President Bush earmarks $7.1B to prevent "computer terrorism" saying 81% of machines have the potential to be "weapons of mass destruction."
A no-bid contract has been awarded to Haliburton to develop and distribute software to combat "Internet insurgency." Company spokesman I.P. Freely says we should expect to see finished products sometime in 2017, but that the Department of Homeland Security has been commissioned to prevent further discussion on this matter, as "Osama Bin Laden might be listening."
No doubt, if there's anything I regret in my life it's that I didn't make the most of my time between jobs. There's something about not having a job which feels intolerable (and it's not just the money).
I left a company not long ago with two weeks of notice. There was nothing really to do at that point so I started taking half days I figured they'd just let it slide, being that at least they had some coverage (I was the only guy in the shop who could do some things). Instead they were insulted and asked me to go immediately, leaving them completely exposed until they hired the next guy. I was pretty surprised; I didn't really think they'd care; I offered to give them some docs but they got all huffy and told me they could it just fine themselves, thank you.
Risk management and such are valid points but the fact that managers have no authority over you anymore, that you "rejected" them, and that you don't "belong" there anymore... these reasons, however petty they may sound, have a lot to do with it. Employees are not looked at as people so much, more like resources to be allocated. When you quit, that ceases to be the case.
Now we can find your dog before you do. Why would anyone steal a dog? I wouldn't personally but a $350 doohickey that's a hit with the Upper East Side Yentas would be totally worth it.
Beh. Telling your boss to fuck off is completely different. You're paid to be at work, you pay to be at school.
Complaining about teachers choosing favorites, treating their students like infants or not bothering to read papers they grade sounds legitimate to me. At university, we had a course and professor evaluations manual where comments like those were recorded to aid students in their choice of classes. That manual was funded by the university who also used it as a means to grade professor performance. People spending money on tuition have a right to know whether it's been put to good use, no?
I suppose a private institution that charges a bucket of money for tuition would rather students didn't know that some of its teachers weren't any good. But that would fall under consumer protection more than free speech, I would think.
It's fair to say record labels are concerned with maximizing their profit. For years they were in a really nice position but things changed with the advent of file sharing. Now they're scrambling to find the right way to generate revenue which is somewhat difficult being that their products are available for free to whomever has enough clue to go out and find them. Apple's store, this Rhapsody store, the Napster store... they've learned that if they adjust the cost of music to a certain price point, people will be less likely to pirate it due to guilt, convenience or what have you. As their bottom line adjusts, so does the allotment of budgets to finding new acts, marketing, etc.
But I could care less.
I want the music I want in the format I want it at the lowest price possible. I don't sit around worrying about record labels and their bottom lines because I don't own a record label. Their problems are their own. Unless they adjust their pricing model to where I can get what I want, I'll figure out another way to go. Somehow I think they'll manage.
Before I get the "free speech" rants shouldn't parents have the freedom to decide what their child can read? I wouldn't want a nine year old of mine reading Penthouse or propaganda from the KKK or Nazis. Frankly I wish that Slashdot would have a filth filter. I wouldn't want a young child reading some of the posts on here. The amount of profanity and hate speech I see is at times very depressing.
Then lock them in the basement. It's difficult as a parent to watch your children exposed to things like profanity and hate speech, but the world isn't puppies and gumdrops. All of us were exposed to profanity and sexual material when we were young and most of us turned out all right. All my parents accomplished by admonishing my use of profanity was that I don't swear in front of them. Same goes with my kids. Instead of trying to shield them from the bad or pretend it doesn't exist, I've tried to introduce them to more "productive" pursuits. No matter what I do, though, ultimately it's their decision how to spend their time.
Yeah, those Frys guys absent-mindedly swiping magic markers on receipts as you walk out the door make me feel as if I'm walking through a bank. Minimizing losses to zero? Pffft. Someday you'll look up at the Palo Alto store and wonder where those wagon wheels disappeared to.
The Ultra 20 may be a good box but this is doomed. Who is going to go to a prorpietary Unix vendor for x86 workstations/servers? You go to Dell/HP/IBM for that stuff; it doesn't matter whose box outperforms whose because perception guides these decisions more than anything. You go to Sun if you want an server for Oracle and you don't even do that so much anymore.
