in some parts of the u.s. they're responsible for printing the (absentee) ballots and preparing the e-voting machines. sometimes they get it wrong. better not wait until the last minute to "check" things, it might be too late.
yes, obtaining an engineering degree is hard (i have a chem. eng. degree). it's supposed to be, because getting everything you do in your career right the first time is hard. otherwise, people may die. yes, there's only one correct answer. because the incorrect one might kill people (putting aside obvious jobs for engineers that build bombs or ammunition).
unless you're a hunter-gatherer who wears animal skins and lives in a cave, almost every single thing you do in your life, from flushing the toilet after your morning piss to going to bed on a comfortable mattress with cotton sheets, depends on engineers. most of us probably expect everything we use in life to work. your car starts. the lights turn on. the toilet flushes. the door opens. you get the picture. it must work, it has to work, otherwise people may die.
a liberal arts major who paints a terrible picture isn't going to kill anyone.
Why bother? You have significant and loud proportions of americans repeatedly and falsely telling everyone that we're a christian nation, so why should they band together and show support for a country actively excluding them?
this is where you're mistaken. the u.s. *was* founded on judeo-christian values. however, that doesn't make it a 'christian nation.' the 1st ammendment gives everyone the right to follow whatever religious beliefs they have, even if they have none, unless it violates the law (a rastafarian will be arrested if caught smoking pot). do muslims not shout their support of the u.s. because they feel they're being excluded (as you said), or because they're afraid of how they'd be perceived amongst their peers, and the retaliation that might follow? my guess is the latter. i doubt they're scared of what a 'crazy christian contingent' might think.
if islam is a religion of peace, and those who crashed planes on 9/11, or richard reid, or the bali nightclub bombers, or the beltway snipers, or the thugs who took the hostages in the russian theater are not typical, mainstream followers of islam, why aren't there scores of clerics appearing on the news saying so? when the fact that timothy mcveigh was a christian was brought up, lots of christian leaders were quick to point out that what he did goes against everything christians believe.
so far, no one has mentioned the words "profit sharing." usually, a salaried employee who doesn't earn overtime gets a nice xmas bonus or something when the company's roi is over a certain amount. it's like saying, "we're glad you worked all those extra hours without getting paid, it helped the company have a good year, here's some extra bonus money for your efforts."
the company i used to work for routinely chastised me for not working one minute over 40 hours, saying nonsense like, "this other programmer regularly works 60-70 hours, why don't you?" to which i would always respond, "am i being paid to work 20-30 extra hours per week? no? well, that other employee must be terribly inefficient because i'm able to get all my work done in 40 hours."
what will they do? fire me? no, probably not, because then they'd have to pay me unemployment compensation, which probably costs them more because i'm not working at all, yet they're still giving me money.
the employees aren't the only ones with something to lose.
By doing any job for less than the guy who was doing the job yesterday, are you really going to save the consumer money or are you just increasing the year-end bonus for someone already in the highest tax bracket?
Won't both happen? After all, the tickets for off-broadway were 1/2 the price, and w/ a "multi-million dollars budgets" there's bound to be someone at the top who's running the show and making a nice bonus.
When was the last time a poor person signed your paycheck, anyway?
I would recommend scoring based on rev-DNS but never blocking outright.
i used to, but it got to the point where i was saying to myself, "all right, now what? report the offending messages to spamcop?"
over the several years i've been actively fighting spam, i have yet to receive one complaint from someone or an admin who's been blocked based on the rDNS hack. most of the complaints i receive are because of the blacklists. those are handled on a case-by-case basis, and are usually whitelisted for 2 weeks to give the admin time to get delisted.
i realize the rfc doesn't require rDNS, but if you want me to accept mail from you, i do. my customers like not receiving spam at all, and understand (and accept) the risks i take in my efforts to fight it. if i didn't have their blessing, i wouldn't do it.
I was constantly *amazed* at the lack of "correct" DNS configuration out there
i guess i should clarify - any rejected email is not simply sent to/dev/null, but is returned with an explanation that's unique to the tool used to reject it. the rDNS hack has 3 standard return error statements. wouldn't any reputable sysadmin would *want* to know that his/her mail server does not have a properly configured zone file?
no one has (yet) mentioned using the missing rDNS sendmail hack. i block about 100,000 messages and servers per week using a combination of send_pause, blacklists, spamcop, iptables and the rDNS hack. rDNS routinely accounts for more than 50% of the spam that never makes it to my server.
any mail server that doesn't have an rDNS lookup, in this day and age, is imho not worth accepting messages from.
