I am doing the same thing. However, like some other posters here I am working on the Undergrad degree after several years of work. (I was a know-it-all punk and screwed myself out of an education before).
I have learned a lot this time around.
First, I have found that colleges look very favorably on people who are either in the workforce, and going back to school, or people who are taking a break from the workforce to go back to school. Those types tend to do better academically than kids fresh out of HS, or fresh out of undergrad.
Secondly, teachers are more favorable and lenient to you as well. Older students, esp ones with experience in their field of study tend to do better, work harder, and also bring to class a whole host of real world experience that the other students just will not get otherwise.
Third, you will do better as an older student. Again, older students work harder, and tend to grasp things better, especially when their studies are in the field that they have previous work experience.
Some schools will also allow you to test out of courses based on your work experience (no I dont mean thost 50 dollar doctorates) but in some cases, you can get out of at least the basics that way. I have tested out of several required intro courses because of my years of experience in IT. I made a strong business case to the dept head of my school, and they agreed with me.
There are lots of benefits... adn it IS hard work, but to be honest, I am having a much better time as a student now, than I ever did.
What are the pieces I need to make LightScribe work? LightScribe technology consists of three components: a LightScribe-enabled disc drive, LightScribe-enabled discs, and supporting software.
I wonder how much it will all cost, however. You will have to purchase a new burner (and for now, its CDR only, from what I read, which means a seperate DVD burner and CDR burner). Secondly, you have to purchase new media. Not just any CDR, and I wonder how much the media will cost to have the special coating that allows this to work?
Next is the software. No mention on whether the software is free or what...
But even at that, its really neat stuff. They claim in the FAQ that this is designed to add "only a few dollars to the price of a computer and a few pennies to the price of disc media" but in the long run, they say that ulitmate pricing is up to the vendor of the media or hardware...
Personally, I will probably be in line to pick one of these things up, just because they are hella cool, BUT if the price is too steep, just remember this:
IT was my understanding that this was already legal under the provisions formerly known as Fair Use. But the MPAA and RIAA are dead set in removing that little tidbit completely from the Copyright laws.
But I wonder if that also means that 9 out of 10 feel the same way about digital media sources, and from that, I wonder how many out of 10 own a Tivo, but wont admit it??
Oh my god, does that mean that instead of working a mere 40 years or so of my life, I will have to work for this shithole for the next several centuries???
Oddly enough, one of my favorite, and IMO the best, episodes of SeaQuest DSV is the episode where the crew is wisked into a future where wars are fought by armies of giant armed combat robots, which are remote controlled by children, who think that they are actually playing a total imersion video game.
With the advances in VR and forms of total control of remote devices and such based on muscle movement and in some cases even brain wave activity, how far away are we from a time when anyone with a joystick can command a combat robot?
It really reminds me a lot of Largo from MegaTokyo and his army of Ph34rbots.. but on a serious note, however, I really do wonder. It would seem that, while these types of things are great in that they save lives ultimately, at the same time, they could ultimately be a supreme form of evil.
Even though bad things DO happen in any armed conflict, at least in this case, fields of robots battling it out, even if they are merely remote controlled, will keep real people from dying needlesly. However, again, how long before someone figures out how to gain control of these things and turn them against civilian populations, villages, cities, etc.
On a side note, what I really find funny is that, traditionally, the military is the last major area of manual labor that has NOT been severly affected by technology (in the sense of robots replacing workers as they have in manufacturing and other areas) and now, there exists a real possibility of the military being downsized due to robots replacing soldiers. Maybe the Teamsters can organize the military!
You will all now be treated to the "Evil Dead" as it was meant to be. As I envisioned it years ago, but had to compromise in the original's production due to budgetary constraints. Now, of course, money is no object, and thanks to digital effects, you shall see things that make the battle for Pellenor Fields look like a cub scout production.
After years of waiting, I can finally make my movie, my way.