Sun nursed their hardware monopoly for too long and Linux came up and bit them in the ass with price performance. It didn't matter that Solaris performed better because the hardware cost so damned much. By the time they realized they couldn't rely on their reputation, they were toast. If they had done anything serious in the x86 market five years ago or so, a project like this might be viable, but at this point they look like SGI who, you may recall, came out with a line of NT workstations about five years ago. I suspect this will end up as successful.
It's pretty amazing that you would call someone a madman who proposed a philosophy that emphasized reality over mysticism. That's the kind of FUD his writings are often associated with. There's nothing crazy, antisemetic or nihilistic about Nietzsche's work. He died insane; his sister was a Nazi; he posited a world without God and he didn't apologize for it. However, he was a wonderful writer, a brilliant man and had a great sense of humor.
Now only if you could tell us how to deal with the nihlism that comes with this scientific outlook on the world, the universe could truely replace the bible.
That's sad. Haven't we evolved to the point as human beings where we can trust ourselves and feel happy and confident about being alive and in this world without having to posit a creator? It made sense 2000 years ago when the world was a terrifying place filled with phenomena we could not understand. But today? Can't we just put this belief relic behind us and at least try to live without it?
2. Too expensive. The hardware and service together really do cost too much, unless you got in early like I did (back when lifetime service was $200). They should do what my damn cell phone company does: Knock the hardware down to like $99, and make me pay a very affordable $9.95 a month. If I try to cancel before 2 years are up, hit me with some obscene early termination fee. Yes, I hate it when cell phone companies do this, but that's how they stay in business. Besides, it's not like I'd be foolish enough to cancel my TiVo service anyway. TiVo is heroin. So far, I've paid $499 for TiVo and lifetime service, so TiVo won't make any more money off of me. If they were using my above plan, I would have paid in $589 so far, with more coming in every month.
Expensive? Ten dollars a month is nothing. I bought my Tivo three years ago when they were offering that lifetime service you mention. I opted not to, because I didn't feel like shelling out that much cash. Three years of service at $10 a month isn't $360, it's $10 a month 36 times. And $10 a month is nothing. $200 on the other hand, I would have felt that.
Introducing latency is easy to do with an OpenBSD box but core routers don't have sufficient buffers to hold traffic for more than a few dozen milliseconds, if that. Unless they plan to drop packets which is entirely evil. If they do plan to deploy a latency-introducing device across their network, I assume they'll have to do it at the edge, which for a network that size won't be cheap.
No one has died trying to call 911 over VoIP. You might argue that someone hasn't been saved because they didn't have 911 service, but that doesn't make much sense either. An Operator can put you through to emergency services.
I worked at a CLEC that provided voice services to businesses over VoIP. We ran into this same problem. For every customer, we had to provide a POTS line for 911 service. Not that anyone knew where it was or that it worked, but it had to be there. It sounds more like a shakedown than a public safety initiative to me.
We don't talk about that flight or that exploded over Queens a few weeks after 9/11 or that Osama Bin Laden is still wandering around or that all the Enron execs are still hanging at their mansions or that ballots in elections are now recorded electronically without a paper trail or that...
The Civil War resulted from one section of the country not wanting to fall under the federal government's jurisdiction. The South did not want to buckle to Lincoln's policies, they were too extreme for their liking. Slavery was as much an economic issue as it was a social issue. This country grew as an economic power on the backs slaves tending to crops for no wages. Whether you think that's justifiable or reprehensible, that's the way it was. The Southern elite weren't going to give up their profits without a fight, and they didn't.
The United States is so huge and so diverse that no one credo can adequately define it. Any time an extremist administration is in place, whether left or right, it creates the kind of tension you see all over the place now. We're far better served with a moderate government.
The Civil War should have taught us that we can't afford to splinter violently. At some point, the people in DC are going to have to tend to us rather than to themselves.
Re:Let's just have one Linux desktop
on
KDE 3.5 Released
·
· Score: 1
Competition and choice is great. It's also a barrier to entry for commercial software.