What benefit do these voting machines offer that justifies the risks?
the push (in the u.s.) for electronic voting machines seems to have been made after the 2000 election recount fiasco. need i mention the words, "hanging chad?" i don't think you can have one of those with an electronic machine. besides, paper ballots are easy to invalidate. remember the pictures on the news of people holding them up to the light, and others handling stacks of paper ballots? one small wire shoved through a stack like that can cause an 'overvote' which would invalidate all of them.
i would guess the main benefits are, in a recount scenario, to prevent having hundreds of people handle paper ballots. the avenues of interpretation are too numerous (hanging chads, pregnant chads, swinging chads, etc.) with paper. with a computer, there is no doubt, it's either a 0 or a 1.
Chuck out the whole concept of voting if average citizens have to understand and correctly interpret the latest whiz-bang technology
i'm not sure the average citizens need to understand more than 'press here for candidate a', 'press here for candidate b' (obvious side-discussion regarding knowledge empowering voters to select better candidates avoided here), but those who make decisions about what procedures and machines are used to ensure the votes are tallied fairly have to consider it. poll workers are volunteers, have direct access to the machines, and are probably the weakest point of resistance to those who are truly motivated to throw an election, for reasons that are nefarious or otherwise.
i read about this and thought, "hrm, this is worth checking out." when i went to zenoss.org and clicked download, it asked me to fill out a registration form. submitting the form w/o entering anything causes a popup that indicates email is required. disabled javascript, and was able to submit the form and get to the download page (which, btw is here). i wonder who the email for confirming my registration will be sent to.....
i have been using linux since rh4. i abandoned windows completely in 2000. i own my own business and sell computers and laptops that run linux exclusively. if someone comes in looking for a computer, but insists on windows as the o/s, i wish them well and send them to a colleague up the street.
i realize i'm coming to this thread a little late, but i've had the most success converting older people. how? because when they bring in their tired, 4- to 10-year old win98/win2000/winme/winxp machines and say, "it doesn't work anymore," and i investigate and discover it's because they've got 10 million viruses and spyware infections, i ask the following questions:
what do you use the computer for?
do you have special software you can't do without?
what kind of printer and/or scanner do you have?
if they answer "surf the web, send email, keep in touch w/ my grandkids, manage my digital camera photos" to question (1), and "no" to question (2), then i tell them about the value of linux as an alternative to windows. about how it's pretty much immune to most virus and spyware problems. about how it will work with their digital camera and most likely their printer and scanner. then they take a test drive on a store demo machine, and discover it's almost the same type of interface, and most are sold on the idea.
one old guy called me, who's disabled, had his identity stolen via a trojan horse virus. he was sold on the virus angle almost immediately. this guy would typically be referred to as a 'luser' by most of the/. crowd, but after i installed ubuntu and showed him how to use it i heard from him only once - when he needed help mounting a floppy for his other digital camera (one he forgot about when i showed him how to use it).
some consult their kids, or grandkids, before getting back to me. there's always naysayers who advise them against it because it "won't work with windows." i again ask question (2) above, and when they tell me no (again), i let them know they don't need to worry because they don't have special windows software needs.
most can't believe the software is free. they become an informed user who's happy to hand me money to help troubleshoot a problem or find an open-source solution to their problem (scribus, to cite a recent example), but balk at going to the store and plunking down money for a shrink-wrapped cd.
they then tell their friends about the experience, and some of them start calling me, and the process repeats.
the biggest point to drive home is that if they answer "yes" to question (2), or have a lexmark boat-anchor and don't want to buy a new hp, you can't push it. wish them well and move on.
"Here's my ID. Tell me what you have that computer for my vote." Then, I can verify my vote.
actually, that's not good verification either - what's to stop the person you asked from giving information that's contrary to the vote that was actually cast? or, for that matter, what if the voting machine program was written indicate something different from what's put on the tally sheet?
if all that is true, then thank you for your service, but God help us all!
Re:even if you telecommute, remember these 4 words
on
IT and Divorce?
