A person is elected President for four years. The legalization of hemp is something that could conceivably happen during the course of a single administration. The legalization of marijuana for medical and recreational use would provide a source of tax revenue for the government. That will help with finances. It can be used to produce hemp oil that can be used as a lubricant for machinery. That will help with the energy crisis. It grows faster than trees and produces more fiber per acre that can be used for paper and lumber. It also requires less water than cotton and produces more cloth than cotton per acre. It also doesn't require the extreme amounts of pesticides that cotton does. All of those are good for the environment and will help to provide clothing and shelter the growing population. The hemp seed can be processed into food and it is very reach in essential amino acids. The radicalization of Muslims... well, lets all just sit around and smoke some weed. That will calm them down.;) In all seriousness, no... hemp won't address that. Removing the incentive of them to attack us and providing them with propaganda (like killing hundreds of thousands of Arabs in Iraq) will help address that. Medical care crisis... ya, boo hoo freakin hoo. Cry me a river over expensive drugs and treatments that don't work. The answer to the medical crisis is healthy, nutrient rich food grown in fertile soil, clean water and exercise. All of those promote a healthy immune system.
The CIA is just one agency, I don't see their actions as a compelling argument to get rid of nearly the enitre Federal government. I see them as an argument to get rid of, or at least reign in, the CIA.
No one is going to be able to dismantle the Federal government. It's here to be the monkey our backs whether we like or not. Ron Paul is the only candidate out there talking about actually shrinking the government in size. Everyone else either wants it to be bigger or just pays lip service to the idea of a smaller government to court the voters who think that shrinking the government is a good idea.
At the end of the day you have to make a choice. Either you want freedom and accept that people need to be free to make mistakes. Or you want a big brother who tells you what you can and can't do and claims to know what is good for you. I happen to lean more toward freedom, maybe because I'm a white guy with a good job who treats those around him well. I understand that there are those lean the other way and I understand in some cases why they do so. I think you're crazy if you think that the judicial system as manifest in the Federal government does a good job of protecting minorities from discriminatory law enforcement priorities like the war on drugs.
In politics, you can pretty much tell who is X by who is accusing others of X!
How does that mesh with what is going on with Ron Paul? I don't think that the people accusing him of being racist are racist themselves. I think they are attacking him because his campaign is picking up momentum going into an important primary. The front page of the New York Times had an article today talking about how the economy is the number one concern of voters and that it now ranks higher than the Iraq War. Ron Paul is the only Republican candidate who has been talking about the economy consistantly and doing it in such a way that he ties it into the other "issues" like the war in Iraq. In the last debate he tore into the other five candidates and touted himself as the only fiscal conservative running for President. He has the voting record to back it up.
That's a good point that I didn't really consider in depth. I was being alagorical. (Oh grammar/spelling Nazi's, strike this post down). The meta-point that I was making is that I believe money would be better spent improving infrastructure and agriculture in foreign lands as opposed to spending it on military occupants that result in thousands of deaths.
The way I see it in your context, you have two choices. You can elect someone like Ron Paul who surrounds himself with crazy Americans who are answerable to American laws and society. Or you can elect someone like the CFR sponsored candidates (every else) who will surround themselves with crazy anti-Americans like Musharrif and bin Laden.
Do you really believe that Ron Paul would be able to truly dismantle the FBI and other law enforcement agencies that serve LEGITIMATE purposes in this society? What are you so worried about? Are you really scared of what could happen without the government there to protect you? Society as a whole has mechanisms to control radical elements. Everything balances itself out in the end. For every back asswards moron who wants white purity there are tens if not hundreds times as many who realize that those ideas are stupid.
I support Ron Paul because the CIA and other Federal entities do more to threaten my life than they do to protect it. They do more to endanger America than they do to lift it up. The "problem" with freedom is that you need to let people do what they will do. If you don't like white power rallies and propaganda, go ahead and counter them. If you get attacked for it, get those people thrown in jail. If the authorities won't take your side, get the authorities replaced or move somewhere else.