Not really. Commercial software developers, Linux distributors and, ultimately, the consumers who buy their products, will choose which environment comes out on top. Witness VHS vs Betamax. The odd one out will dissipate. Being the most commercial Linux distro installs Gnome by default, that would seem to be the one that's been chosen.
That doesn't mean KDE will disappear. Dissipate maybe, not not dissapear. I'm not sure how much of a market there is for commercial Linux software anyway, especially software that relies on desktop environment API.
Part of the attraction behind being a web portal is that there really is nothing to sell. Just get people to visit your site and let the HTML do the rest. Google attracts and retains visitors with gee whiz apps and great search. It sells little ads all over the place because people know that Google is a popular site. There are no doors to bang on, no cold calls to make, not with their model. Putting innovation first suits their purposes on financial as well as philosophical levels.
"We got the idea from institutions that were jury-rigging our technology to computer networks and mesh networks, with PC panels, to see how many mosquitoes they'd caught or how much propane they had left"
Jury rigging? Man that epithet has drifted over time. Those institutions slipping greenbacks to your technology to win a verdict? I assume it derived from "gerry-rigging" (as in German-rigging) which turned into the distasteful "nigger-rigging" (though I suspect Germans consider gerry-rigging pretty distasteful themselves) to represent tampering with something in a hardhanded way to get it to do something other than its intention.
The cosmological constant balanced out equations that assume a static universe. It wasn't based on anything observed; Einstein just knew he was missing something because he couldn't get his observations to follow his math.
If you take a snapshot of the universe, if you discount its expansion, then the existence of dark energy, remnant of the big bang, is requisite to explain certain phenomena and balance out equations.
Slackware was my first distro and I'm grateful it was. Learning how to compile kernels and software packages, having the ability to strip down the system, learning how to solve dependencies... all this stuff was invaluable. Knowing your way around a Linux box makes it easy to resolve problems. The first time I was allowed to put Linux in a corporate infrastructure, I used Slack. No bloat whatsoever.
Today there's a lot more drive space and memory to play with so bloat isn't as big a deal. I find it comical how much junk a base RedHat install provides, especially in comparison to a BSD box. But the major difference, to me, is apt and yum and the progress of the package management systems (dpkg, rpm). It's trivial today to get a complex piece of software up and running because someone else has already put the thought into solving dependencies. Doing things the hard way just seems like a waste of time.
There are ways to make slack do what you want it to, but the larger distros have taken a lot of the work out of it. For a new sysadmin, this means less insight into the "behind the scenes" stuff, but hey that just makes me look smarter.
The world isn't looking to track your every fucking move, nor use your DNA to somehow subjugate you. Get over yourselves.
The right to privacy, even and especially from the government, is absolutely crucial to our way of life. It doesn't make you paranoid or egomaniacal to want to keep your information to yourself. The more you divulge, the less advantage you have over someone or something adversarial. You wouldn't allow a stranger to know where you live, how much you make, where and when you travel, who you spend your time with, what books you read and movies you watch, etc. Yet you want to just hand this over to the people in charge without any thought to what they'll do with it.
Lest you forget, these people are currently under fire for possibly starting a war under false pretenses. Apparently someone that tried to call them on it was targeted by the vice president's office. They have also been accused of throwing a presidential election and bungling intelligence that would have prevented the September 11 attacks. These are not good people.
The more we allow the government to know about us, the more we have to fear from them and the more they can interfere in our lives. These guys are in it for themselves; just because they have official titles doesn't mean you should be handing them their trust. You make a good point: I have no business with these guys and they have no business with me. That's a perfect argument for them respecting my freedoms.
Yeah, you want to fuck God, we get it. Oh right, you want to do it really hard, too.
Next time you want to take on Christians, rather than use a bunch of naughty words and images, which is only going to get patronizing "God loves even you" responses, point out their lack of reason, uptightness and general hatred for reality.
And maybe you should talk to somebody about your budding homosexuality which apparently you're having problems with. And demand that your parents to pay attention to you once in a while.