From the pdf at Groklaw in the RESOLVED: section of the minutes, third paragraph (the one in the box):
Novell will retail all of its patents, copyrights and trademarks (
except for the trademarks UNIX and UnixWare ), a royalty-free, perpetual, worldwide license to back UNIX and UnixWare for internal use and resale in bundled products, Tuxedo, and other miscellaneous, unrelated technology.
Note that they say TRADEMARKS of UNIX and UnixWare are not retained by Novell... NOT Trademarks and copyrights. it specifically says all copyrights and trademarks remain property of Novell, except for specifically the trademarks UNIX and UnixWare. Trademarks are logos and brand names, not source code or tangible items...
Exactly. MY fridge is the source of all fungus... What you get are the refugees from my fridgedaire kingdom that are a sad by-product of over-population and nonexistant birth control among the populace of my fridge...
Now, the fridge-freezer wars of '97, thats another story....
Go back and read that again... it specifically states that Novell will retain all copyrights and trademarks (except for the TRADEMARKS to Unix and UnixWare)... so SCO gets to own the names Unix and UnixWare, but not the copyrights...
HA HA.. I never claimed to be a professional SQL coder... I just read a book once.;-)
I wouldnt want a sql job either.. I had a single semester of sql in college and that was enough for me. But either way, I bow to your superior SQL skills...
then again, TOP doesnt exist in Oracle, AFAIK... which is all I have ever used (other than doing very basic stuff with postgres...)
Nuclear reactors are safe, and the waste produced (and I mean real waste, after multiple reprocessing) is substantially less harmful to the population than the by-products of burning fossil fuels at an equivalent rate.
Until said containment systems leak, leeching radioactive waste into the water table, spreading the waste throughout the local and potentially distant environments.
New reactor technologies (like pebble-bed reactors) are fool-proof and stunningly cost-effective versus heavy water reactor designs,
Yes they are, and actually DO represent the best bet for nuclear power at this point. Personally, I like the idea, and cant wait till the day I can have my own Mr. Fusion attached to my car;-) But seriously, the pebble-bed reactors are a good idea. Just dont go as far as saying fool-proof. Especially when you are messing with things that could slowly kill millions should a better Fool come along.
and could easily be deployed in proximity to high demand areas, eliminating the need for the (re)construction of a massive (nationwide) power transport grid.
Aye, and THIS is exactly why I like the idea of small scale nuke plants, unless something better can be made rationally. I think it is silly that a series of brown-outs and black-outs in one urban area could take down the power grid for 1/4 of the country and a large section of Canada as well.
Power grids should be localised, and not connected. Should there be a need to get power from a neighboring grid, then there could be infrastructure in place to provide that access, MANUALLY, so as to not shock the neighboring grid into emergency situations as well, when there is suddenly 2-3x the grid's usual drain being applied to it.
And contrary to your final question/statement, yes there ARE other options. hydroelectric in areas with heavy wave motion has been proven to provide a very good amount of power, with a virtually unending source of fuel (the ocean will always have waves). Mixes of solar and Wind power is a good choice, though admittedly DOES take up a huge chunk of real estate, but again, is pretty much 100% clean, and would be an excellent alternative or assistance to small commuities. Nuclear power is a good idea, but IS far more dangerous than solar, wind, hydroelectric, etc.
Someone earlier mentioned Hydrogen Fuel Cell style power plants, which is a possibility, but at the moment, the ability to make any sort of worthwhile power using fuel cell technology is quite cost prohibitive. One thing that hasnt been considered also, is low orbit solar.
Directed mirrors in space to reflect direct sunlight to solar collection points on the earth? or should the tech for the proposed space elevator come to pass, massive solar arrays could be deployed in low orbit and thethered to the elevator cable, transmitting unlimited solar power back to earth that way.
...the country will be ready to stand for the things that made it great.
Actually, the things that made(make) this country great are things like innovation (Dems and Republicans alike seem to stifle this thanks to irrational patent and copyright laws), Personal Responsibility (Why be responsible for yourself, when liberals have so many social programs that will feed and clothe you for free?), and Self Respect (Hard to have self respect when one side panders to you, and the other side doesnt seem to care all that much).