·
· Score: 1
Really, though, faith second? Really?
yes, i put it after family because mass/church/worship services will get postponed for a trip for the kids to see their grandparents.
actually, now that i think about it, faith should be 3rd, after home, because i don't think i'm going to mass if my basement is flooded either.
to me, faith is important. everyone should take at least one hour per week for spiritual reflection. it can make the family whole, while preventing situations that lead to divorce, imho.
even if you telecommute, remember these 4 words
on
IT and Divorce?
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
and in this order of importance:
1) family - you need me to work during my kid's/wife's birthday party? too bad.
2) faith - you need me to work on saturday night/sunday morning/holy day of obligation? sorry.
3) home - my pipes burst and my basement is full of water. i'm not coming in today.....(or i'll be in late)
4) work - i'm ready, lay it on me.
the key is to manage your time - you can meet a deadline *and* keep your private life if you're organized and diligent.
Slashdot Mirror
a very good point, and a good reason to think carefully about which lever you pull this november 4th, because these judges are there for life.
in some parts of the u.s. they're responsible for printing the (absentee) ballots and preparing the e-voting machines. sometimes they get it wrong. better not wait until the last minute to "check" things, it might be too late.
yes, obtaining an engineering degree is hard (i have a chem. eng. degree). it's supposed to be, because getting everything you do in your career right the first time is hard. otherwise, people may die. yes, there's only one correct answer. because the incorrect one might kill people (putting aside obvious jobs for engineers that build bombs or ammunition).
unless you're a hunter-gatherer who wears animal skins and lives in a cave, almost every single thing you do in your life, from flushing the toilet after your morning piss to going to bed on a comfortable mattress with cotton sheets, depends on engineers. most of us probably expect everything we use in life to work. your car starts. the lights turn on. the toilet flushes. the door opens. you get the picture. it must work, it has to work, otherwise people may die.
a liberal arts major who paints a terrible picture isn't going to kill anyone.
...which is to breed warriors used exclusively for fighting
if islam is a religion of peace, and those who crashed planes on 9/11, or richard reid, or the bali nightclub bombers, or the beltway snipers, or the thugs who took the hostages in the russian theater are not typical, mainstream followers of islam, why aren't there scores of clerics appearing on the news saying so? when the fact that timothy mcveigh was a christian was brought up, lots of christian leaders were quick to point out that what he did goes against everything christians believe.
so far, no one has mentioned the words "profit sharing." usually, a salaried employee who doesn't earn overtime gets a nice xmas bonus or something when the company's roi is over a certain amount. it's like saying, "we're glad you worked all those extra hours without getting paid, it helped the company have a good year, here's some extra bonus money for your efforts."
the company i used to work for routinely chastised me for not working one minute over 40 hours, saying nonsense like, "this other programmer regularly works 60-70 hours, why don't you?" to which i would always respond, "am i being paid to work 20-30 extra hours per week? no? well, that other employee must be terribly inefficient because i'm able to get all my work done in 40 hours."
what will they do? fire me? no, probably not, because then they'd have to pay me unemployment compensation, which probably costs them more because i'm not working at all, yet they're still giving me money.
the employees aren't the only ones with something to lose.
Won't both happen? After all, the tickets for off-broadway were 1/2 the price, and w/ a "multi-million dollars budgets" there's bound to be someone at the top who's running the show and making a nice bonus.
When was the last time a poor person signed your paycheck, anyway?
i used to, but it got to the point where i was saying to myself, "all right, now what? report the offending messages to spamcop?"
over the several years i've been actively fighting spam, i have yet to receive one complaint from someone or an admin who's been blocked based on the rDNS hack. most of the complaints i receive are because of the blacklists. those are handled on a case-by-case basis, and are usually whitelisted for 2 weeks to give the admin time to get delisted.
i realize the rfc doesn't require rDNS, but if you want me to accept mail from you, i do. my customers like not receiving spam at all, and understand (and accept) the risks i take in my efforts to fight it. if i didn't have their blessing, i wouldn't do it.
i guess i should clarify - any rejected email is not simply sent to /dev/null, but is returned with an explanation that's unique to the tool used to reject it. the rDNS hack has 3 standard return error statements. wouldn't any reputable sysadmin would *want* to know that his/her mail server does not have a properly configured zone file?
