and compassion for the real customers--the beleagured and oppressed classes of dividend-deprived shareholders and bonus-starved CEOs. Expect to be educated or be punished, with tasers and the hammer of the law, if we dare stymie their business plans to profit mightily and righteously, as God (and Congress) has entitled them. I'm not sure Calvin or Luther or St. Thomas Aquinas would agree, but perhaps they are heeding Saint Mammon.
We must cast off our blinders and see the light. The real 'customers' driving our 'free market' are not consumers. That's so 1990s. The primary customer is now the shareholder and CEO classes. Pleasing them is now Job #1. And all of us misguided citizen/consumers will have to get on board, to appreciate this essential business 'fact' of life, or millions more jobs will have to die. If they are the deliver service, then they feel they own our art and that we must buy it from them, or else...or else...well, they're looking for the biggest stick they can find. And, well, I can't imagine anything more foolish than Congress trying to enforce an IP Prohibition.
No need to dissolve the whole thing. Target incarceration in a way that truly sets an public example, make intake a public parade of course. I suggest imprisoning the CEO, complicit officers of the members of it's board, the top 3 shareholders of preferred stock (if over 5% of stock issued), along with Wall Street financial bankers and their CEOs, and heads of legal firms who did not disuade them or even advised them to overlook evil or to act evil.
I would be willing to accept a substitute, in lieu of dozens of years of costly imprisonment at our expense, either serve half the time (but they pay all costs of incarceration--for their entire cell block).
Alternatively, offer a two phase 12 month reformatory experience in which they can make new friends, pick up new values, and have some time reflect on how they need to change:
1) Two full fiscal quarters spent cleaning the prisoners' cells and toilets in a state or federal jail. They can, if they wish, live outside a jail cell, but only in FEMA trailers, when not working their 8 hour shift. They eat what prisoners eat, get the medical care they do, the clothing, etc. Trying to escape will result in a public torpedoing their yacht(s), as well as in auctioning off their mansions, air and land vehicles, to fund child care centers.
2) Two full fiscal quarters cooking, serving in, and cleaning of soup kitchens, public health clinics, and homeless shelters. Again, they would have to reside in their FEMA trailers and eat whatever fare is offered to the poor.
3) Alternatively, serve 2 full years as a janitor at military basic training camps. As for food, eat whatever and whenever the new enlistees eat. Again, let them live in FEMA trailers. And, sure, it's okay if they join the union. Just can't be an officer in it.
Demonstrating leadership by means of sterling example, high standards, punctuality, honesty, and reliability would be the criteria for not being re-sentenced to another round of the above options. Any recommendations they might offer for making these places they served to work better would be gladly accepted, if accompanied by donations required to make them happen.
the secessionist talk in Texas--the proud Texan has switched from public talk of making 5 states out of Texas to seeking federal assistance and stocks of Tamiflu to help keep the swine flu pandemic from overrunning the Texas border. Now we are talking about the sane goodness of having sound public health policies along with preparedness planning and funding. What next? Public vaccination programs coming into favor again?
The reporters covering the campaigns are writing a big chunk of the stories. If the campaign isn't giving them 'good' material that passes the sniff test, the reporter will find it hard to write a 'positive' story. I think this 'bias' may also be a reflection of the quality of the campaign 'news releases' and 'spin' and the decisions by the McCain campaign to limit access and not be available. The Obama campaign was pretty good at responding within the typical news cycle to the volleys of increasingly wild attacks by McCain campaigners and surrogates while the criticisms of the McCain campaign and character concerns mounted by the Obama campaign were experienced as even handed, credible, and to the point. The media had to be impressed at a candidate who didn't lose his cool, who stayed focused on the overall ground game, who charged in where there was signs of weakness, and who didn't give up territory once gained. Republicans really, really want to believe they were sabbatoged by the media somehow, since it is much harder to believe that Obama's hundreds of thousands of volunteers and donors, largely via the web and good old phone system, could mount such an effective ground game that the McCain propaganda catapults were minimized. It didn't hurt that Obama was able to raise money like no previous candidate has--anyone still want to accept the Supreme Court notion "money=free speech". In the end, McCain and Palin were shooting each other in the foot, they disgusted George Will and other more thoughtful conservatives. When there are deeply fundamental things wrong with America, Americans don't want Mavericks, we want the folks who know how to pull together the best brains, focus our efforts, and who can call respectfully and inspiringly for the support of all. Obama didn't spend much time in angry attack mode. While he did respond to criticism and made some snappy rejoinders, he spent as much time as he could inspiring and articulating a very hopeful vision. America and the world has had enough of Lee Atwater/Karl Rove school of slash and burn propaganda. Enjoy your tax cuts!...if you are still employed in 2009.