Maybe if the gap between rich and poor keeps expanding,
The gap? It is a sad thing, but, and from the way the majority/. opinion seems to go, being rich is an evil thing and you should be ashamed of yourself for being successful. Even if that 5% or so of the population pays for 75% of the tax burden... they just arent paying enough!! This is one good reason for abolishing the income tax completely and just going with a national sales tax or VAT that EVERYONE pays... rich, poor, whatever.
the national deficit balloons even higher,
Why is that? Its because both dems and republicans alike add useless porkbarrel spending to unrelated bills...
the average wage drops even lower,
I dont know about you, but my average salary over the last 4 years has gone up by 10 grand...
the trade deficit continues to soar,
Which only exists because we allow foreign companies with VERY CHEAP labor to sell their very cheap items here, while they either prevent or heavily tax US made producs in their countries...
the air and water go to shit,
That has been happeneing for years, and while I dont like it any more than you do, its not Bush's fault, nor is it the Republicans fault... Democrats are also responsible for that one...
civil rights are further eroded in the name of 'safety'
Oddly enough, BOTH sides ALSO blanketly supported this stuff without even reading it. So who is more to blame for this? Bush's administration for suggesting things like USAPATRIOT and such, or the full congress: Democrats, Republicans, and Others for rubberstamping it through while publically saying what a great thing it is for American security??
enough troops die for weapons that don't exist and fake ties to terrorism...
Oddly enough, Kerry was PUBLICALLY All for the war too. Dont forget that. He only became against it when he decided to run for president. And while I would like to see NO troops die, they seem to be proud of the things they have done that dont get reported here, thanks to a biased media, like, providing electricty, water, and phone service to places that have never had electricity, water, or phones. Building and repairing schools for children who can now grow up in a system that will not brain wash them as was in place before. you know, little inconsequential things like that.
maybe then this country will open its eyes and make a change.
This country DID open its eyes, and DID make a change. Daschle is out. (well we can thank South Dakota for that one...)
Bush has a higher popular vote than even Reagan did...
I have owned two iPods now... one 2G 20Gig iPod and one 3G 20Gig iPod and in both cases I had no problems getting the songs off the ipod.
I mean, under XP, just like others mentioned, I just drag and drop, making sure that I have the "Show Hidden Files" option checked. On my linux boxen its even easier as they dont particularly care for the DOS hidden attribute...
On my linux machines, I just mount the iPods and cd to the appropriate directory and cp -R * to wherever I want them to go.
Is this some kind of new 4G thing? I really didnt think it was THAT difficult. In fact, I had more trouble getting my firewire card to work under linux than I did in getting the iPods seen.
sweet... thanks a lot! YOu would think that the "major" sites would offer this as well, but I suppose that would detract from the hit count that they can use to show just how popular their coverage was...
It seems to me, as I read that article that what he is really saying is this:
Piracy is bad! People in underdeveloped countries use Internet cafes because they cant afford computers of their own. In India and china there are 5 times as many hotmail users as their are computers. Therefore, if we force hardware companies to sell $100 computers to all these people, we (M$) will have 5 times as many new people to charge for our software.
It really sounds like he is very uncleverly hiding a vie for market share in a "Raa! Raa! Piracy is Bad, WOOOOHAAAAAAAAA!" kind of speech.
I fail to see the connection between current piracy levels and the creation of a HUGE new market for MS to sell their crap.
The Gov't that you say is the only one who really needs the SS number IS the one that provided said number to UC Berkeley. RTFA. The SSS# and all personal info that Berkeley was using and had access to was provided to them by the California Govt, without the consent of the people whos info was being shared.
If there is a wakeup call for anything it is that there should be a fight to keep the govt from farming out personal info like this to every Tom, Bill, and Larry that asks for it in the guise of research, or whatever.
If nothing else, The govt should have in place an opt in (note I said opt IN, not opt OUT) option for citizens who dont mind their info being shared, and also the option to choose HOW MUCH info is being shared.
Govt organization to Govt organization is one thing, but for a govt to give personal info like this to some University, or Business, or whatever is deplorable.