There is a quote that says something to the effect of, "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph over good is for good people to sit around doing nothing." If you have problems with the evil in the world then do something about it, personally. Stop looking to others to make the world the way you want it to be.
It isn't going to matter. Ron Paul is such a long shot that he probably won't come anywhere near the nomination. If he pulls down more than 200 delegates when all is said and done I will be surprised. Your average American wants a nanny state where they aren't accountable for anything. Ron Paul wants to bring the whole house of cards down. He has said so himself. I happen to believe that he is right that the economy is going to tank and we're in for a rough ride ahead. He wants to try to control the fall. All the other candidates seem to have their head in the sand and they're just parrotting the party line, "There is nothing to see here. Don't worry. The Super Bowl will be on soon. Make sure you have a high definition TV to watch it on."
If you dig into the issue a little bit more you will realize that the remarks were made during a very short period of time, spanning maybe a year or two. According to what Paul has said, that was a time of transition in the newsletter and he wasn't at all involved in the day to day operations. They had to go all the way back to 1996 to dig up dirt, and it wasn't even new dirt, it was rehashed old dirt. Like I said, if it's such a big deal, where are Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton? Look at it this way, do you think that Jimmy Dean personally inspects all of the sausage that goes out under his name? Maybe Sara Lee really comes up with all of the recipes for her desserts too.
Over the last couple of years I've heard all sorts of main stream candidates claim to not have read the intelligence reports before voting to go into Iraq. I've heard candidates claim to have not read the PATRIOT Act before voting for it. What's the big deal about some newsletters? You're a complete tool if you let this bias you against Ron Paul. He's the only candidate from both parties who has any clue about what is going on with the economy and our foreign policy. He is the only candidate out there who is being honest with the American people. He is on the record numerous times talking about how the War on Drugs unfairly targets minorities. His record speaks for itself.
Alright smart ass... If Ron Paul is such a racist, where are Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton and all of the other civil rights leaders who love national attention? How come all of the people throwing accusations at Ron Paul are white, tie wearing, political types? How come the strongest attack is coming from The New Republic, a neo-conservative online magazine? Why is it that even Wolff Blitzer on CNN said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "You're right Ron Paul, I've known you for a while now and those newsletters really don't sound like your words. I've never heard you say anything like that."?? Yet despite that, why did CNN then turn around and on the Anderson Cooper show, only repeat the allegation and out of 5+ minutes worth of quotable material from Ron Paul, why did they only use the few seconds worth of him saying that he didn't write the letters surrounded by a bunch of contextual spin to imply that his denial makes him guilty?
The charges are baseless bullshit. The South Carolina primary is coming up. It is being touted as the "indicator of the black vote". Ron Paul has more support among the African American community than any other Republican candidate. It's telling that the information is coming out right now.
Of course you posted AC. You're a worthless chicken shit who can't even associate himself with the slander that you're throwing around. Go fuck yourself.
Can you point me to some resources that confirm your statement about it being legal? I know that you can be in possession of hemp products like clothing, rope, etc. My understanding is that it is still illegal to grow it within the United States.
Don't buy into the smear. Even the President of the Austin, TX branch of the NAACP came out in support of Ron Paul and said that he has known him for 20 years and he knows that he isn't a racist.
I would legalize hemp for industrial uses and decriminalize marijuana. There are so many great industrial uses for hemp that it is absolutely stupid not to be using it. Marijuana is also far safer than alcohol. Other than that big one I'd probably try to come up with some sort of Peace Corp like serious public works project to take care of the infrastructure in this country. I'd also like to see a similar program setup overseas in countries that would have us. Instead of sending in troops with guns and tanks, we could send in Americans with seeds and tractors. Maybe I'm a bit too idealistic, but I have a hard time believing that we wouldn't be well received around the world if we spent as much on actually improving infrastructure and agriculture and water supplies as we spend on bombs and guns and bullets and other military expenses.