1) Attach bombs to herd of hungry goats. 2) Spray passing limo with something smelly goats love. 3) Release herd of goats with 5 second delay! 4) Record video for worldwide distribution. 5) Call it "The Herd Shot Wounds the Whirled!"
To msquote Ann Coulter, "I don't think I can accept your characterization of the facts!" Ann was having a pretty bad day on the live set when she said that, and it was followed by language that wasn't suitable for the well-mannered to repeat. It may have been a day like yours.
Perhaps working with reports from field investigators, concerning problems with Diebold would be a better use of electrons than fobbing off mere assertion as accepted fact.
We could start with this report on the Florida elections and indications of startling Diebold inadequacies and problems, with field-based documentation: Florida FEC Report (PDF Format)
There are plenty of documents on Diebold any citizen interested in fair, open and free elections would find worth reviewing. More can be found here: Original Diebold Memos -- FULL SET
It would seem when real sunshine is put on Diebold adn the states using their machiens, it's not all that pretty a sight. Getting the paper trail, the electronic audit trails, and the ability to fully observe (within the state laws governing this) the election processing seem essential to preserving the integrity of our elections.
It is important to differentiate between vote fraud, voter fraud and voter disenfranchisement. Vote fraud occurs during the actual counting and/or certification stages and is what election officials can go to jail for doing. Voter fraud occurs at the polls by individual voters, although they may linked in a social group, and the individual voters could go to jail for this. Disenfranchisement occurs between the intended voter and the polls, cutting off a percentage of the eligible electorate from having their chance to be counted in the voting. The issues with the Diebold machines are mostly vote fraud.
Disenfranchisement might be alledged when insufficient machines are assigned to a polling place with a higher percentage of the opposition party and an overage of machines assigned to polling places where the party in power is favored. This in an of itself is not a Diebold problem. It's state election board problem. Now if what happens is lots of malfunctioning machines appear in the opposition polling place while working ones appear in the polling place where the incumbant is favored, and Diebold had certified all the systems as ready for deployment, then we have to ask what Diebold's involvement and interests were.
Already had the 5 CD set downloaded, burnt, and installed as of last Thursday from a bit torrent version that had the blessings of Novell. Yes, it indeed took several days to get it via Bit Torrent at 44kps. But it was so worth it to beat the slashdot crowd!
Yes, getting multimedia up and running is a bit of an effort. No, it's not hard:
No consultant group can support VB like businesses would want it supported. I'm convinced this is the kiss-off of death for VB. How will any non-MSFT support manage to keep VB working in the slipstreamed world of Windows?
Who will maintain and support the required VB6 runtimes, and IDE toolchain, as Windows XP evolves, security added, and, someday, Longhorn emerges?
Even if the VB language and runtimes were open sourced, all those proprietary controls and ActiveX objects programmers used to do their projects can't easily be replicated. Microsoft would have to ask vendors to open source them as well These controls will likely just end up unsupported as well.
Consider how fast something basic like Data Access has changed since VB4: DAO, RDO, OLE-DB, ADO, ADOX... How long until ADOX won't work in VB? Perhaps starting with version 3.0?
So, who will continue to support the controls used in VB apps? I presume they'll be quickly abandoned by vendors who also need MSFT support in order to continue to maintain them.
It'll take a huge effort to replace VB plus the vast ecosystem of add-ins, controls and Active X objects that grew up around VB and used by businesses. A whole slew of business critical controls existed for VB. These easy to hook-in after-market tools covered common valuable functions like charting, grids, finance, reporting, graphics, maps, media, electronic controls, and various internet protocol controls.
