I'd be willing to bet the number of firewalls that are configured to allow by default exceeds the number of firewalls that are configured to deny by default by about 5 to 1. At least.
I'm not talking about ports, but about source/destination of traffic. Of course, everybody's going to restrict to 80, 443, etc. But then you let in/. over port 80 and look what happens anyway.
I disagree. Sure, if you're an ISP, you've got no business doing that. But if you run a private firm (I'm *not* thinking Fortune 500 here) or especially a school district, where you can be much more draconian, then by all means do it. Even better, a home environment. I use WEP, disable DHCP, and deny by default at home - makes it a lot easier on me.
As far as the Day 1 deluge, you can always grab the logs for the last day/week/whatever and use that for your initial filter (with some eyeballing for pr0n and such).
I saw an article elsewhere on/. about wrong numbers directed to someone's cell phone (in essence, accidental phone spam). A few days ago, I saw a print article on the difficults an admin at a school corp. has with students' use of school computers, and that he routinely blocks 150 or so sites a week.
These are all related issues with one simple solution - implement a "deny by default" rule. Deny all communications except what is permitted. Given the option, I'd have all phone calls from number other than what's in my built-in phonebook routed to voice mail. I would block all email other than what's sent from my list of 'approved senders'. And in the admin's case, I'd block all internet access except what's specifically permitted.
I can't remember the last time I paid for a tech book. OTOH, my two previous employers spent about $100/year on tech books for me. Whether or not they knew it is another matter. And paying ridiculous prices for tech books is a lot easier when it's somebody else's money.
Look at what's being fixed: entertainment and media center crap. Y'know, they'd win over people like me if they'd strip that junk out to begin with and just release an OPERATING SYSTEM.
Please prove me wrong on this one (cringe). I'm familiar with Office 2003, and Office XP, and Office 2000, and Office 97, and Office 95, and, hell, what was it called then - just Office? Anyway, I've *seen* OpenOffice.org. I've loaded it, toyed around with it, but not put it fully into use. From what I can tell, though, it probably does about 90% of what Office does (in terms of actual normal everyday usage, not number of features). And it's free.
Now, there's some (especially within this twisted/. community) that'll toot the horn of OSS and say what a grand thing it is, and how information wants to be free, and all that crap. Don't get me wrong, I'm a self-described information communist.
But that doesn't win over the masses. The little detail about being free. Yeah, that's what will win over the masses.
So why aren't people switching? There's a few reasons, but I think one of the major ones at this point is the vast collection of Word templates, Excel spreadsheets, Access databases, etc. that are in existence. I'm even a culprit. I give my time to a family business, and at one time rolled up my first, last, and only Access-based application several years ago for them. The problem is that they're still using it.
So, one of these days, I'll convert it to something nicer, and they'll never buy another Office license again.
That, IMHO, is the next phase of adoption - all those people who have a vested interest in legacy stuff that has become (by accident more than design) a critical part of their infrastructure. As that stuff gets replaced, the door is open for OpenOffice.org.
To use another example, I've spent the majority of the last 8 years in various manufacturing facilities. You would not believe the number of Excel spreadsheets that are a critical part of their production process. And these aren't bank rec's - they're several megs of nasty, crudely-hacked VBA code. The story's always the same - Joe Manufacturing Engineer puts together a little spreadsheet to calculate something that makes his job easier. Then his coworker asks for a little extra feature. Then they add in another. Pretty soon, he's learning VBA the hard way with no prior programming experience. Three years later, his entire job is to maintain this beast of a spreadsheet.
Anyway, the point (if there is one) is this. OpenOffice.org is gonna make it through the next wave of adoption (which is gonna be a big wave) by being free and by the replacement of all these legacy 'pseudo-apps'. The free part's a given. What happens to all those pseudo-apps is anyone's guess, I think. They may very well get replaced by Microsoft stuff and we'll still be having this conversation two years from now when we're waiting on Office 2011 (yes, I did the math).