I've been using Microsoft operating systems since the mid-late 1980s. In that time I have also had some experience with Apples (the first computer my parents bought for me was a IIgs). My work gave me an older Macbook running OSX and I took it home to use it and get a feel for it. The interface is relatively intuitive and I like some the features of the operating system. I really like KisMAC for working with wireless networks. The fact that the laptop is only about 3-4 years old and doesn't have a PCMCIA slot is a big thumbs down for the device. All things considered it is pretty nice but not significantly different enough from Windows to make me want to switch full time. Another big thumbs down for the OS is the significant lack of security software for it. All of the security software for the Mac seems to require a recompile from source of various *nix based apps. Which brings me to my next point... Linux
I'm going to try Linux next. I figure that I will pick up a $400 Thinkpad T41 and throw Ubuntu on it. If I'm going to have to compile programs from the source I might as well do it "natively" under Linux, instead of doing it with Macports or something similar. I tried Slackware back in the early 1990s but it wasn't all that attractive. I figure that for what I want to do with the computer (security audits, basic malicious badness), Ubuntu should get the job done. The main thing driving my interest in Linux at this point is Kismet. It seems to "just work" under Linux where as in Microsoft land you need one specific NIC and in Apple land it doesn't support 802.11g yet.
For those of you guys using Macs and OSX for security work, is my perception skewed? Is there some simple way to get the good apps (nmap, wireshark, etc) working under OSX that I've missed?
Rather than fighting to keep what you have it's better to adapt to other technologies and become a leader there.
Exactly. The strongest position is held by the person who drives the unification. While most people are prone to squable, very few have cultivated the temperment and abilities required to bring everything together. The sooner you are able to accept that the walls between departments have come down, the better suituated you will be to repartition what is left.
it pales in comparison to actually being able to read a real map, or know your way around someplace.
I agree. Being able to find your way around a place and actually find a place on your own seem to engage a completely different part of the brain than simply following directions on a GPS. The only way I can describe it would be it's like the difference between "solving" a math problem by knowing the answer and working the steps to get it, versus actually having confidence in your knowledge of the steps and being able to apply them to solve the problem.
I think that GPS devices and automated directions tend to seriously supress one of our survival instincts. When you can always refer back to a cheat sheet, you never really develop true skill.
Now before I get a whole of responses from people saying, "I love my GPS but I can still find my way around." Keep in mind that you've only had a GPS for a few years and you spent probably decades doing things the old way. The new generations are the one who are danger of having their innate abilities dumbed down.
Even traditional companies are retaining credit card information by default. I ordered a pizza from Round Table the other day and they asked me if I wanted to use the same card that I used last time. I drove down there and told the manager to delete any of my personal information and asked him where I ever signed anything or in any other way authorized them to retain my credit card information. Of course he wasn't able to provide any such documentation. I will never be giving Round Table my credit card again.
You miss the point. This is about (not that I've read the article) a shift in power. Rather than the talentless middlemen making all the money, why can't it be the writers?
Because those "talentless middle men" bring EVERYONE ELSE together. Productions are FREAKING HUGE operations. Do you live in Los Angeles by any chance? Have you ever seen what is involved with a production? I work in downtown Los Angeles at a building with a loading dock on Lower Grand Avenue. Lower Grand Avenue is in so many productions it is ridiculous. You might notice these two off the top of my head... Die Hard 4, Robocop. The studios just got done shooting a pretty serious scene for the upcoming Eagle Eye there on Lower Grand. Those guys were camped out there for the better part of TWO WEEKS. I never saw any of the filming, but I'm guessing that it was pretty special effects intensive given the large numbers of destroyed cars around there. When movies are shot it requires an entire village of people. They even bring in their own cops.