What really puts it into perspective is you using 300 baud modems in 94-95... on a c64... most of the rest of us were using at least 28.8 at that point, and IIRC, the 56K modems came out not too much after that, and some of us, a lot, probably, were using 33.6 modems...
I had a friend who ran up am 800 dollar phone bill calling nixpix BBS in Chicago to get pr0n... he hated it when I showed him a local board that offerend pretty much the entire nixpix repository of nakedness... heh...
We are the same age, but I didnt get into BBSs until about 86 or 87, when the first 386s became available. My first PC was an old Packard Bell 386 that was turbocharged to 16MHz and came with a massive 4 megs ram... heheh... and lucky me, it also came as a package deal with a 1200Bps modem.
My first computer was a TRS-80 that my dad got for me from Radio Shack back in the day, about 82 or so.
I took some adult con-ed programming classes at Roanoke College when I was 9 years old, and have loved tech ever since.
I hate it, but I agree with you WRT today's "professionals". Admittedly, I am a self schooled, college dropout (but I AM back in school to finish that coveted piece of parchment) and know more than many of the people I meet in this field... Sadly, I worked previously at a certain NC based distro, and was in the position of interviewing and assisting with hiring decisions for people in my dept, and much to my chagrin, I discovered that my boss, who was a great manager, but too willing to be nice to people, was hiring Linux newbies at a significant amount more than I was paid, even as a team lead, escalation point, etc etc... And the MSCE bunch is another story all together. Granted, I have met some MCSEs who actually do know what they are doing, but I have met FAR MORE who do little more than regurgitate stuff they read in a book, and can tell you all about tweaking this or that without actually knowing WHY tweaking this or that fixes a certain issue.
But that really can be said for pretty much any certification outside of RHCE and Cisco's Certs, as there arent many that are focused on Hands ON demonstration of skill as opposed to just rote memorization and answering multi-choice questions on some web form.
Slashdot Mirror
I am doing the same thing. However, like some other posters here I am working on the Undergrad degree after several years of work. (I was a know-it-all punk and screwed myself out of an education before).
I have learned a lot this time around.
First, I have found that colleges look very favorably on people who are either in the workforce, and going back to school, or people who are taking a break from the workforce to go back to school. Those types tend to do better academically than kids fresh out of HS, or fresh out of undergrad.
Secondly, teachers are more favorable and lenient to you as well. Older students, esp ones with experience in their field of study tend to do better, work harder, and also bring to class a whole host of real world experience that the other students just will not get otherwise.
Third, you will do better as an older student. Again, older students work harder, and tend to grasp things better, especially when their studies are in the field that they have previous work experience.
Some schools will also allow you to test out of courses based on your work experience (no I dont mean thost 50 dollar doctorates) but in some cases, you can get out of at least the basics that way. I have tested out of several required intro courses because of my years of experience in IT. I made a strong business case to the dept head of my school, and they agreed with me.
There are lots of benefits... adn it IS hard work, but to be honest, I am having a much better time as a student now, than I ever did.
What are the pieces I need to make LightScribe work?
LightScribe technology consists of three components: a LightScribe-enabled disc drive, LightScribe-enabled discs, and supporting software.
I wonder how much it will all cost, however. You will have to purchase a new burner (and for now, its CDR only, from what I read, which means a seperate DVD burner and CDR burner). Secondly, you have to purchase new media. Not just any CDR, and I wonder how much the media will cost to have the special coating that allows this to work?
Next is the software. No mention on whether the software is free or what...
But even at that, its really neat stuff. They claim in the FAQ that this is designed to add "only a few dollars to the price of a computer and a few pennies to the price of disc media" but in the long run, they say that ulitmate pricing is up to the vendor of the media or hardware...
Personally, I will probably be in line to pick one of these things up, just because they are hella cool, BUT if the price is too steep, just remember this:
Sharpies only cost about $1.29 and tax.
IT was my understanding that this was already legal under the provisions formerly known as Fair Use. But the MPAA and RIAA are dead set in removing that little tidbit completely from the Copyright laws.
