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Mod Parent up. I was going to point out the same thing. Use the proper tools for the job. The granparent's employer is at fault there. If you're using phd's to code then its not the phd's fault.

Why the heck will they make toilet seats out of such a material? or toilet paper for that matter?
The parent mentioned "accidentally". You do not sit on a toilet seat "accidentally" or use toilet paper "accidentally".
What will your next suggestion be? "This stuff would be really uncomfortable to sleep on instead of my regular bed?"
I hope you are the first and last person to suggest such stupid uses.
Use your brain, damnit.

True. Parent is so right.

Almost once in every 2 or 3 days, an article from the nytimes is being posted on slashdot. And some of the most interesting articles are from the nytimes.

If you don't want to register, don't. But stop offering your stupid no reg links.
And 2-3 stupid slashdotters get modded up for posting the no reg link and flaming nytimes.
Mods, get a clue. If the slashdot editors cared, they could do a 2 sec search for the no reg link on google news and post that link instead of the reg req link..they don't care. Registering won't get you molested by martians.
Use your mod points on something more useful.

Who's said that the average home user is on a 500 celeron? Pulling these figures out of thin air?

4 years back, upgrading to 600-700 Celeron was average. 3 years back 900-1 Ghz Athlon systems were average. And this wasn't even in the us.
Even average home users on second hand laptops are probably on 600-1.2 P III's.
Processor speed for intel/amd home desktops now is around 2.6-2.8 Ghz. Average age of a home desktop is 2.5-3 years before it is upgraded/new one is bought.

You didn't read the Logitech case??

The problem is NOT bandwidth. The problem is having enough servers for a single time offering-a contest. Logitech is probably going to run that contest during christmas time next year. Why should they invest a buttload of money and time in buying servers, configuring them, hiring personnel in maintaining them when they need it ONCE a year? That is gross wastage of money.

Thats why they hire companies like Akamai.
Stop talking out of your ass.

Listen dude. Get your facts clear. I don't care if the parent made a point or no. I like my TV.

You think IBM, Microsoft are going to sit and broadcast my Spurs basketball games, Formula1 racing, the WRC rally in New Zealand, Jeff Corwin on Animal Planet??

You are just taking the big companies into account. There are *thousands* of smaller companies like local news stations, small production companies that contribute or make TV programs. Did you take them into account? No.

As for the tech companies- you need them for pretty much every industry. From restaurants to phone companies to cruise ship building.

Comparing them is like comparing apples to oranges.

When was the last time you went to ibm.com, ate dinner and spent half an hour laughing?

"Ford and GM *each* made more money than the entire entertainment industry"

Where did you get these figures from? Ford made a loss last year(financial year) and GM is making decent profits only because of Ditech(General Motors Mortgage).

And yes, I'm talking about net figures because gross income is bullshit. You can earn 50 billion but if your expenditures and liabilities exceed that, it doesn't mean a damn.

People use the net a lot more but they still want their TV.

.
so now you know who's been frolicking with tub girl ;)

This guy was the one who bought the domain name *after* MS was established. If there is a starbucks, and you startup starbuks, you are pretty much going to be notified for copyright infringement.

What they offered him was not the question, its because he knew what he was doing in the first place- that this name would infringe on MS's copyright.
It doesn't matter if the company is a 200 billion dollar company or a 20 million dollar one.

Why isn't there such a hue and cry or even an article on slashdot when intel sues intellite?
Just because its MS, its being blown out of proportion.
Sensationalism.

MS will win this one. The offer was insulting but there are a few precedents regarding cases like these.
Jesus, the lawyers are being paid more per hour to write that infringement notice than he is being paid for his website. MS should just pay him 2-5k and shut the case. It'll be forgotten in a day or two.

Thanks for the link my friend. Very interesting read.
This article also contains what Im trying to highlight,
"Although many of its own citizens struggle to make do, the Saudi government sends about two billion dollars a year in aid to other Islamic countries, building mosques and madrassas, underwriting religious universities, distributing books and tracts, funding charities--and supporting jihad".