So sure, a writer can come up with a script, gee whiz, great. Thanks for taking the time to do that. Now who is going to go find all of the locations that the writer envisioned so that the script can be shot? Take a look at the Bourne Ultimatium. That was a pretty damn good movie based on a well written book. It also happened to take place in some pretty big cities and rather crowded PUBLIC places. Do you think it's easy to secure access to shoot in those kind of places? Maybe the writer can just go down there with a bull horn and say, "Excuse me people! I'm trying to shoot a movie here. Would you all kindly just ignore all of the camera equipment and microphones and MAJOR INCONVENIENCE to your life while we shoot this thing?" And trust me, dealing with Hollywood when they are shooting a movie is a major inconvenience. Those bastards think that they own the place, and to a certain extent, they do because they've paid large sums of money to whatever city and private businesses that they are taking over for as long as it takes to get the shot.
I can't speak for everyone involved in the productions. I'm sure that most of them would like to see the writers get a "fair deal". But the fact of the matter is that the writers strike is influencing more than just "the studios" and "talentless middle men." There are thousands of people who aren't working right now because productions are being put on hold. Those thousands of people require organization to get them together and focused on getting the job done. Until I actually saw first hand what goes into even shooting a single scene, I never understood how massive it was. As a brief example, Hallie Berry (or however you spell her name) shot a Revlon commercial where I work. There were about thirty people there for about a day and a half. When I finally saw the commercial on television, the scene that they shot at my work was about 2-3 seconds worth of the commercial. Thirty people over a day and a half to get 2-3 seconds worth of footage?! That doesn't even include the time it took the editor and all of the post production people to put it together. And the commercial itself was about 10-15 seconds. They were probably shooting that stupid thing for a good month or two.
I forgot to mention how this is going to breed pretentious attitudes from guys who don't bother to talk to anybody in Starbucks and then scoff at the employees for not automatically knowing that they are there for their coffee because, "Duh, I iOrdered it with my iPhone iHead of time." The next thing they are going to want is an iRedCarpet rolled out for them when their Apple software alerts Starbucks that they are nearing the store... but that functionality would take a GPS, and the iPhone doesn't have one. Oops.
I can see it now. Two twits in the Silicon Valley at a Starbucks, both named Steve. One of them claims that the venti, half skim, half soy, extra hot latte with a shot is his because the girl at the counter announced it is for Steve. The other guy claims it his because his iPhone buzzed. Much hillarity ensues and in the end, the guy with his Treo running Windows Mobile OS gets his tall drip coffee first because well, he did it the old fashioned way because Windows Mobile wasn't Starbucks compatible.
You beat me to it. Better add a parka to the list to cope with the air conditioning requirement to keep four racks cool. Or better yet, tell your employer to stop being so god damn cheap and have them build a real server room and offer to take a normal office or even a cube like everyone else. It will be worth it to not go home with a ringing in your ears and perma-tremors from shivering due to artic like air conditioning.
I wonder if the Russian system will have the equivalent offsets that the US system has, you know... to keep terrorists and other miscreants from using them to accurately call in artillery on the local police stations from home made, butane powered potato mortars.
You are right about the influence of millions of dollars. Lao Tzu would agree with you. One of the verses in Tao te Ching cautions against, "Holding up that which is hard to attain." because doing so will engender competetion and people going to extremes to oppose each other to attain it. If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it. Despite being nearly 1000 years old the insights it presents into life are timeless.
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I think my comment to the other poster didn't go through for some reason. I got them confused with the Free Republic. Sorry about that.