Think of all the business sold on moving off ANSI standard COBOL to VB with the promise of snazzy user-friendly GUI-based client programs written with the help of off-the-shelf add in software component controls. So now VB is just about gone. And COBOL is still around and multiple vendors supply the development tools, some free, some for fees. Who'd have guessed COBOL would outlast VB? That would be the point of leverage to use with Microsoft. Gates sold the business world on a proprietary language to replace an ANSI one and now turns its back on business.
Re:That explains those mysterious hirings
on
Breaking Google's DRM
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Experimenters: is it possible the Ad Block extension in Mozilla/Firefox would be effective on this?
They could agree to chuck aside differences, suck the hacks into one moving project, so we'd come up with GNU/HurLd4:). As always, YMMV especially where reverse parastaltic waves are concerned.
What if Microsoft's Mono was made to run on the GNU/Hurld4 Microkernel? Would Mono become microlithic?
The citizens of Wisconsin may soon be speculating if they have former Republican Governor Tommy Thompson, a Bush cabinet appointee, to thank for this. Keep in mind most of the reliably liberal population has been quarantined in Madison and Milwaukee. However, the university educated liberty lovers won't necessarily be the decisive factor, as articulate and fact based as they may be.
Competing with elections in November is this little event we call Deer Hunting season in Wisconsin. If this MATRIX thing turns out to be something the NRA doesn't like, we'll be hearing more from the state where beer, cheese, tractors and heavy equipment, Gander Mountain, and Jockey Underwear are headquartered. It isn't just the bearded liberals who demonstrate in Madison. The farmers have rode their heavy equipment around the capitol in the past to make their points. A few dozen combines and tractors positioned at strategic locations around the capitol square can be quite imposing and very photogenic.
SAP has partnership relations with Novell/SuSE as well. SAP is included in SuSE Professional. So business alliances are a common thread and appear to support the idea.
Keep in mind Oracle's push to buy PeopleSoft. Getting the vertical stack on business data services is a key strategic move. Recall Microsoft bought Great Plains while Oracle is working mightily to get PeopleSoft. Novell appears to be aligning resources vertically related to business data services as well. Imagine the advantage of a full vertical BDS stack based on SAP but minus the cost of Oracle or DB2 or SQL Server. MySQL's database relationship with SAP is interesting in terms of implications globally. SAP appears to be scaling to fit business and government of all sizes. Linux based deployment options (very small to very large) allow them to compete across the board. Novell surely would want a piece of this!
It's a very wild guess, but think about it. Novell already has the Ximian desktop and now SuSE. Next, try to get a key piece of the LAMP server , and what's more central to most current web content packages than MySQL?
Seriously, when can Slashdot readers rank the story itself instead of just the comments?
Why is some living at home gamer dude's diminishing fixation with games a story? Next thing you know he'll be wanting a real job, to find his own housing, maybe settle down with a good woman (or man) and raise a family, plan to manage his 401(k), buy life and health insurance, and start the real games of life. Heck, he might even vote Democratic or Green party until his kids reach college age and then (maybe not vote) but talk Republican or something wierd like that while arguing with his kids about politics, taxes, sex and religion, and the decline of Western civiliation.
Miss Cleo on Groklaw and Yahoo Finance boards is advocating that the open source community band together to offer a bounty as well. She thinks making the bounty payable for information leading to the arrest would be most beneficial, since it would mean our bounty would pay before SCO's and help shore up OSS from the beating SCO intends to give Linux supporters over this.
Can Slashdot or OSDN create a Paypal account for this?
to dare Linux users to switch millions of PCs to any version of Windows before the trial. You see, it's an offer youz can't refuse. And then when you switch back...heh, heh...too late, you've all left your IP signatures logged at the SCO website. And SCO can finally legitimately sue millions over IP evidence they don't exactly own over the criminal DDOS attack the IP users participated in.
It's a theory, I didn't promise it was a smart theory.
It was suggested on the Yahoo BBS that perhaps this was a DNS IP transition that wasn't properly planned by the BOFH admin. Could that mean this website has been up and running all along on this new IP address?