I have to disagree with that. It seems to me that the time's ripe for some new-and-improved all-in-one devices. I personally would rather have a mobile phone / mp3 player / camera / tv remote / garage door opener / pda / whatever. The problem's not in the idea, it's in the execution. The user interfaces for these things tend to be so damn confusing and convoluted that it's just not worth the expense.
You could control 90% of the functions of such a device with no more buttons than what's on an ipod. Make it a flip-top with an alphanumeric keypad underneath, and that's it. And there'd better be only two modes - caps lock and no caps lock.
Of course another problem is what somebody else pointed out. If it's made by Microsoft (or Sony or insert-big-name-here) than it'll be dripping with DRM. Somebody needs to put one of these together in his garage for it to be any good.
Sorry, this is less coherent than my normal rant (believe it or not) and prolly great flame bait, but this concept of carrying a million little widgets in your pocket is just plain dumb. I have a usb drive tucked in a jacket pocket somewhere and a cell phone that's 5 years old - that's it. And it's mainly because I don't want to spend a bajillion dollars on a bunch of different widgets that could easily all be combined into one piece of hardware (and please don't let microsoft design the ui).
I'm a white male in my 30's, with a wife, kids, dogs, a minivan, and a house in the 'burbs. I'm a Christian. I'm quite happy to be one. I live in a red state. I'm pretty happy about that too. I'm not a card-carrying member of the Republican party or anything, but I do tend to agree with them on quite a few things.
In other words, I'm a pretty conservative guy. That being said...
PLEASE TELL ME THESE PEOPLE ARE JOKING!
Ok, last I checked (and correct me if I'm wrong), amidst all the commandments against sex outside of marriage, with the same gender, with barnyard animals, whatever... I don't recall any Thou Shalt Not's about dildos.
I want one device that controls everything. Case in point: My Toshiba HDTV remote can't control my Toshiba DVR, even though both models were manufactured at approximately the same time (and I'm talking about just channel up/down, not the DVR-specific stuff. So I need two remotes handy. Then there's my garage door opener. And my cell phone. And my furnace controls. And my alarm system control pad. And my water softener controls. And my...
These are wildly different systems, but there's no reason they can't all be controlled from a single interface unit.
- It costs too much, compared to the alternatives (buying the DVD).
- You have to sit through 20 minutes of commercials now.
- People are becoming more anti-social and don't want to go to a theatre.
- I have a $3000 DLP HDTV with 7.1 and all the trimmings, why go to a theatre?
- Ok, maybe piracy, but that's insignificant.
- Oh yeah, and the overall quality of movies sucks now.
- The internet reduces the time it takes to figure out the movie sucks.
Most importantly, though, none of these are changing. Maybe, just maybe, the sucky-factor might turn itself around, but every other cause shows no sign of letting up. So that means we're at the end of an era, and the studios are just going to have to adapt. It's a fact of business; one sure way to bring about the death of your product is to keep making it the same way.
My diesel automobile could easily run biodiesel refined from old fry grease from the McDonald's down the street if only Uncle Sam would shove Big Oil out of the way and let it be refined. Nevermind that the process could easily be done for under $1.00 a gallon. Nevermind that it doesn't depend at all on the Middle East. Nevermind that it burns cleaner than either regular diesel or gasoline. Bah.
I suppose my use of the term 'capitalist entities' could be extended to include individual human beings. I think it's indisputable that some are indeed nothing more than capitalists. But not all are, and very few are all the time. Though I could use this opportunity to wax poetic about the virtues of being a good Christian, let me instead point out as an example that many humans will behave in ways that are extremely anti-capitalist for the purpose of sexual gratification. Unless, of course, by some twist of fate that sexual gratification actually led to higher profits, in which case I think most/.'ers would probably be tripping over each other to work there.
Um, that's the point of capitalism - greed. Capitalist entities will take the path of least resistance to the greatest profit. If you want them to do something else, then you increase the penalty or incentive of one action or another. Capitalist organizations are not benevolent, heart-warming, mom-and-apple-pie organizations because they want to be (if they are at all) - they are that way because of the current set of penalties and incentives before them. If you don't like it, then you'll need to remove the capitalist entities completely from the equation.