A person is elected President for four years. The legalization of hemp is something that could conceivably happen during the course of a single administration. The legalization of marijuana for medical and recreational use would provide a source of tax revenue for the government. That will help with finances. It can be used to produce hemp oil that can be used as a lubricant for machinery. That will help with the energy crisis. It grows faster than trees and produces more fiber per acre that can be used for paper and lumber. It also requires less water than cotton and produces more cloth than cotton per acre. It also doesn't require the extreme amounts of pesticides that cotton does. All of those are good for the environment and will help to provide clothing and shelter the growing population. The hemp seed can be processed into food and it is very reach in essential amino acids. The radicalization of Muslims... well, lets all just sit around and smoke some weed. That will calm them down. ;) In all seriousness, no... hemp won't address that. Removing the incentive of them to attack us and providing them with propaganda (like killing hundreds of thousands of Arabs in Iraq) will help address that. Medical care crisis... ya, boo hoo freakin hoo. Cry me a river over expensive drugs and treatments that don't work. The answer to the medical crisis is healthy, nutrient rich food grown in fertile soil, clean water and exercise. All of those promote a healthy immune system.
No one is going to be able to dismantle the Federal government. It's here to be the monkey our backs whether we like or not. Ron Paul is the only candidate out there talking about actually shrinking the government in size. Everyone else either wants it to be bigger or just pays lip service to the idea of a smaller government to court the voters who think that shrinking the government is a good idea.
At the end of the day you have to make a choice. Either you want freedom and accept that people need to be free to make mistakes. Or you want a big brother who tells you what you can and can't do and claims to know what is good for you. I happen to lean more toward freedom, maybe because I'm a white guy with a good job who treats those around him well. I understand that there are those lean the other way and I understand in some cases why they do so. I think you're crazy if you think that the judicial system as manifest in the Federal government does a good job of protecting minorities from discriminatory law enforcement priorities like the war on drugs.
How does that mesh with what is going on with Ron Paul? I don't think that the people accusing him of being racist are racist themselves. I think they are attacking him because his campaign is picking up momentum going into an important primary. The front page of the New York Times had an article today talking about how the economy is the number one concern of voters and that it now ranks higher than the Iraq War. Ron Paul is the only Republican candidate who has been talking about the economy consistantly and doing it in such a way that he ties it into the other "issues" like the war in Iraq. In the last debate he tore into the other five candidates and touted himself as the only fiscal conservative running for President. He has the voting record to back it up.
That's a good point that I didn't really consider in depth. I was being alagorical. (Oh grammar/spelling Nazi's, strike this post down). The meta-point that I was making is that I believe money would be better spent improving infrastructure and agriculture in foreign lands as opposed to spending it on military occupants that result in thousands of deaths.
The way I see it in your context, you have two choices. You can elect someone like Ron Paul who surrounds himself with crazy Americans who are answerable to American laws and society. Or you can elect someone like the CFR sponsored candidates (every else) who will surround themselves with crazy anti-Americans like Musharrif and bin Laden.
I support Ron Paul because the CIA and other Federal entities do more to threaten my life than they do to protect it. They do more to endanger America than they do to lift it up. The "problem" with freedom is that you need to let people do what they will do. If you don't like white power rallies and propaganda, go ahead and counter them. If you get attacked for it, get those people thrown in jail. If the authorities won't take your side, get the authorities replaced or move somewhere else.
There is a quote that says something to the effect of, "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph over good is for good people to sit around doing nothing." If you have problems with the evil in the world then do something about it, personally. Stop looking to others to make the world the way you want it to be.
It isn't going to matter. Ron Paul is such a long shot that he probably won't come anywhere near the nomination. If he pulls down more than 200 delegates when all is said and done I will be surprised. Your average American wants a nanny state where they aren't accountable for anything. Ron Paul wants to bring the whole house of cards down. He has said so himself. I happen to believe that he is right that the economy is going to tank and we're in for a rough ride ahead. He wants to try to control the fall. All the other candidates seem to have their head in the sand and they're just parrotting the party line, "There is nothing to see here. Don't worry. The Super Bowl will be on soon. Make sure you have a high definition TV to watch it on."
Over the last couple of years I've heard all sorts of main stream candidates claim to not have read the intelligence reports before voting to go into Iraq. I've heard candidates claim to have not read the PATRIOT Act before voting for it. What's the big deal about some newsletters? You're a complete tool if you let this bias you against Ron Paul. He's the only candidate from both parties who has any clue about what is going on with the economy and our foreign policy. He is the only candidate out there who is being honest with the American people. He is on the record numerous times talking about how the War on Drugs unfairly targets minorities. His record speaks for itself.