I agree. Before you consider talking about geek stuff, consider that this is a country that does not allow other religions other than islam to be followed here. I mean, how pathetic is that?

Next, a lot of money is/was spent on weapons. And I mean a fucking ton. They bought 25 billion worth of weapons and they fucking don't have enough trained people to use them.

In many war torn/ impoverished countries where there are muslims, the saudis go and pay handsome amounts of money to build mosques.
It doesn't matter that a school or other infrastructure might benefit more than a place of worship. No, a big mosque will be built while there are ruins all around it.

And that is the case not only in those countries but also in the us. Pretty much everywhere see islamic extremism, saudi money is funding it.
Islamic extremist teachers were earlier granted diplomatic visas and were attached to the saudi embassy when they came to preach in the us.
This practise was stopped after the us investigated this practise(wsj, nytimes).
In Oct or nov,2003 there was a similar report in dw-tv(dw-world.de) in its people and politics programme.
The saudis setup a school and 2 hours a day! was dedicated to islamic studies while other subjects such as maths, sciences etc were half hour.
Such kind of education is not allowed in germany.
But it was going on because of diplomatic immunity.

The saudis are funding the arabs in sudan to continue the civil war.

They import foreigners to do a lot of technical jobs and then tell the native saudis that they are going to kick the foreigners out because the saudi citizens should get jobs.
There are so many jobless saudis within the royal family. All fucking leeching off that oil money.

Maybe the saudis would progress in engineering if they didn't teach so hours teaching extremism in the first place.

But we have to remember this- saudi arabia is a very strategic country. Oil==money.
oil is not something that the world is going to stop using tomorrow. Countries have to engage saudi arabia in dialogue or if that doesn't work,
switch investments and buy oil from iraq.

Countries like bahrain, qatar is something saudi arabia should learn from.
Don't believe the above statements? Use your friend-google.

too lazy..
Dell

Just wondering.. did you have the same network experience before you setup shop or while you were running that shop? Did you current employer hire you on the basis that you ran a computer business for 8 years and knew networking?

I'm not saying working for somebody else is bad.
Its just that sometimes you have to go through the grind of life to get to a stage where you can sit and and reminisce about your hard days. Good luck.

Maybe the next time you go home on that route transfer the goatse image on the pc's and printers.

On a serious note, is there any protection for bluetooth devices like there is for wifi?

the Internet makes a map out of you.

Where does the question of 2 $ come in?

McDonald's Billion-Song iTunes Giveaway.

This is a great oppurtunity for car manufacturers like honda, toyota, gm(especially) etc to get on in this act.

They already sponsor stuff like Future Truck etc.
Think about it. Toyota unveiled the self parking system in the new hybrid Prius. I bet it must have cost more than a million to develop it.
If car makers take over the sponsorship, they could get a butt load of expertise for peanuts.
But Im guessing is that many big companies ( Carnegie Mellon's team has a budget of 20 million) are helping out because it will give them a toehold in the lucrative defense business.

If a car maker(foreign) sponsors it, then I don't know whether that interest will remain.

When you have such a vast array of information at your fingertips, there is a potential for mischief.
You could have robots trolling this section all day.
Uhuh. Security. Whose?

What's your point? You think Amazon is a dishonest porn site that takes your credit card information and disappears the next day?
If that's your mentality, how are you surfing the web?

Yeah, I want to be financially secure too !

What the fsck's your point man? What does amazon demanding your credit card number for security have to do with you "wanting to be financially secure"? How did you even get modded up in the first place?

A few million people shop through amazon. You think unauthorized purchases and fradulent credit card transactions show up every month on their statements?

Jeez, get a life dude.

Its camera is not still 640x480.
Sony Ericsson can do better in this dept.