But I wonder if that also means that 9 out of 10 feel the same way about digital media sources, and from that, I wonder how many out of 10 own a Tivo, but wont admit it??
Oh my god, does that mean that instead of working a mere 40 years or so of my life, I will have to work for this shithole for the next several centuries???
Ender did this long before (Or way beyond depending how you look at it) Seaquest did.
True, true... I didnt mean to slight Enders Game at all. Actually, I wondered at the time if that episode of SeaQuest was not based on Ender's Game.
Oddly enough, one of my favorite, and IMO the best, episodes of SeaQuest DSV is the episode where the crew is wisked into a future where wars are fought by armies of giant armed combat robots, which are remote controlled by children, who think that they are actually playing a total imersion video game.
With the advances in VR and forms of total control of remote devices and such based on muscle movement and in some cases even brain wave activity, how far away are we from a time when anyone with a joystick can command a combat robot?
It really reminds me a lot of Largo from MegaTokyo and his army of Ph34rbots.. but on a serious note, however, I really do wonder. It would seem that, while these types of things are great in that they save lives ultimately, at the same time, they could ultimately be a supreme form of evil.
Even though bad things DO happen in any armed conflict, at least in this case, fields of robots battling it out, even if they are merely remote controlled, will keep real people from dying needlesly. However, again, how long before someone figures out how to gain control of these things and turn them against civilian populations, villages, cities, etc.
On a side note, what I really find funny is that, traditionally, the military is the last major area of manual labor that has NOT been severly affected by technology (in the sense of robots replacing workers as they have in manufacturing and other areas) and now, there exists a real possibility of the military being downsized due to robots replacing soldiers. Maybe the Teamsters can organize the military!
You will all now be treated to the "Evil Dead" as it was meant to be. As I envisioned it years ago, but had to compromise in the original's production due to budgetary constraints. Now, of course, money is no object, and thanks to digital effects, you shall see things that make the battle for Pellenor Fields look like a cub scout production.
After years of waiting, I can finally make my movie, my way.
Love,
Sam
Sorry, but you'll shoot your eye out, kid.
Note that they say TRADEMARKS of UNIX and UnixWare are not retained by Novell... NOT Trademarks and copyrights. it specifically says all copyrights and trademarks remain property of Novell, except for specifically the trademarks UNIX and UnixWare. Trademarks are logos and brand names, not source code or tangible items...
Exactly. MY fridge is the source of all fungus... What you get are the refugees from my fridgedaire kingdom that are a sad by-product of over-population and nonexistant birth control among the populace of my fridge...
Now, the fridge-freezer wars of '97, thats another story....
Go back and read that again... it specifically states that Novell will retain all copyrights and trademarks (except for the TRADEMARKS to Unix and UnixWare)... so SCO gets to own the names Unix and UnixWare, but not the copyrights...
At least as of the 1995 documents...
HA HA.. I never claimed to be a professional SQL coder... I just read a book once. ;-)
I wouldnt want a sql job either.. I had a single semester of sql in college and that was enough for me. But either way, I bow to your superior SQL skills...
then again, TOP doesnt exist in Oracle, AFAIK... which is all I have ever used (other than doing very basic stuff with postgres...)
Prolly more like this:
SELECT c.prod_name, c.prod_num FROM completed_orders c, temp_order t WHERE t.prod_num IN c.prod_num ORDER BY c.prod_num
But my SQL is a bit rusty
Nuclear reactors are safe, and the waste produced (and I mean real waste, after multiple reprocessing) is substantially less harmful to the population than the by-products of burning fossil fuels at an equivalent rate.
;-) But seriously, the pebble-bed reactors are a good idea. Just dont go as far as saying fool-proof. Especially when you are messing with things that could slowly kill millions should a better Fool come along.
Until said containment systems leak, leeching radioactive waste into the water table, spreading the waste throughout the local and potentially distant environments.
New reactor technologies (like pebble-bed reactors) are fool-proof and stunningly cost-effective versus heavy water reactor designs,
Yes they are, and actually DO represent the best bet for nuclear power at this point. Personally, I like the idea, and cant wait till the day I can have my own Mr. Fusion attached to my car
and could easily be deployed in proximity to high demand areas, eliminating the need for the (re)construction of a massive (nationwide) power transport grid.