Inquiring minds want to know! News editors are breathless waiting! Investors are fretting! BSD users dread being blamed next! The SLTPD and FBI need your assistance in tracking down the real SCO-flaws
IBM 2 SCO 0 Motions to Compel granted
on
SCOrched Earth
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· Score: 5, Informative
See comments on Groklaw or Yahoo! SCOX BBS. SCO has 30 days to provide their evidence. Both IBM motions to compel granted. None of SCO's. Boies & Heise were no shows. Darl's brother Kevin argued.
An equally inapplicable response might be that Bush II said he would hunt down Osama bin Laden, then Sadam, and is still empty handed.
SCO promised invoices and hasn't delivered. Why will these litigation threats be different? The most important thing to note is that SCO had to get a denial out quick since they claim in court filings to have no controversy with Red Hat. Google is a Red Hat Case Study.
To make plain the obvious, the beam may be invisible while passing through dustfree air until it bounces off a target. Laser pointers are known to emit light in visible range, whichmy personal (although non-show quality) cat loves to chase.
Imagining a Cat Show as dustfree and free from reflecting targets requires far greater faith than I have.
Slashdot Mirror
Add a mere 3% edge in detecting when bouncers would be sent to bounce may not be sufficient to prevent odds reducing brain damage over repeated attempts.
i.e. lust for money and sex which is the root of evil. Don't objectify what is within us as deep character flaws and propensities. Jealousy, greed, lust, (and the other 4 vices) can have violent expression, especially when the perpetrator perceives a difference in power and has a reason to believe any act committed would not be easily found out.
All I want is a trustworthy election system that has auditable controls, manual and automated methods of recount, verifiable by the public, and with strict rules for what to do when results are alledged to be suspect. Accountability, transparency of process, and enforcement of applicable laws where criminal action is found is key, regardless of system adopted.
Okay, and one more thing (starting my more opinionated seque).
I want the option to always be able to vote:
E) NONE OF THE ABOVE
If a majority were able to vote NONE OF THE ABOVE, then we the people could have the power to veto the current slate of candidates and force a new election with new candidates. If we don't want to live in a nation governed by the latte white whine party (best populism corporations can buy) or tea party revolutionary pity potty funded by billionaires (Koch bros.) and CEOs, we need to the power to say NO more effectively than any Republican representative in Congress.
Why couldn't we reject all the evil or suspect candidates instead of just the voting for whomever or whatever we hope is the least evil option? The election rules we have now (that 2.1 party system along with with the referendums ginned up by astroturfing corporations) which seems to ensure evil continues in some form or another. What sort of nation will we end up with when elections come down to which candidate sucks less than the other? Any 'third party' candidate is now typically funded deviously by one of the other parties, with the cynical intent to sap votes from one of a passionate subset of the chief opponent's party when it is believed that the margin for election will be close. (This has happened in Ohio and Florida in the last couple of elections.)
Bonus rhetorical arguments (understand there may be a high snark content):
A related problem is how political campaigns are running now versus prior to 1960's. We used to read speeches and transcripts of debates, position & policy papers, etc. and we'd go to "whistle stops" to see and hear a candidate speak in person, and the campaign season was a few months, not 18 months to 4 years. Now we watch TV, listen to radio, read blogs, maybe read a Sunday paper, perhaps some of us try to emulate and argue like some talk show host, while billions are spent on attack ads (TV, radio, web, and newspapers) and specifically designed to elicit fear and loathing in a demoralizing manner, instead of utilizing more honest debate, compare and contrast, logical reasoning regarding benefits and costs and social morals, etc. Each October, we now must endure the unreal Candidate Horror Show each October, with a guaranteed slimey, fear and hate-inducing October Surprise!
Even our flag-waving patriotic US Chamber of Commerce (where Greed is sacred, ordained by God, and globally necessity ) feels there's nothing to question as it funds many of these foul ads using money, not just from big businesses wanting the status quo, but those wishing to encourage outsourcing, outsourcing companies in India, ever eager to take more of our jobs. Our US CoC has ongoing seminars to encourage corporations to do just that while waving the flag, at least for shareholders. How long until Indian and the other workers benefiting from outsourcing by US corporations demand some representation in our electoral college and Congress? Sure, India's CEO's have some big powerful lobbyists and legal firms working hard for them along with CoC, generating enabling legislation and buying the Congressional votes to pass it, but it's not quite the same as being from the proud state of Montana and casting the state's handful of votes in the name of it's citiz
mantle, perhaps snuggled between a couple of Emperor Penguin statues.