It's not the Square incident, it's the information. That's my Westerner agenda. Closer to home for me is the prison at Gitmo. There's too many damn secrets there too, but at least Google gives me back 2,890,000 hits, and I can be reasonably (although not 100%) certain that Big Brother isn't manipulating the search results to obscure damning information.
First the U.S., then U.K., then the rest of Europe...
Now, if they had a better search engine in China, then that'd be news. Y'know, like one that actually produced something other than vacation photos when you typed in Tian'anmen Square.
I think my IQ's gotta be no more than 12 for even attempting to reply to this, but I can't resist anyway.
First, yeah, I'm American and looking at the world through red-white-and-blue glasses. Oh well, don't plan on fixing that problem any time soon.
Second, I'll admit that Christianity in America has been affected terribly by American Christians. But what I failed to express was my sentiment that there's Christians (even in America) who are going to be saved, and that they don't have to be rocket scientists. Yeah, some have an IQ of 80, some 8, and some 180.
But what I see day in and day out are a whole lot of people in the scientific community who dismiss the Bible as mainstream rubbish, and instead develop this 'fight the establishment' mentality, when in fact I think they're now the establishment and those of us who consider the Bible the one Truth are the outcasts. The various opinions in the article seemed, IMO, to support that notion.
And no, I'm not accusing all smart people of being anti-Christian. The head pastor at our church is one of the most educated and intelligent people I've ever met. By 'smart', I was referring to the culture whose opinions were solicited for the article. I should have made that clearer.
In case you haven't guessed by now, I'm one of those outcasts. Unfortunately for me (and, believe it or not, partly because I'm a willing participant in American culture), I don't know if I'll be one of those riding off into the sunset come Judgment Day. Nonetheless, I think it's a dangerous idea; not only is it as unpopular as ever (even many Christian sects sadly don't take the Bible 100% literally), but I think it carries a stigma that, if you're smart, you don't believe in that rubbish. So 'smart' people don't believe. Ergo, the average IQ is lowered.
Opponents can tell me to RTFA, since I only got as far as page 6, but a lot of what I saw were comments about science overcoming our current social norms. Well, most of those norms (in this country, anyway) are based loosely on Christian beliefs, so (regardless of the writers' actual beliefs) the opinions are generally anti-Christian as well (see the one about marriage for a particularly inflammatory example). I'll admit, there are few, if any, examples of authors coming right out and saying Christianity is bad or wrong, but the undercurrent does seem to be there.
What's funny to me is that this article seems to support my theory that 'smart' people (I leave it up to/.ers to figure out what I mean by that) tend to subscribe less to religion in general and Christianity in particular than Average Joe.
So, picture this. The Book of Revelations is coming true. The Apocalypse is occurring. And all of us are standing around with that 'oh s**t' look on our faces while a small minority of the population (whose average IQ is about 80, perhaps?) start floating away to a bright light on the horizon.
Ok, so there's two camps - those who play and those who don't - or perhaps those who escape and those who socialize.
Well, I play all of two games. One's an RPG that came out in 2001. It's got a multi-player component, but I'm not interested in that. The other's a FPS that's also a couple years old. I *do* enjoy the multi-player aspect of that game, both competitive and cooperative.
In both cases, though, I bought them off the bargain shelf for probably $20 each (with the obligatory expansion packs, etc, included). And in no way will I ever shell out a monthly subscription for an online game (the FPS is free online).
What I'm saying is that there really are two camps - those who *pay* and those who don't. And we all know who M$ and the others are targeting. It's the same thing that happened to a lot of other pop culture institutions. Remember when MTV played videos? Then you're old enough to be out of their target audience. Much like MTV targets teens (or pre-teens, rather) with lots of disposable income, the gaming industry targets people who are willing to pay monthly fees for MMORPG's.
Some of those people are 'escapist' gamers, and some are social gamers. At times, I've fallen into either camp, but I don't count because I don't pay to play.