Aye, and THIS is exactly why I like the idea of small scale nuke plants, unless something better can be made rationally. I think it is silly that a series of brown-outs and black-outs in one urban area could take down the power grid for 1/4 of the country and a large section of Canada as well.
Power grids should be localised, and not connected. Should there be a need to get power from a neighboring grid, then there could be infrastructure in place to provide that access, MANUALLY, so as to not shock the neighboring grid into emergency situations as well, when there is suddenly 2-3x the grid's usual drain being applied to it.
And contrary to your final question/statement, yes there ARE other options. hydroelectric in areas with heavy wave motion has been proven to provide a very good amount of power, with a virtually unending source of fuel (the ocean will always have waves). Mixes of solar and Wind power is a good choice, though admittedly DOES take up a huge chunk of real estate, but again, is pretty much 100% clean, and would be an excellent alternative or assistance to small commuities. Nuclear power is a good idea, but IS far more dangerous than solar, wind, hydroelectric, etc.
Someone earlier mentioned Hydrogen Fuel Cell style power plants, which is a possibility, but at the moment, the ability to make any sort of worthwhile power using fuel cell technology is quite cost prohibitive. One thing that hasnt been considered also, is low orbit solar.
Directed mirrors in space to reflect direct sunlight to solar collection points on the earth? or should the tech for the proposed space elevator come to pass, massive solar arrays could be deployed in low orbit and thethered to the elevator cable, transmitting unlimited solar power back to earth that way.
Actually, the things that made(make) this country great are things like innovation (Dems and Republicans alike seem to stifle this thanks to irrational patent and copyright laws), Personal Responsibility (Why be responsible for yourself, when liberals have so many social programs that will feed and clothe you for free?), and Self Respect (Hard to have self respect when one side panders to you, and the other side doesnt seem to care all that much).
Maybe if the gap between rich and poor keeps expanding,
The gap? It is a sad thing, but, and from the way the majority
the national deficit balloons even higher,
Why is that? Its because both dems and republicans alike add useless porkbarrel spending to unrelated bills...
the average wage drops even lower,
I dont know about you, but my average salary over the last 4 years has gone up by 10 grand...
the trade deficit continues to soar,
Which only exists because we allow foreign companies with VERY CHEAP labor to sell their very cheap items here, while they either prevent or heavily tax US made producs in their countries...
the air and water go to shit,
That has been happeneing for years, and while I dont like it any more than you do, its not Bush's fault, nor is it the Republicans fault... Democrats are also responsible for that one...
civil rights are further eroded in the name of 'safety'
Oddly enough, BOTH sides ALSO blanketly supported this stuff without even reading it. So who is more to blame for this? Bush's administration for suggesting things like USAPATRIOT and such, or the full congress: Democrats, Republicans, and Others for rubberstamping it through while publically saying what a great thing it is for American security??
enough troops die for weapons that don't exist and fake ties to terrorism...
Oddly enough, Kerry was PUBLICALLY All for the war too. Dont forget that. He only became against it when he decided to run for president. And while I would like to see NO troops die, they seem to be proud of the things they have done that dont get reported here, thanks to a biased media, like, providing electricty, water, and phone service to places that have never had electricity, water, or phones. Building and repairing schools for children who can now grow up in a system that will not brain wash them as was in place before. you know, little inconsequential things like that.
maybe then this country will open its eyes and make a change.
This country DID open its eyes, and DID make a change. Daschle is out. (well we can thank South Dakota for that one...)
Bush has a higher popular vote than even Reagan did...
ahhh.. OK... I was afraid I had missed something big that caused such an uproar on ... oh wait... this is Slashdot after all ;-)
I have owned two iPods now... one 2G 20Gig iPod and one 3G 20Gig iPod and in both cases I had no problems getting the songs off the ipod.
I mean, under XP, just like others mentioned, I just drag and drop, making sure that I have the "Show Hidden Files" option checked. On my linux boxen its even easier as they dont particularly care for the DOS hidden attribute...