It could be fun to buy the filing cabinet's in which SCO's version of Novel's letters were found and put it in a 'haunted house' tableau for geeks. Maybe any pens embossed with the name of Boies's law firm. Of course any paper stock certificates. How about any left over servers, tape backups, CDs, DVDs etc. that, they might have laying about? I hope they still have more CDs sets of those 'scanned' in source code pages they tried to foist on IBM as satisfying discovery for the SCO source code. Those might make a heck of a mobile or chandelier.
I do hope the OS software developers get a chance to take home any memento they might want.
It's not just Comcast. Time-Warner and Charter are getting in their hits against their subscribing citizens as well.
Time-Warner's idea of great telephone service is responding within 1 business day to a customer reporting phone outage.
I recall AT&T being out in 2 to 4 hours, rain or shine, weekends included.
Time-Warner is also clearing out the unwanted waste from their bandwith, of stuff like like PBS, BBC news, and Dr. Who.
This makes room for HNN, more on-demand channels, more FOX channels, and of course HD home shopping channels
and, wait for it, more reality shows, from in multiple languages. Because that's what the public is supposedly demanding.
Which must be why they already offer so many consumer-beloved 'paid-time' info-mercials and endless reruns.
Cable TV is become '1000' channels of mostly Hi-Def garbage. I'm pricing antenna systems, etc.
Charter's latest assault 'committed' upon our fellow citizens is to require zipcodes appended to email IDs!
This change starts in 5 days, so get all your email lists, PayPal, banking, shopping and other web IDs updated!
No clue as to whether it's a 5 digit or 9 digit zip code number. Or how linked to IP address, etc.
No attempt at an explanation of how this will stop spambots and other email delivered worms and virii.
No mention of how this will staunch the gloomy and fearsome spread of terrorism. It's just declared good for us.
(Don't try invoicing Charter for the time and inconvenience this causes you, loss of companionship due to friends,
business associates and relatives reacting too slow to your change notice, and then suing in Small Claims court
for their non-payment. That sort of thing is just another senseless attack on shareholder profits and CEO bonuses.)
Below is a snippet from their e-announcement to their precious, vulnerable user consumers:
v~v~v~v~v snip start v~v~v~v~v
Dear Charter High-Speed(R) Internet Customer,
Your privacy and security when checking email through Charter.net is being
enhanced. Starting on November 11, your email login will include the zip code
from your service address, in addition to your email address and password.
Charter is committed to maintaining your privacy, and this additional login
credential through Charter.net is just one more way to ensure its protection.
^~^~^~^~^ snip end ^~^~^~^~^
This has to be some lazy, pointy-haired managers idea to make tracking customers, advertising, and
marketing easier for them. I'm not an expert, only 30 years in IT, but I see no security advantage in this.
I can see where eager shareholders might understand zip-codes but not Open ID or improving user options.
It's not enough these cable operators have combined forces to wage War on Net Neutrality, using carpet-bombing
of contributions to Congress, as well as seeking legislation enabling greater, longer, more invasive IP 'protection',
presuming their customers are all merciless IP thieves. Yes, we're utterly lacking in basic business appreciation,
devoid of any understanding and compassion for the real customers--the beleagured and oppressed classes of
dividend-deprived shareholders and bonus-starved CEOs. Expect to be educated or be punished, with tasers and
the hammer of the law, if we dare stymie their business plans to profit mightily and righteously, as God (and Congress)
has entitled them. I'm not sure Calvin or Luther or St. Thomas Aquinas would agree, but perhaps they are heeding
Saint Mammon.
We must cast off our blinders and see the light. The real 'customers' driving our 'free market' are not consumers.
That's so 1990s. The primary customer is now the shareholder and CEO classes. Pleasing them is now Job #1.