Here's a suggestion: Use virtual machines.
One good modern system (excuse me, two identical systems, physically separate, in bomb shelters or old minuteman silos, or whatever) with VMware running Win9x, *nix, DOS, whatever, virtual machines. All the original emails in all their original formats, with all the original software. And they're on a VM that can be moved around, backed up, etc. You wanna see emails from Janet Reno's PC in 1996? Fine, here's a *copy* of that VM. Enjoy.
Apress in general
on
PHP 5 Recipes
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· Score: 2, Informative
At the risk of getting off-topic, I've found Apress to be a reliable publisher, in terms of the quality of books they put out. The topics have been interesting, the knowledge useful, and the text easy to read. It's the only publisher whose books I'd buy just on name recognition.
I'll take PBS, History, and Discovery, along with ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN News, CNN, AMC, SciFi, Comedy Central, Nick, Disney and Toon Disney (got kids), and most importantly TCM and Speed, which I can't get now unless I fork over a bunch of money for another 50 channels I don't want. Add the local ABC, CBS, etc affiliates, gimme HD on the applicable channels (another premium extra that comes with a whole lot of stuff I don't want), and I'm so happy I could fart daisies.
Notice there's no MTV, E!, VH1, or Spike. When you add the fact that I want the main networks for their sports coverage and not Desperate Housewives, you can see that I for one couldn't care less about the skin factor. I want sports, movies, kid stuff, semi-educational, and the Daily Show. That's it.
I would love this a la carte deal, which means (as someone else mentioned) that it won't happen. I have a big expensive HD TV and I want to see race cars and space ships and quarterback sacks in HD on it, and don't want to pay a bajillion dollars for a hundred extra channels like Skinemax in the process.
By the way, I also wholeheartedly agree with another reply about the commercials during my favorite football games and races. I've got kids of 6, 3, and 3, and can't let them watch TV with me on a Sunday afternoon without one hand on the remote. Debate the violence of football all you want, but the ads are way beyond anything on the field.
J
I own a '98 TDI and regularly get 43mpg. What's just as significant, though, is that I drive with a lead foot - and I *still* get that mileage. From what I've heard/read, my driving style in a hybrid would actually get mileage *lower* than what I get in my TDI.
Of course, I could always change how I drive... nah.
J
I have a free webmail account, as do most people. You know, yahoo.com, hotmail.com, etc. I've given them some personal information, such as my marital status, specifically that I'm married. Probably the most common type of ad I get is for dating services. They come up so often, I've second-guessed myself several times and checked my profile on the site just to be sure they got it right. Yup, right there in front of me - married.
What I can't determine is whether they just ignore that information (which would be just dumb) or if they are betting on the rate of infidelity in my demographic, whatever that number is (which would be morally objectionable). In either case, I'm very put off by it. I'd rather give them permission to see what mailing lists I'm on and show me ads relevant to those.
J
The ongoing cycle... blame rock n roll, then the kids grow up and become voters... blame the hippie movement, then the kids grow up and become voters... blame tv, then the kids grow up and become voters... blame rap music, then the kids grow up and become voters... blame video games, and they'll be voters soon enough.
By the way, I'm not advocating this whole 'grow up' thing - it's definitely overrated.
We have RFID door keys and an intranet page that shows who's in and who's out. People can also sign themselves in or out on a separate page. I signed everyone in the company out to lunch at 4:01pm using a SQL query.
I was actually home sick for the day, so I didn't get to see the reaction. Apparently, news traveled quick, though. I got a call from our general manager an hour later.
Last year, my wife and I carefully changed our kids into their pj's during their afternoon nap (the oldest was 4 1/2), made waffles for dinner, and convinced her (the oldest) that it was breakfast a day and a half later. Throughout 'breakfast' we talked about the trip to the museum that had been planned for the 'lost' day, as if we had already been there.