When most people get camera phones, their picture taking interest drops exponentially after the first 1-2 weeks. If the camera resolution is higher(1 megapixel), like the 505i, FOMA terminals that NTTDocomo offers (nttdocomo.com), then it might make the camera offering worthwhile.

Other than that, I'd say its a decent phone.

Running scandisk on a 40GB disk takes a buttload of time.
I don't wanna try running scandisk on this 300GB beast.

Even after partitions.

Heh.. same in my school. From the 4th to the 9th grade, fountain pens were compulsory. Nothing else was allowed. If you did hw with any other pen, you had to do it again. After that dot pens or whatever. But most people started using roller ball and gel pens.

I've been using ink pens since the 4th grade. When you have a nice writing fountain pen, you cherish it a lot. I know I did. I used the same ink pen from 6-9th grade. Losing stationery was the norm at that time but the ink pen was very dear to me.

I bought 2 ink pens with kind of smooth nibs but if you need to use one from the start for heavy writing( like me) , then sandpapering makes sense.

Rolling ball pens get smoother with age too. In 9-12 th grade, during exams, I used to use Pilot V5's. Before the start of the exams, they were kind of rough when you wrote cursively, but by the time you finished the 2 weeks, the pen would feel like it was gliding on velvet. Same experience in college.
Im still too young to splurge on high quality fountain pens but I do have a liking for fountain pens and watches.

There was a related story (sorta) to this Why Johnny Can't Handwrite a few months earlier.

When I was in school, we had to do a buttload of writing. Then I came to college in mi. I think I did more writing in the 5th grade than I did in 3 years at college. If it wasn't on computer, I probably wouldn't touch it.
The only stuff was signing credit card bills at convenience stores and taking the odd note in class.
Now I've taken a break and am studying by myself(maths, phy, elec engineering). I finish a 160 page double side A4 size notebook in about 10 days. I've used up about quite a few of those notebooks(>30). Biggest problem here is not writing but motivation. But I digress.
My hands hurt too when I did that much writing but I am used to it now. You gotta take it slowly just like the gym regimen.
Writing is best done with a fountain pen, rolling ball or gel pens. If you are going to write a lot, ballpoint pens are the worst.
Ballpoints are made for convenience. The viscosity of the ink is what tires the palm and elbow faster than the the rest.

Whenever I buy a fountain pen, I buy extra nibs. If the nib is smooth, nice; otherwise I use fine sandpaper. Sometimes this works, sometimes not.
I use Hero pens( Hero). Its pens and nibs are cheap. Availability is not a problem.
I've also used parker and schaeffer cartridge pens. Instead of buying new cartridges everytime, get a syringe and a nice ink bottle to refill the cartridges.
Rolling balls are nice but nearly everybody just uses and disposes them. It is actually possible to take the nib contraption out and refill its ink. Pilot makes rolling ball ink but its not sold in the states. Each of its 15 ml bottle is good for 8-10 refills.
Uniball's are decent too but not really suited for cursive writing.

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This was a reply to the article(http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/user/view/cs_ msg/24782)

"the vast majority of those folks that lost their jobs over the past three years shouldn't have had a job doing what they were doing in the first place and the (lack of) success of the companies that they worked for and the "products" they produced showed that.

The amount of fly-by-night IT "professionals" that were born in the dot-com days was retarded. And now that companies are no longer hiring just to fill slots so that their company could break the 1000 employee mark in 30 days or less or so that the manager above them would be happy that they filled a position with "someone", people are looking for answers.

As with any bad situation, there has been plenty of collatoral damage, with good IT folks getting the boot. But the vast majority of so called "technolgists" that are out of work really don't belong in the industry in the first place.

Your article trying to "find a new place" for these folks is a sad attempt at trying to make them feel good about their situation. Maybe if they really want a job in the IT industry, they should build some real skills." -anonymous

article. Over Reliance on windows not good for national security.