The charges are baseless bullshit. The South Carolina primary is coming up. It is being touted as the "indicator of the black vote". Ron Paul has more support among the African American community than any other Republican candidate. It's telling that the information is coming out right now.
Of course you posted AC. You're a worthless chicken shit who can't even associate himself with the slander that you're throwing around. Go fuck yourself.
Can you point me to some resources that confirm your statement about it being legal? I know that you can be in possession of hemp products like clothing, rope, etc. My understanding is that it is still illegal to grow it within the United States.
Don't buy into the smear. Even the President of the Austin, TX branch of the NAACP came out in support of Ron Paul and said that he has known him for 20 years and he knows that he isn't a racist.
I would legalize hemp for industrial uses and decriminalize marijuana. There are so many great industrial uses for hemp that it is absolutely stupid not to be using it. Marijuana is also far safer than alcohol. Other than that big one I'd probably try to come up with some sort of Peace Corp like serious public works project to take care of the infrastructure in this country. I'd also like to see a similar program setup overseas in countries that would have us. Instead of sending in troops with guns and tanks, we could send in Americans with seeds and tractors. Maybe I'm a bit too idealistic, but I have a hard time believing that we wouldn't be well received around the world if we spent as much on actually improving infrastructure and agriculture and water supplies as we spend on bombs and guns and bullets and other military expenses.
I will be driving a Ferrari and living in Hawaii in no time!!
I'm going to try Linux next. I figure that I will pick up a $400 Thinkpad T41 and throw Ubuntu on it. If I'm going to have to compile programs from the source I might as well do it "natively" under Linux, instead of doing it with Macports or something similar. I tried Slackware back in the early 1990s but it wasn't all that attractive. I figure that for what I want to do with the computer (security audits, basic malicious badness), Ubuntu should get the job done. The main thing driving my interest in Linux at this point is Kismet. It seems to "just work" under Linux where as in Microsoft land you need one specific NIC and in Apple land it doesn't support 802.11g yet.
For those of you guys using Macs and OSX for security work, is my perception skewed? Is there some simple way to get the good apps (nmap, wireshark, etc) working under OSX that I've missed?
Exactly. The strongest position is held by the person who drives the unification. While most people are prone to squable, very few have cultivated the temperment and abilities required to bring everything together. The sooner you are able to accept that the walls between departments have come down, the better suituated you will be to repartition what is left.
I agree. Being able to find your way around a place and actually find a place on your own seem to engage a completely different part of the brain than simply following directions on a GPS. The only way I can describe it would be it's like the difference between "solving" a math problem by knowing the answer and working the steps to get it, versus actually having confidence in your knowledge of the steps and being able to apply them to solve the problem.
I think that GPS devices and automated directions tend to seriously supress one of our survival instincts. When you can always refer back to a cheat sheet, you never really develop true skill.
Now before I get a whole of responses from people saying, "I love my GPS but I can still find my way around." Keep in mind that you've only had a GPS for a few years and you spent probably decades doing things the old way. The new generations are the one who are danger of having their innate abilities dumbed down.
Even traditional companies are retaining credit card information by default. I ordered a pizza from Round Table the other day and they asked me if I wanted to use the same card that I used last time. I drove down there and told the manager to delete any of my personal information and asked him where I ever signed anything or in any other way authorized them to retain my credit card information. Of course he wasn't able to provide any such documentation. I will never be giving Round Table my credit card again.