By the way, I've seen several references to desktop screen shots and such. What works better is replacing the shell registry entry (explorer.exe by default) with something more amusing.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd be willing to bet the number of firewalls that are configured to allow by default exceeds the number of firewalls that are configured to deny by default by about 5 to 1. At least.
/. over port 80 and look what happens anyway.
I'm not talking about ports, but about source/destination of traffic. Of course, everybody's going to restrict to 80, 443, etc. But then you let in
I disagree. Sure, if you're an ISP, you've got no business doing that. But if you run a private firm (I'm *not* thinking Fortune 500 here) or especially a school district, where you can be much more draconian, then by all means do it. Even better, a home environment. I use WEP, disable DHCP, and deny by default at home - makes it a lot easier on me.
As far as the Day 1 deluge, you can always grab the logs for the last day/week/whatever and use that for your initial filter (with some eyeballing for pr0n and such).
I saw an article elsewhere on /. about wrong numbers directed to someone's cell phone (in essence, accidental phone spam). A few days ago, I saw a print article on the difficults an admin at a school corp. has with students' use of school computers, and that he routinely blocks 150 or so sites a week.
These are all related issues with one simple solution - implement a "deny by default" rule. Deny all communications except what is permitted. Given the option, I'd have all phone calls from number other than what's in my built-in phonebook routed to voice mail. I would block all email other than what's sent from my list of 'approved senders'. And in the admin's case, I'd block all internet access except what's specifically permitted.
Why don't people do this?
I can't remember the last time I paid for a tech book. OTOH, my two previous employers spent about $100/year on tech books for me. Whether or not they knew it is another matter. And paying ridiculous prices for tech books is a lot easier when it's somebody else's money.
Look at what's being fixed: entertainment and media center crap. Y'know, they'd win over people like me if they'd strip that junk out to begin with and just release an OPERATING SYSTEM.
Please prove me wrong on this one (cringe). I'm familiar with Office 2003, and Office XP, and Office 2000, and Office 97, and Office 95, and, hell, what was it called then - just Office? Anyway, I've *seen* OpenOffice.org. I've loaded it, toyed around with it, but not put it fully into use. From what I can tell, though, it probably does about 90% of what Office does (in terms of actual normal everyday usage, not number of features). And it's free.
/. community) that'll toot the horn of OSS and say what a grand thing it is, and how information wants to be free, and all that crap. Don't get me wrong, I'm a self-described information communist.
Now, there's some (especially within this twisted
But that doesn't win over the masses. The little detail about being free. Yeah, that's what will win over the masses.
So why aren't people switching? There's a few reasons, but I think one of the major ones at this point is the vast collection of Word templates, Excel spreadsheets, Access databases, etc. that are in existence. I'm even a culprit. I give my time to a family business, and at one time rolled up my first, last, and only Access-based application several years ago for them. The problem is that they're still using it.
So, one of these days, I'll convert it to something nicer, and they'll never buy another Office license again.
That, IMHO, is the next phase of adoption - all those people who have a vested interest in legacy stuff that has become (by accident more than design) a critical part of their infrastructure. As that stuff gets replaced, the door is open for OpenOffice.org.
To use another example, I've spent the majority of the last 8 years in various manufacturing facilities. You would not believe the number of Excel spreadsheets that are a critical part of their production process. And these aren't bank rec's - they're several megs of nasty, crudely-hacked VBA code. The story's always the same - Joe Manufacturing Engineer puts together a little spreadsheet to calculate something that makes his job easier. Then his coworker asks for a little extra feature. Then they add in another. Pretty soon, he's learning VBA the hard way with no prior programming experience. Three years later, his entire job is to maintain this beast of a spreadsheet.
Anyway, the point (if there is one) is this. OpenOffice.org is gonna make it through the next wave of adoption (which is gonna be a big wave) by being free and by the replacement of all these legacy 'pseudo-apps'. The free part's a given. What happens to all those pseudo-apps is anyone's guess, I think. They may very well get replaced by Microsoft stuff and we'll still be having this conversation two years from now when we're waiting on Office 2011 (yes, I did the math).