Slashdot Mirror
A no-bid contract has been awarded to Haliburton to develop and distribute software to combat "Internet insurgency." Company spokesman I.P. Freely says we should expect to see finished products sometime in 2017, but that the Department of Homeland Security has been commissioned to prevent further discussion on this matter, as "Osama Bin Laden might be listening."
I left a company not long ago with two weeks of notice. There was nothing really to do at that point so I started taking half days I figured they'd just let it slide, being that at least they had some coverage (I was the only guy in the shop who could do some things). Instead they were insulted and asked me to go immediately, leaving them completely exposed until they hired the next guy. I was pretty surprised; I didn't really think they'd care; I offered to give them some docs but they got all huffy and told me they could it just fine themselves, thank you.
Risk management and such are valid points but the fact that managers have no authority over you anymore, that you "rejected" them, and that you don't "belong" there anymore ... these reasons, however petty they may sound, have a lot to do with it. Employees are not looked at as people so much, more like resources to be allocated. When you quit, that ceases to be the case.
Now we can find your dog before you do. Why would anyone steal a dog? I wouldn't personally but a $350 doohickey that's a hit with the Upper East Side Yentas would be totally worth it.
Complaining about teachers choosing favorites, treating their students like infants or not bothering to read papers they grade sounds legitimate to me. At university, we had a course and professor evaluations manual where comments like those were recorded to aid students in their choice of classes. That manual was funded by the university who also used it as a means to grade professor performance. People spending money on tuition have a right to know whether it's been put to good use, no?
I suppose a private institution that charges a bucket of money for tuition would rather students didn't know that some of its teachers weren't any good. But that would fall under consumer protection more than free speech, I would think.
But I could care less.
I want the music I want in the format I want it at the lowest price possible. I don't sit around worrying about record labels and their bottom lines because I don't own a record label. Their problems are their own. Unless they adjust their pricing model to where I can get what I want, I'll figure out another way to go. Somehow I think they'll manage.
Then lock them in the basement. It's difficult as a parent to watch your children exposed to things like profanity and hate speech, but the world isn't puppies and gumdrops. All of us were exposed to profanity and sexual material when we were young and most of us turned out all right. All my parents accomplished by admonishing my use of profanity was that I don't swear in front of them. Same goes with my kids. Instead of trying to shield them from the bad or pretend it doesn't exist, I've tried to introduce them to more "productive" pursuits. No matter what I do, though, ultimately it's their decision how to spend their time.
Yeah, those Frys guys absent-mindedly swiping magic markers on receipts as you walk out the door make me feel as if I'm walking through a bank. Minimizing losses to zero? Pffft. Someday you'll look up at the Palo Alto store and wonder where those wagon wheels disappeared to.
Sun nursed their hardware monopoly for too long and Linux came up and bit them in the ass with price performance. It didn't matter that Solaris performed better because the hardware cost so damned much. By the time they realized they couldn't rely on their reputation, they were toast. If they had done anything serious in the x86 market five years ago or so, a project like this might be viable, but at this point they look like SGI who, you may recall, came out with a line of NT workstations about five years ago. I suspect this will end up as successful.
Now only if you could tell us how to deal with the nihlism that comes with this scientific outlook on the world, the universe could truely replace the bible.
That's sad. Haven't we evolved to the point as human beings where we can trust ourselves and feel happy and confident about being alive and in this world without having to posit a creator? It made sense 2000 years ago when the world was a terrifying place filled with phenomena we could not understand. But today? Can't we just put this belief relic behind us and at least try to live without it?
It appears that publishing Free Software giving access to culture is about to become a counterfeiting criminal offence
Software that gives access to culture? What does that mean? Can someone provide a better translation for this translation?
Expensive? Ten dollars a month is nothing. I bought my Tivo three years ago when they were offering that lifetime service you mention. I opted not to, because I didn't feel like shelling out that much cash. Three years of service at $10 a month isn't $360, it's $10 a month 36 times. And $10 a month is nothing. $200 on the other hand, I would have felt that.
Knowing which DSOs will load will be incredibly helpful, especially in distros that include packages for modules.
Um, opt out.
Jerks. Pure corporate jealousy.
