According to a 'friend' of mine in the know, one way to avoid getting picked for a laptop search is to stay off the radar.
How do you get on the radar in the first place? Be a white male travelling alone, 30 - 50 years old, slightly dorky, and, most importantly, be travelling home from a 'vacation' in a nation that is known for child s3x tourism, packing a digital camera and a laptop. Apparently there's about one tourist a week in his airport that fits the profile and has unencrypted kiddie pr0n on the tourist's 'inspected' laptop.
If Ebay Did make paypal mandatory, that would be a violation of Antitrust/monopoly laws, because it stifles competition & limits customer choice to zero.
How does it limit choice to zero? If I want to pick up a "Howard the Duck" soundtrack audiocassette I don't *have* to buy it on eBay. I can use Amazon's marketplace, my local used record store, Craigslist, the list goes on... No one 'forces' me to use eBay.
To me, the problems with these 'futuristic' devices always comes down to batteries. Until we develop an inexpensive, low-mass, "safe" battery that lasts a long time, people are still going to be desperately hunting down electrical outlets in airports, no matter how fancy the gadget.
The analogy with DVDs doesn't really hold true, though. A movie like Casino Royale makes $200M 'profit' in the theatres and on pay-per-view before it winds up in the video store for $30. After 1.5 years it makes its way to the $10 bin - By then it's made all its money and now it's just gravy.
The model is different with a CD. We don't all pay $15 (+ $20 in Junior Mints) to go listen to the CD in a theatre first, then buy it later.
"Dutch Bikes" (Omafiets) may be as sturdy as you would hope, but have never been sold here in the US.
These bikes area available here in Vancouver, Canada. They're certainly rugged, but are a bitch to ride. They're very heavy and only have a few gears. Riding them anywhere that isn't completely flat like Holland requires the rider to be very fit. Give me my multi-geared basic mountain bike any day over a "Dutch Bike."
I'm certainly no fan of George W. Bush (and I'm a Canadian to boot), but it always bugs me when people describe him as a moron. When he was in the Air National Guard, bush flew F-102 interceptor fighter jets. They don't hand out these million-plus airplanes to everyone. If you could fly one, you earned respect, and you certainly weren't a moron.
Except that's generally not how it works. If there's a $100K mortgage taken out in Archangel Michael's name, then Archangel Michael has to prove it wasn't taken out, not the other way around. The law is skewed to the creditors, not the borrower.
our HR director is clueless -- not only in writing effective job descriptions and requirements, but also when it comes to setting compensation packages that attract good candidates
I keep hearing this over and over again in this discussion. Seems weird to me. At every company I've worked for, the dev manager and/or team leads wrote the job description, and the dev mgr generally set the compensation bar. The HR person never wrote the ad text - They were too busy running seminars about the dental plan.
Which naturally raises the question of why the founder of an online encyclopaedia wouldn't have the good sense to use the resources at his disposal to check out her bonafides before getting personally involved.
Because...
a) He is male
b) She is an attractive female
c) She let him see her naked and have sex with her
Speaking as a man, never underestimate a man's ability to overlook the obvious when there's potential nudity involved.
(I think Matt Groening said it best in his "Life in Hell" comic script: "Love is doomed to fail because men are stupid and women are crazy.")
Perhaps if the local cops would show anything like competence, we could take them more seriously. The FBI does not, and will not, investigate US-hosted spam and fraud operations, with only a very, very few headline-grabbing exceptions. Neither does the Secret Service, whose job the phishing schemes are because they handle wire fraud.
This is because they're understaffed. You could have 2000 FBI guys chasing down spammers and it would be like whack-a-mole. As soon as they hit one, another spammer would pop up. It's just too profitable for the spammers.
This is why they're trying to attack it at the other end - Rather than trying to chase down every spammer, create some kind of magic new interwebs where spammers and phishers wouldn't be able to operate.
Moodle sucks and everyone knows it. OSS works well for things that a lot of people like, use, and are interested in. No one seems too keen on LMSes, and that means that Moodle is kind of neglected.
Yeah, I tend to agree. I've sometimes wondered if there's money to be made consulting on 'fixing' moodle / training etc, but I figure if a school has no money for a commercial LMS then they have no money to hire me either. That's sort of where the OSS Model falls down, in my opinion.
I'm glad someone else had the courage to say it. I know Moodle gets tons of praise heaped on it because it's OSS, but it's simply not as feature-rich as the 'commerical' LMSes, its UI is confusing and its documentation is a jumble of cumbersome wiki pages. Until Moodle 'catches us' to the other LMSes it will never gain critical mass.
The system goes on-line February 26, 2008. It begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, February 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
This is the same crap you have to do to install Windows
Incorrect.
I recently acquired a Dell P3 1 Ghz notebook, and reformatted and reinstalled windows from a standard XP CD (not a recovery disk).
The machine booted with sound, high-res graphics, networking and power management. Windows update updated some drivers. The only driver I had to install was for the WiFi NIC I stuck in the PCMCIA slot a few days later, and I'd've had to do the same thing I'd used a 'recovery disk.'
Slashdot Mirror
How do you get on the radar in the first place? Be a white male travelling alone, 30 - 50 years old, slightly dorky, and, most importantly, be travelling home from a 'vacation' in a nation that is known for child s3x tourism, packing a digital camera and a laptop. Apparently there's about one tourist a week in his airport that fits the profile and has unencrypted kiddie pr0n on the tourist's 'inspected' laptop.