J
I have to disagree with that. It seems to me that the time's ripe for some new-and-improved all-in-one devices. I personally would rather have a mobile phone / mp3 player / camera / tv remote / garage door opener / pda / whatever. The problem's not in the idea, it's in the execution. The user interfaces for these things tend to be so damn confusing and convoluted that it's just not worth the expense.
You could control 90% of the functions of such a device with no more buttons than what's on an ipod. Make it a flip-top with an alphanumeric keypad underneath, and that's it. And there'd better be only two modes - caps lock and no caps lock.
Of course another problem is what somebody else pointed out. If it's made by Microsoft (or Sony or insert-big-name-here) than it'll be dripping with DRM. Somebody needs to put one of these together in his garage for it to be any good.
Sorry, this is less coherent than my normal rant (believe it or not) and prolly great flame bait, but this concept of carrying a million little widgets in your pocket is just plain dumb. I have a usb drive tucked in a jacket pocket somewhere and a cell phone that's 5 years old - that's it. And it's mainly because I don't want to spend a bajillion dollars on a bunch of different widgets that could easily all be combined into one piece of hardware (and please don't let microsoft design the ui).
J
I'm a white male in my 30's, with a wife, kids, dogs, a minivan, and a house in the 'burbs. I'm a Christian. I'm quite happy to be one. I live in a red state. I'm pretty happy about that too. I'm not a card-carrying member of the Republican party or anything, but I do tend to agree with them on quite a few things.
In other words, I'm a pretty conservative guy. That being said...
PLEASE TELL ME THESE PEOPLE ARE JOKING!
Ok, last I checked (and correct me if I'm wrong), amidst all the commandments against sex outside of marriage, with the same gender, with barnyard animals, whatever... I don't recall any Thou Shalt Not's about dildos.
(sigh)
I want one device that controls everything. Case in point: My Toshiba HDTV remote can't control my Toshiba DVR, even though both models were manufactured at approximately the same time (and I'm talking about just channel up/down, not the DVR-specific stuff. So I need two remotes handy. Then there's my garage door opener. And my cell phone. And my furnace controls. And my alarm system control pad. And my water softener controls. And my...
These are wildly different systems, but there's no reason they can't all be controlled from a single interface unit.
Movies are dropping revenue because...
- It costs too much, compared to the alternatives (buying the DVD).
- You have to sit through 20 minutes of commercials now.
- People are becoming more anti-social and don't want to go to a theatre.
- I have a $3000 DLP HDTV with 7.1 and all the trimmings, why go to a theatre?
- Ok, maybe piracy, but that's insignificant.
- Oh yeah, and the overall quality of movies sucks now.
- The internet reduces the time it takes to figure out the movie sucks.
Most importantly, though, none of these are changing. Maybe, just maybe, the sucky-factor might turn itself around, but every other cause shows no sign of letting up. So that means we're at the end of an era, and the studios are just going to have to adapt. It's a fact of business; one sure way to bring about the death of your product is to keep making it the same way.
My diesel automobile could easily run biodiesel refined from old fry grease from the McDonald's down the street if only Uncle Sam would shove Big Oil out of the way and let it be refined. Nevermind that the process could easily be done for under $1.00 a gallon. Nevermind that it doesn't depend at all on the Middle East. Nevermind that it burns cleaner than either regular diesel or gasoline. Bah.
I suppose my use of the term 'capitalist entities' could be extended to include individual human beings. I think it's indisputable that some are indeed nothing more than capitalists. But not all are, and very few are all the time. Though I could use this opportunity to wax poetic about the virtues of being a good Christian, let me instead point out as an example that many humans will behave in ways that are extremely anti-capitalist for the purpose of sexual gratification. Unless, of course, by some twist of fate that sexual gratification actually led to higher profits, in which case I think most /.'ers would probably be tripping over each other to work there.