no one has (yet) mentioned using the missing rDNS sendmail hack. i block about 100,000 messages and servers per week using a combination of send_pause, blacklists, spamcop, iptables and the rDNS hack. rDNS routinely accounts for more than 50% of the spam that never makes it to my server.
any mail server that doesn't have an rDNS lookup, in this day and age, is imho not worth accepting messages from.
the push (in the u.s.) for electronic voting machines seems to have been made after the 2000 election recount fiasco. need i mention the words, "hanging chad?" i don't think you can have one of those with an electronic machine. besides, paper ballots are easy to invalidate. remember the pictures on the news of people holding them up to the light, and others handling stacks of paper ballots? one small wire shoved through a stack like that can cause an 'overvote' which would invalidate all of them.
i would guess the main benefits are, in a recount scenario, to prevent having hundreds of people handle paper ballots. the avenues of interpretation are too numerous (hanging chads, pregnant chads, swinging chads, etc.) with paper. with a computer, there is no doubt, it's either a 0 or a 1.
after it feeds 'a cat', will google then take a picture of it too?
yesterday, there was posted an interview with mark where he alluded to dell running ubuntu, but he shied away from completely admitting it.
i read about this and thought, "hrm, this is worth checking out." when i went to zenoss.org and clicked download, it asked me to fill out a registration form. submitting the form w/o entering anything causes a popup that indicates email is required. disabled javascript, and was able to submit the form and get to the download page (which, btw is here). i wonder who the email for confirming my registration will be sent to.....
i have been using linux since rh4. i abandoned windows completely in 2000. i own my own business and sell computers and laptops that run linux exclusively. if someone comes in looking for a computer, but insists on windows as the o/s, i wish them well and send them to a colleague up the street.
i realize i'm coming to this thread a little late, but i've had the most success converting older people. how? because when they bring in their tired, 4- to 10-year old win98/win2000/winme/winxp machines and say, "it doesn't work anymore," and i investigate and discover it's because they've got 10 million viruses and spyware infections, i ask the following questions:
if they answer "surf the web, send email, keep in touch w/ my grandkids, manage my digital camera photos" to question (1), and "no" to question (2), then i tell them about the value of linux as an alternative to windows. about how it's pretty much immune to most virus and spyware problems. about how it will work with their digital camera and most likely their printer and scanner. then they take a test drive on a store demo machine, and discover it's almost the same type of interface, and most are sold on the idea.
one old guy called me, who's disabled, had his identity stolen via a trojan horse virus. he was sold on the virus angle almost immediately. this guy would typically be referred to as a 'luser' by most of the /. crowd, but after i installed ubuntu and showed him how to use it i heard from him only once - when he needed help mounting a floppy for his other digital camera (one he forgot about when i showed him how to use it).
some consult their kids, or grandkids, before getting back to me. there's always naysayers who advise them against it because it "won't work with windows." i again ask question (2) above, and when they tell me no (again), i let them know they don't need to worry because they don't have special windows software needs.
most can't believe the software is free. they become an informed user who's happy to hand me money to help troubleshoot a problem or find an open-source solution to their problem (scribus, to cite a recent example), but balk at going to the store and plunking down money for a shrink-wrapped cd.
they then tell their friends about the experience, and some of them start calling me, and the process repeats.
the biggest point to drive home is that if they answer "yes" to question (2), or have a lexmark boat-anchor and don't want to buy a new hp, you can't push it. wish them well and move on.
actually, that's not good verification either - what's to stop the person you asked from giving information that's contrary to the vote that was actually cast? or, for that matter, what if the voting machine program was written indicate something different from what's put on the tally sheet?
fyi, the president's annual salary is $400,000 per year.
if all that is true, then thank you for your service, but God help us all!
yes, i put it after family because mass/church/worship services will get postponed for a trip for the kids to see their grandparents.
actually, now that i think about it, faith should be 3rd, after home, because i don't think i'm going to mass if my basement is flooded either.
to me, faith is important. everyone should take at least one hour per week for spiritual reflection. it can make the family whole, while preventing situations that lead to divorce, imho.
and in this order of importance:
the key is to manage your time - you can meet a deadline *and* keep your private life if you're organized and diligent.