Because those "talentless middle men" bring EVERYONE ELSE together. Productions are FREAKING HUGE operations. Do you live in Los Angeles by any chance? Have you ever seen what is involved with a production? I work in downtown Los Angeles at a building with a loading dock on Lower Grand Avenue. Lower Grand Avenue is in so many productions it is ridiculous. You might notice these two off the top of my head... Die Hard 4, Robocop. The studios just got done shooting a pretty serious scene for the upcoming Eagle Eye there on Lower Grand. Those guys were camped out there for the better part of TWO WEEKS. I never saw any of the filming, but I'm guessing that it was pretty special effects intensive given the large numbers of destroyed cars around there. When movies are shot it requires an entire village of people. They even bring in their own cops.
So sure, a writer can come up with a script, gee whiz, great. Thanks for taking the time to do that. Now who is going to go find all of the locations that the writer envisioned so that the script can be shot? Take a look at the Bourne Ultimatium. That was a pretty damn good movie based on a well written book. It also happened to take place in some pretty big cities and rather crowded PUBLIC places. Do you think it's easy to secure access to shoot in those kind of places? Maybe the writer can just go down there with a bull horn and say, "Excuse me people! I'm trying to shoot a movie here. Would you all kindly just ignore all of the camera equipment and microphones and MAJOR INCONVENIENCE to your life while we shoot this thing?" And trust me, dealing with Hollywood when they are shooting a movie is a major inconvenience. Those bastards think that they own the place, and to a certain extent, they do because they've paid large sums of money to whatever city and private businesses that they are taking over for as long as it takes to get the shot.
I can't speak for everyone involved in the productions. I'm sure that most of them would like to see the writers get a "fair deal". But the fact of the matter is that the writers strike is influencing more than just "the studios" and "talentless middle men." There are thousands of people who aren't working right now because productions are being put on hold. Those thousands of people require organization to get them together and focused on getting the job done. Until I actually saw first hand what goes into even shooting a single scene, I never understood how massive it was. As a brief example, Hallie Berry (or however you spell her name) shot a Revlon commercial where I work. There were about thirty people there for about a day and a half. When I finally saw the commercial on television, the scene that they shot at my work was about 2-3 seconds worth of the commercial. Thirty people over a day and a half to get 2-3 seconds worth of footage?! That doesn't even include the time it took the editor and all of the post production people to put it together. And the commercial itself was about 10-15 seconds. They were probably shooting that stupid thing for a good month or two.
I forgot to mention how this is going to breed pretentious attitudes from guys who don't bother to talk to anybody in Starbucks and then scoff at the employees for not automatically knowing that they are there for their coffee because, "Duh, I iOrdered it with my iPhone iHead of time." The next thing they are going to want is an iRedCarpet rolled out for them when their Apple software alerts Starbucks that they are nearing the store... but that functionality would take a GPS, and the iPhone doesn't have one. Oops.
I can see it now. Two twits in the Silicon Valley at a Starbucks, both named Steve. One of them claims that the venti, half skim, half soy, extra hot latte with a shot is his because the girl at the counter announced it is for Steve. The other guy claims it his because his iPhone buzzed. Much hillarity ensues and in the end, the guy with his Treo running Windows Mobile OS gets his tall drip coffee first because well, he did it the old fashioned way because Windows Mobile wasn't Starbucks compatible.
Someone mod this up.
You beat me to it. Better add a parka to the list to cope with the air conditioning requirement to keep four racks cool. Or better yet, tell your employer to stop being so god damn cheap and have them build a real server room and offer to take a normal office or even a cube like everyone else. It will be worth it to not go home with a ringing in your ears and perma-tremors from shivering due to artic like air conditioning.
I wonder if the Russian system will have the equivalent offsets that the US system has, you know... to keep terrorists and other miscreants from using them to accurately call in artillery on the local police stations from home made, butane powered potato mortars.
You are right about the influence of millions of dollars. Lao Tzu would agree with you. One of the verses in Tao te Ching cautions against, "Holding up that which is hard to attain." because doing so will engender competetion and people going to extremes to oppose each other to attain it. If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it. Despite being nearly 1000 years old the insights it presents into life are timeless.