Um, that's the point of capitalism - greed. Capitalist entities will take the path of least resistance to the greatest profit. If you want them to do something else, then you increase the penalty or incentive of one action or another. Capitalist organizations are not benevolent, heart-warming, mom-and-apple-pie organizations because they want to be (if they are at all) - they are that way because of the current set of penalties and incentives before them. If you don't like it, then you'll need to remove the capitalist entities completely from the equation.
It's not the Square incident, it's the information. That's my Westerner agenda. Closer to home for me is the prison at Gitmo. There's too many damn secrets there too, but at least Google gives me back 2,890,000 hits, and I can be reasonably (although not 100%) certain that Big Brother isn't manipulating the search results to obscure damning information.
First the U.S., then U.K., then the rest of Europe...
Now, if they had a better search engine in China, then that'd be news. Y'know, like one that actually produced something other than vacation photos when you typed in Tian'anmen Square.
I think my IQ's gotta be no more than 12 for even attempting to reply to this, but I can't resist anyway.
First, yeah, I'm American and looking at the world through red-white-and-blue glasses. Oh well, don't plan on fixing that problem any time soon.
Second, I'll admit that Christianity in America has been affected terribly by American Christians. But what I failed to express was my sentiment that there's Christians (even in America) who are going to be saved, and that they don't have to be rocket scientists. Yeah, some have an IQ of 80, some 8, and some 180.
But what I see day in and day out are a whole lot of people in the scientific community who dismiss the Bible as mainstream rubbish, and instead develop this 'fight the establishment' mentality, when in fact I think they're now the establishment and those of us who consider the Bible the one Truth are the outcasts. The various opinions in the article seemed, IMO, to support that notion.
And no, I'm not accusing all smart people of being anti-Christian. The head pastor at our church is one of the most educated and intelligent people I've ever met. By 'smart', I was referring to the culture whose opinions were solicited for the article. I should have made that clearer.
In case you haven't guessed by now, I'm one of those outcasts. Unfortunately for me (and, believe it or not, partly because I'm a willing participant in American culture), I don't know if I'll be one of those riding off into the sunset come Judgment Day. Nonetheless, I think it's a dangerous idea; not only is it as unpopular as ever (even many Christian sects sadly don't take the Bible 100% literally), but I think it carries a stigma that, if you're smart, you don't believe in that rubbish. So 'smart' people don't believe. Ergo, the average IQ is lowered.
Christianity
Opponents can tell me to RTFA, since I only got as far as page 6, but a lot of what I saw were comments about science overcoming our current social norms. Well, most of those norms (in this country, anyway) are based loosely on Christian beliefs, so (regardless of the writers' actual beliefs) the opinions are generally anti-Christian as well (see the one about marriage for a particularly inflammatory example). I'll admit, there are few, if any, examples of authors coming right out and saying Christianity is bad or wrong, but the undercurrent does seem to be there.
What's funny to me is that this article seems to support my theory that 'smart' people (I leave it up to /.ers to figure out what I mean by that) tend to subscribe less to religion in general and Christianity in particular than Average Joe.
So, picture this. The Book of Revelations is coming true. The Apocalypse is occurring. And all of us are standing around with that 'oh s**t' look on our faces while a small minority of the population (whose average IQ is about 80, perhaps?) start floating away to a bright light on the horizon.
Ok, so there's two camps - those who play and those who don't - or perhaps those who escape and those who socialize. Well, I play all of two games. One's an RPG that came out in 2001. It's got a multi-player component, but I'm not interested in that. The other's a FPS that's also a couple years old. I *do* enjoy the multi-player aspect of that game, both competitive and cooperative. In both cases, though, I bought them off the bargain shelf for probably $20 each (with the obligatory expansion packs, etc, included). And in no way will I ever shell out a monthly subscription for an online game (the FPS is free online). What I'm saying is that there really are two camps - those who *pay* and those who don't. And we all know who M$ and the others are targeting. It's the same thing that happened to a lot of other pop culture institutions. Remember when MTV played videos? Then you're old enough to be out of their target audience. Much like MTV targets teens (or pre-teens, rather) with lots of disposable income, the gaming industry targets people who are willing to pay monthly fees for MMORPG's. Some of those people are 'escapist' gamers, and some are social gamers. At times, I've fallen into either camp, but I don't count because I don't pay to play.