And all of us misguided citizen/consumers will have to get on board, to appreciate this essential business 'fact' of life,
or millions more jobs will have to die. If they are the deliver service, then they feel they own our art and that we
must buy it from them, or else...or else...well, they're looking for the biggest stick they can find. And, well,
I can't imagine anything more foolish than Congress trying to enforce an IP Prohibition.
No need to dissolve the whole thing. Target incarceration in a way that truly sets an public example, make intake a public parade of course. I suggest imprisoning the CEO, complicit officers of the members of it's board, the top 3 shareholders of preferred stock (if over 5% of stock issued), along with Wall Street financial bankers and their CEOs, and heads of legal firms who did not disuade them or even advised them to overlook evil or to act evil.
I would be willing to accept a substitute, in lieu of dozens of years of costly imprisonment at our expense, either serve half the time (but they pay all costs of incarceration--for their entire cell block).
Alternatively, offer a two phase 12 month reformatory experience in which they can make new friends, pick up new values, and have some time reflect on how they need to change:
1) Two full fiscal quarters spent cleaning the prisoners' cells and toilets in a state or federal jail. They can, if they wish, live outside a jail cell, but only in FEMA trailers, when not working their 8 hour shift. They eat what prisoners eat, get the medical care they do, the clothing, etc. Trying to escape will result in a public torpedoing their yacht(s), as well as in auctioning off their mansions, air and land vehicles, to fund child care centers.
2) Two full fiscal quarters cooking, serving in, and cleaning of soup kitchens, public health clinics, and homeless shelters. Again, they would have to reside in their FEMA trailers and eat whatever fare is offered to the poor.
3) Alternatively, serve 2 full years as a janitor at military basic training camps. As for food, eat whatever and whenever the new enlistees eat. Again, let them live in FEMA trailers. And, sure, it's okay if they join the union. Just can't be an officer in it.
Demonstrating leadership by means of sterling example, high standards, punctuality, honesty, and reliability would be the criteria for not being re-sentenced to another round of the above options. Any recommendations they might offer for making these places they served to work better would be gladly accepted, if accompanied by donations required to make them happen.
the secessionist talk in Texas--the proud Texan has switched from public talk of making 5 states out of Texas to seeking federal assistance and stocks of Tamiflu to help keep the swine flu pandemic from overrunning the Texas border. Now we are talking about the sane goodness of having sound public health policies along with preparedness planning and funding. What next? Public vaccination programs coming into favor again?
How about match a sound to a graphic?
'Moo' says the Pootie?
Eweza Bot! Banned be Ur IP addie 4eva!
The reporters covering the campaigns are writing a big chunk of the stories. If the campaign isn't giving them 'good' material that passes the sniff test, the reporter will find it hard to write a 'positive' story. I think this 'bias' may also be a reflection of the quality of the campaign 'news releases' and 'spin' and the decisions by the McCain campaign to limit access and not be available. The Obama campaign was pretty good at responding within the typical news cycle to the volleys of increasingly wild attacks by McCain campaigners and surrogates while the criticisms of the McCain campaign and character concerns mounted by the Obama campaign were experienced as even handed, credible, and to the point. The media had to be impressed at a candidate who didn't lose his cool, who stayed focused on the overall ground game, who charged in where there was signs of weakness, and who didn't give up territory once gained. Republicans really, really want to believe they were sabbatoged by the media somehow, since it is much harder to believe that Obama's hundreds of thousands of volunteers and donors, largely via the web and good old phone system, could mount such an effective ground game that the McCain propaganda catapults were minimized. It didn't hurt that Obama was able to raise money like no previous candidate has--anyone still want to accept the Supreme Court notion "money=free speech". In the end, McCain and Palin were shooting each other in the foot, they disgusted George Will and other more thoughtful conservatives. When there are deeply fundamental things wrong with America, Americans don't want Mavericks, we want the folks who know how to pull together the best brains, focus our efforts, and who can call respectfully and inspiringly for the support of all. Obama didn't spend much time in angry attack mode. While he did respond to criticism and made some snappy rejoinders, he spent as much time as he could inspiring and articulating a very hopeful vision. America and the world has had enough of Lee Atwater/Karl Rove school of slash and burn propaganda. Enjoy your tax cuts! ...if you are still employed in 2009.