I worked at a CLEC that provided voice services to businesses over VoIP. We ran into this same problem. For every customer, we had to provide a POTS line for 911 service. Not that anyone knew where it was or that it worked, but it had to be there. It sounds more like a shakedown than a public safety initiative to me.
Yet another example of a weepy clod.
I am happy that God watches over my family and both my teenage kids are a gift.
Tell Rod and Todd if they come over I'll shatter their eardrums.
We don't talk about that flight or that exploded over Queens a few weeks after 9/11 or that Osama Bin Laden is still wandering around or that all the Enron execs are still hanging at their mansions or that ballots in elections are now recorded electronically without a paper trail or that ...
The United States is so huge and so diverse that no one credo can adequately define it. Any time an extremist administration is in place, whether left or right, it creates the kind of tension you see all over the place now. We're far better served with a moderate government.
The Civil War should have taught us that we can't afford to splinter violently. At some point, the people in DC are going to have to tend to us rather than to themselves.
Not really. Commercial software developers, Linux distributors and, ultimately, the consumers who buy their products, will choose which environment comes out on top. Witness VHS vs Betamax. The odd one out will dissipate. Being the most commercial Linux distro installs Gnome by default, that would seem to be the one that's been chosen.
That doesn't mean KDE will disappear. Dissipate maybe, not not dissapear. I'm not sure how much of a market there is for commercial Linux software anyway, especially software that relies on desktop environment API.
Part of the attraction behind being a web portal is that there really is nothing to sell. Just get people to visit your site and let the HTML do the rest. Google attracts and retains visitors with gee whiz apps and great search. It sells little ads all over the place because people know that Google is a popular site. There are no doors to bang on, no cold calls to make, not with their model. Putting innovation first suits their purposes on financial as well as philosophical levels.
Jury rigging? Man that epithet has drifted over time. Those institutions slipping greenbacks to your technology to win a verdict? I assume it derived from "gerry-rigging" (as in German-rigging) which turned into the distasteful "nigger-rigging" (though I suspect Germans consider gerry-rigging pretty distasteful themselves) to represent tampering with something in a hardhanded way to get it to do something other than its intention.
If you take a snapshot of the universe, if you discount its expansion, then the existence of dark energy, remnant of the big bang, is requisite to explain certain phenomena and balance out equations.
Why is it weird these two are similar?
Today there's a lot more drive space and memory to play with so bloat isn't as big a deal. I find it comical how much junk a base RedHat install provides, especially in comparison to a BSD box. But the major difference, to me, is apt and yum and the progress of the package management systems (dpkg, rpm). It's trivial today to get a complex piece of software up and running because someone else has already put the thought into solving dependencies. Doing things the hard way just seems like a waste of time.
There are ways to make slack do what you want it to, but the larger distros have taken a lot of the work out of it. For a new sysadmin, this means less insight into the "behind the scenes" stuff, but hey that just makes me look smarter.
The right to privacy, even and especially from the government, is absolutely crucial to our way of life. It doesn't make you paranoid or egomaniacal to want to keep your information to yourself. The more you divulge, the less advantage you have over someone or something adversarial. You wouldn't allow a stranger to know where you live, how much you make, where and when you travel, who you spend your time with, what books you read and movies you watch, etc. Yet you want to just hand this over to the people in charge without any thought to what they'll do with it.
Lest you forget, these people are currently under fire for possibly starting a war under false pretenses. Apparently someone that tried to call them on it was targeted by the vice president's office. They have also been accused of throwing a presidential election and bungling intelligence that would have prevented the September 11 attacks. These are not good people.
The more we allow the government to know about us, the more we have to fear from them and the more they can interfere in our lives. These guys are in it for themselves; just because they have official titles doesn't mean you should be handing them their trust. You make a good point: I have no business with these guys and they have no business with me. That's a perfect argument for them respecting my freedoms.
Next time you want to take on Christians, rather than use a bunch of naughty words and images, which is only going to get patronizing "God loves even you" responses, point out their lack of reason, uptightness and general hatred for reality.
And maybe you should talk to somebody about your budding homosexuality which apparently you're having problems with. And demand that your parents to pay attention to you once in a while.