You've had to do this *three* times? What's not working in your backup system? Once I hit #2 I'd be on RAID for sure...
No choice http://www.amazon.com/Money-home-page/b/ref=gw_m_b_si?ie=UTF8&node=3309511
How does it limit choice to zero? If I want to pick up a "Howard the Duck" soundtrack audiocassette I don't *have* to buy it on eBay. I can use Amazon's marketplace, my local used record store, Craigslist, the list goes on... No one 'forces' me to use eBay.
http://www.divemaster.ca/boeing/
Prior to the sinking it went through an extensive environmental cleanup until eventually all that was left was metal.
To me, the problems with these 'futuristic' devices always comes down to batteries. Until we develop an inexpensive, low-mass, "safe" battery that lasts a long time, people are still going to be desperately hunting down electrical outlets in airports, no matter how fancy the gadget.
The analogy with DVDs doesn't really hold true, though. A movie like Casino Royale makes $200M 'profit' in the theatres and on pay-per-view before it winds up in the video store for $30. After 1.5 years it makes its way to the $10 bin - By then it's made all its money and now it's just gravy. The model is different with a CD. We don't all pay $15 (+ $20 in Junior Mints) to go listen to the CD in a theatre first, then buy it later.
Simple: You get a bicyle with electric assist:
http://www.poweredbicycles.co.uk/supportingfiles/1.059033CitytaxiElectricMountainBike.JPG
These bikes area available here in Vancouver, Canada. They're certainly rugged, but are a bitch to ride. They're very heavy and only have a few gears. Riding them anywhere that isn't completely flat like Holland requires the rider to be very fit. Give me my multi-geared basic mountain bike any day over a "Dutch Bike."
I'm certainly no fan of George W. Bush (and I'm a Canadian to boot), but it always bugs me when people describe him as a moron. When he was in the Air National Guard, bush flew F-102 interceptor fighter jets. They don't hand out these million-plus airplanes to everyone. If you could fly one, you earned respect, and you certainly weren't a moron.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-102_Delta_Dagger
...with a stinky pulp mill nearby. Of course that's the smell of MONEY :)
Except that's generally not how it works. If there's a $100K mortgage taken out in Archangel Michael's name, then Archangel Michael has to prove it wasn't taken out, not the other way around. The law is skewed to the creditors, not the borrower.
I keep hearing this over and over again in this discussion. Seems weird to me. At every company I've worked for, the dev manager and/or team leads wrote the job description, and the dev mgr generally set the compensation bar. The HR person never wrote the ad text - They were too busy running seminars about the dental plan.
If this Dalek was spraying water at me I'd just push it over. Can't be that difficult.
My anecdotal experience while travelling in Cuba was that, overall, the local Cubans 'looked' healthier than the Mexican, Belizean etc. counterparts.
Because...
a) He is male
b) She is an attractive female
c) She let him see her naked and have sex with her
Speaking as a man, never underestimate a man's ability to overlook the obvious when there's potential nudity involved.
(I think Matt Groening said it best in his "Life in Hell" comic script: "Love is doomed to fail because men are stupid and women are crazy.")
This is because they're understaffed. You could have 2000 FBI guys chasing down spammers and it would be like whack-a-mole. As soon as they hit one, another spammer would pop up. It's just too profitable for the spammers.
This is why they're trying to attack it at the other end - Rather than trying to chase down every spammer, create some kind of magic new interwebs where spammers and phishers wouldn't be able to operate.
But if that's the will of the majority, then so be it. And if that's not the will of the majority, then get organized and change the law.
As a Canadian, I'm always surprised how much the religious right seems to have influence in the USA when the appear to represent the minority opinion.
Yeah, I tend to agree. I've sometimes wondered if there's money to be made consulting on 'fixing' moodle / training etc, but I figure if a school has no money for a commercial LMS then they have no money to hire me either. That's sort of where the OSS Model falls down, in my opinion.
I'm glad someone else had the courage to say it. I know Moodle gets tons of praise heaped on it because it's OSS, but it's simply not as feature-rich as the 'commerical' LMSes, its UI is confusing and its documentation is a jumble of cumbersome wiki pages. Until Moodle 'catches us' to the other LMSes it will never gain critical mass.
The system goes on-line February 26, 2008. It begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, February 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
Until the next thing comes along and it starts to get complicated...
"Super" High Definition DVD
"Extreme" High Definition DVD
What the hell are 'ethernet cables,' anyway? Ethernet is a protocol. Back in the good ol' days I set up Ethernet LANs with 10BASE-2 coax cable.
Incorrect.
I recently acquired a Dell P3 1 Ghz notebook, and reformatted and reinstalled windows from a standard XP CD (not a recovery disk). The machine booted with sound, high-res graphics, networking and power management. Windows update updated some drivers. The only driver I had to install was for the WiFi NIC I stuck in the PCMCIA slot a few days later, and I'd've had to do the same thing I'd used a 'recovery disk.'
I'm tired of hearing this generalization repeated over and over again.
The "Space Shuttle" system was, and remains, one of the most complex and sophisticated 'machines that moves' ever designed and built.