Here's a suggestion: Use virtual machines. One good modern system (excuse me, two identical systems, physically separate, in bomb shelters or old minuteman silos, or whatever) with VMware running Win9x, *nix, DOS, whatever, virtual machines. All the original emails in all their original formats, with all the original software. And they're on a VM that can be moved around, backed up, etc. You wanna see emails from Janet Reno's PC in 1996? Fine, here's a *copy* of that VM. Enjoy.
At the risk of getting off-topic, I've found Apress to be a reliable publisher, in terms of the quality of books they put out. The topics have been interesting, the knowledge useful, and the text easy to read. It's the only publisher whose books I'd buy just on name recognition.
I'll take PBS, History, and Discovery, along with ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN News, CNN, AMC, SciFi, Comedy Central, Nick, Disney and Toon Disney (got kids), and most importantly TCM and Speed, which I can't get now unless I fork over a bunch of money for another 50 channels I don't want. Add the local ABC, CBS, etc affiliates, gimme HD on the applicable channels (another premium extra that comes with a whole lot of stuff I don't want), and I'm so happy I could fart daisies. Notice there's no MTV, E!, VH1, or Spike. When you add the fact that I want the main networks for their sports coverage and not Desperate Housewives, you can see that I for one couldn't care less about the skin factor. I want sports, movies, kid stuff, semi-educational, and the Daily Show. That's it. I would love this a la carte deal, which means (as someone else mentioned) that it won't happen. I have a big expensive HD TV and I want to see race cars and space ships and quarterback sacks in HD on it, and don't want to pay a bajillion dollars for a hundred extra channels like Skinemax in the process. By the way, I also wholeheartedly agree with another reply about the commercials during my favorite football games and races. I've got kids of 6, 3, and 3, and can't let them watch TV with me on a Sunday afternoon without one hand on the remote. Debate the violence of football all you want, but the ads are way beyond anything on the field. J
I own a '98 TDI and regularly get 43mpg. What's just as significant, though, is that I drive with a lead foot - and I *still* get that mileage. From what I've heard/read, my driving style in a hybrid would actually get mileage *lower* than what I get in my TDI. Of course, I could always change how I drive... nah. J
I have a free webmail account, as do most people. You know, yahoo.com, hotmail.com, etc. I've given them some personal information, such as my marital status, specifically that I'm married. Probably the most common type of ad I get is for dating services. They come up so often, I've second-guessed myself several times and checked my profile on the site just to be sure they got it right. Yup, right there in front of me - married. What I can't determine is whether they just ignore that information (which would be just dumb) or if they are betting on the rate of infidelity in my demographic, whatever that number is (which would be morally objectionable). In either case, I'm very put off by it. I'd rather give them permission to see what mailing lists I'm on and show me ads relevant to those. J
The ongoing cycle... blame rock n roll, then the kids grow up and become voters... blame the hippie movement, then the kids grow up and become voters... blame tv, then the kids grow up and become voters... blame rap music, then the kids grow up and become voters... blame video games, and they'll be voters soon enough. By the way, I'm not advocating this whole 'grow up' thing - it's definitely overrated.
We have RFID door keys and an intranet page that shows who's in and who's out. People can also sign themselves in or out on a separate page. I signed everyone in the company out to lunch at 4:01pm using a SQL query.
I was actually home sick for the day, so I didn't get to see the reaction. Apparently, news traveled quick, though. I got a call from our general manager an hour later.
Last year, my wife and I carefully changed our kids into their pj's during their afternoon nap (the oldest was 4 1/2), made waffles for dinner, and convinced her (the oldest) that it was breakfast a day and a half later. Throughout 'breakfast' we talked about the trip to the museum that had been planned for the 'lost' day, as if we had already been there.
By the way, I've seen several references to desktop screen shots and such. What works better is replacing the shell registry entry (explorer.exe by default) with something more amusing.