On my linux machines, I just mount the iPods and cd to the appropriate directory and cp -R * to wherever I want them to go.
Is this some kind of new 4G thing? I really didnt think it was THAT difficult. In fact, I had more trouble getting my firewire card to work under linux than I did in getting the iPods seen.
sweet... thanks a lot! YOu would think that the "major" sites would offer this as well, but I suppose that would detract from the hit count that they can use to show just how popular their coverage was...
Finding ongoing online coverage should be fairly easy, but what about getting recurrant updates via text messages, SMS or whatever?
I would love to get updates throughout the day via my cell. Anyone have any sites that provide text message updates for election day?
It seems to me, as I read that article that what he is really saying is this:
Piracy is bad! People in underdeveloped countries use Internet cafes because they cant afford computers of their own. In India and china there are 5 times as many hotmail users as their are computers. Therefore, if we force hardware companies to sell $100 computers to all these people, we (M$) will have 5 times as many new people to charge for our software.
It really sounds like he is very uncleverly hiding a vie for market share in a "Raa! Raa! Piracy is Bad, WOOOOHAAAAAAAAA!" kind of speech.
I fail to see the connection between current piracy levels and the creation of a HUGE new market for MS to sell their crap.
Go back to sleep...
The Gov't that you say is the only one who really needs the SS number IS the one that provided said number to UC Berkeley. RTFA. The SSS# and all personal info that Berkeley was using and had access to was provided to them by the California Govt, without the consent of the people whos info was being shared.
If there is a wakeup call for anything it is that there should be a fight to keep the govt from farming out personal info like this to every Tom, Bill, and Larry that asks for it in the guise of research, or whatever.
If nothing else, The govt should have in place an opt in (note I said opt IN, not opt OUT) option for citizens who dont mind their info being shared, and also the option to choose HOW MUCH info is being shared.
Govt organization to Govt organization is one thing, but for a govt to give personal info like this to some University, or Business, or whatever is deplorable.
What really puts it into perspective is you using 300 baud modems in 94-95... on a c64... most of the rest of us were using at least 28.8 at that point, and IIRC, the 56K modems came out not too much after that, and some of us, a lot, probably, were using 33.6 modems...
One word...
NixPix
I had a friend who ran up am 800 dollar phone bill calling nixpix BBS in Chicago to get pr0n... he hated it when I showed him a local board that offerend pretty much the entire nixpix repository of nakedness... heh...
We are the same age, but I didnt get into BBSs until about 86 or 87, when the first 386s became available. My first PC was an old Packard Bell 386 that was turbocharged to 16MHz and came with a massive 4 megs ram... heheh... and lucky me, it also came as a package deal with a 1200Bps modem.
My first computer was a TRS-80 that my dad got for me from Radio Shack back in the day, about 82 or so.
I took some adult con-ed programming classes at Roanoke College when I was 9 years old, and have loved tech ever since.
I hate it, but I agree with you WRT today's "professionals". Admittedly, I am a self schooled, college dropout (but I AM back in school to finish that coveted piece of parchment) and know more than many of the people I meet in this field... Sadly, I worked previously at a certain NC based distro, and was in the position of interviewing and assisting with hiring decisions for people in my dept, and much to my chagrin, I discovered that my boss, who was a great manager, but too willing to be nice to people, was hiring Linux newbies at a significant amount more than I was paid, even as a team lead, escalation point, etc etc... And the MSCE bunch is another story all together. Granted, I have met some MCSEs who actually do know what they are doing, but I have met FAR MORE who do little more than regurgitate stuff they read in a book, and can tell you all about tweaking this or that without actually knowing WHY tweaking this or that fixes a certain issue.
But that really can be said for pretty much any certification outside of RHCE and Cisco's Certs, as there arent many that are focused on Hands ON demonstration of skill as opposed to just rote memorization and answering multi-choice questions on some web form.
I am just thinking, future antenna farm, provided that XYL can be convinced that the large metal towers in the back yard are a necessity... :-)