1) Attach bombs to herd of hungry goats.
2) Spray passing limo with something smelly goats love.
3) Release herd of goats with 5 second delay!
4) Record video for worldwide distribution.
5) Call it "The Herd Shot Wounds the Whirled!"
Perhaps working with reports from field investigators, concerning problems with Diebold would be a better use of electrons than fobbing off mere assertion as accepted fact.
We could start with this report on the Florida elections and indications of startling Diebold inadequacies and problems, with field-based documentation:
Florida FEC Report (PDF Format)
There are plenty of documents on Diebold any citizen interested in fair, open and free elections would find worth reviewing. More can be found here:
Original Diebold Memos -- FULL SET
It would seem when real sunshine is put on Diebold adn the states using their machiens, it's not all that pretty a sight. Getting the paper trail, the electronic audit trails, and the ability to fully observe (within the state laws governing this) the election processing seem essential to preserving the integrity of our elections.
It is important to differentiate between vote fraud, voter fraud and voter disenfranchisement. Vote fraud occurs during the actual counting and/or certification stages and is what election officials can go to jail for doing. Voter fraud occurs at the polls by individual voters, although they may linked in a social group, and the individual voters could go to jail for this. Disenfranchisement occurs between the intended voter and the polls, cutting off a percentage of the eligible electorate from having their chance to be counted in the voting. The issues with the Diebold machines are mostly vote fraud.
Disenfranchisement might be alledged when insufficient machines are assigned to a polling place with a higher percentage of the opposition party and an overage of machines assigned to polling places where the party in power is favored. This in an of itself is not a Diebold problem. It's state election board problem. Now if what happens is lots of malfunctioning machines appear in the opposition polling place while working ones appear in the polling place where the incumbant is favored, and Diebold had certified all the systems as ready for deployment, then we have to ask what Diebold's involvement and interests were.
Already had the 5 CD set downloaded, burnt, and installed as of last Thursday from a bit torrent version that had the blessings of Novell. Yes, it indeed took several days to get it via Bit Torrent at 44kps. But it was so worth it to beat the slashdot crowd!
Yes, getting multimedia up and running is a bit of an effort. No, it's not hard:
How To fix multimedia in SuSE 9.3
Yast Update Online - install the "multimedia pack 1, 2, 3" updates.
But it doesn't have....no, wait...SuSE users frequently find additional rpm packages on Packman that meet their additional needs:
Packman
Have lots of fun!
No consultant group can support VB like businesses would want it supported. I'm convinced this is the kiss-off of death for VB. How will any non-MSFT support manage to keep VB working in the slipstreamed world of Windows?
Who will maintain and support the required VB6 runtimes, and IDE toolchain, as Windows XP evolves, security added, and, someday, Longhorn emerges?
Even if the VB language and runtimes were open sourced, all those proprietary controls and ActiveX objects programmers used to do their projects can't easily be replicated. Microsoft would have to ask vendors to open source them as well These controls will likely just end up unsupported as well.
Consider how fast something basic like Data Access has changed since VB4: DAO, RDO, OLE-DB, ADO, ADOX... How long until ADOX won't work in VB? Perhaps starting with version 3.0?
So, who will continue to support the controls used in VB apps? I presume they'll be quickly abandoned by vendors who also need MSFT support in order to continue to maintain them.
It'll take a huge effort to replace VB plus the vast ecosystem of add-ins, controls and Active X objects that grew up around VB and used by businesses. A whole slew of business critical controls existed for VB. These easy to hook-in after-market tools covered common valuable functions like charting, grids, finance, reporting, graphics, maps, media, electronic controls, and various internet protocol controls.
Think of all the business sold on moving off ANSI standard COBOL to VB with the promise of snazzy user-friendly GUI-based client programs written with the help of off-the-shelf add in software component controls. So now VB is just about gone. And COBOL is still around and multiple vendors supply the development tools, some free, some for fees. Who'd have guessed COBOL would outlast VB? That would be the point of leverage to use with Microsoft. Gates sold the business world on a proprietary language to replace an ANSI one and now turns its back on business.
Experimenters: is it possible the Ad Block extension in Mozilla/Firefox would be effective on this?
What if Microsoft's Mono was made to run on the GNU/Hurld4 Microkernel? Would Mono become microlithic?
How about setting up a cron job that emails the IP address everytime it's turned on? Or, dare I ask if that's a Windows laptop?
The citizens of Wisconsin may soon be speculating if they have former Republican Governor Tommy Thompson, a Bush cabinet appointee, to thank for this. Keep in mind most of the reliably liberal population has been quarantined in Madison and Milwaukee. However, the university educated liberty lovers won't necessarily be the decisive factor, as articulate and fact based as they may be.
Competing with elections in November is this little event we call Deer Hunting season in Wisconsin. If this MATRIX thing turns out to be something the NRA doesn't like, we'll be hearing more from the state where beer, cheese, tractors and heavy equipment, Gander Mountain, and Jockey Underwear are headquartered. It isn't just the bearded liberals who demonstrate in Madison. The farmers have rode their heavy equipment around the capitol in the past to make their points. A few dozen combines and tractors positioned at strategic locations around the capitol square can be quite imposing and very photogenic.
SAP has partnership relations with Novell/SuSE as well. SAP is included in SuSE Professional. So business alliances are a common thread and appear to support the idea.
Keep in mind Oracle's push to buy PeopleSoft. Getting the vertical stack on business data services is a key strategic move. Recall Microsoft bought Great Plains while Oracle is working mightily to get PeopleSoft. Novell appears to be aligning resources vertically related to business data services as well. Imagine the advantage of a full vertical BDS stack based on SAP but minus the cost of Oracle or DB2 or SQL Server. MySQL's database relationship with SAP is interesting in terms of implications globally. SAP appears to be scaling to fit business and government of all sizes. Linux based deployment options (very small to very large) allow them to compete across the board. Novell surely would want a piece of this!
It's a very wild guess, but think about it. Novell already has the Ximian desktop and now SuSE. Next, try to get a key piece of the LAMP server , and what's more central to most current web content packages than MySQL?
Seriously, when can Slashdot readers rank the story itself instead of just the comments?
Why is some living at home gamer dude's diminishing fixation with games a story? Next thing you know he'll be wanting a real job, to find his own housing, maybe settle down with a good woman (or man) and raise a family, plan to manage his 401(k), buy life and health insurance, and start the real games of life. Heck, he might even vote Democratic or Green party until his kids reach college age and then (maybe not vote) but talk Republican or something wierd like that while arguing with his kids about politics, taxes, sex and religion, and the decline of Western civiliation.
Miss Cleo on Groklaw and Yahoo Finance boards is advocating that the open source community band together to offer a bounty as well. She thinks making the bounty payable for information leading to the arrest would be most beneficial, since it would mean our bounty would pay before SCO's and help shore up OSS from the beating SCO intends to give Linux supporters over this.
Can Slashdot or OSDN create a Paypal account for this?
It's a theory, I didn't promise it was a smart theory.
SCO Experiences Distributed Denial of Service Attack
It was suggested on the Yahoo BBS that perhaps this was a DNS IP transition that wasn't properly planned by the BOFH admin. Could that mean this website has been up and running all along on this new IP address?
SCO Grows Your Business http.://216.250.128.20 vs the old address of 216.250.128.13?
Inquiring minds want to know! News editors are breathless waiting! Investors are fretting! BSD users dread being blamed next! The SLTPD and FBI need your assistance in tracking down the real SCO-flaws
See comments on Groklaw or Yahoo! SCOX BBS.
SCO has 30 days to provide their evidence.
Both IBM motions to compel granted.
None of SCO's.
Boies & Heise were no shows.
Darl's brother Kevin argued.
SCO promised invoices and hasn't delivered. Why will these litigation threats be different? The most important thing to note is that SCO had to get a denial out quick since they claim in court filings to have no controversy with Red Hat. Google is a Red Hat Case Study.
Imagining a Cat Show as dustfree and free from reflecting targets requires far greater faith than I have.