Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Clean room implementation? (Score 1) 223

Doesn't the Linux kernel group hold a very similar stance in that you cannot use the kernels internal APIs without breaching copyright and thus falling under the GPL as a derivative work?

Not really. TL;DR: Linus doesn't say so, and he holds the trademark, so he gets to decide what makes "Linux(tm)".

Comment Re:So Floyd Mayweather's $200M+ for one hour of wo (Score 2) 272

Through the labor of others? He & Pacquiano didn't "earn it"? Who did Michael Jordan (billionaire) oppress? How about Oprah Winfrey?

Yay, you can find a tiny handful of examples of people who support your argument! But most of the people who support mine, you'll never know their names, they're just in the background making money while you pay for it.

And while you piss and moan about "useless ignorant fucks", they're actually the great equalizer: you should be *hoping* these billionaires have stupid children to whom they leave their money just so that they can piss it all away in a mad bout of consumerism.

Unfortunately, they often wind up just shuffling that money between themselves, and it never trickles down to us poor ignorant saps in the trenches. It should not be a news bulletin to you that trickle-down economics does not work, but that's precisely what you're arguing. The truth is that the rich don't buy stuff from poor people. They shop on different streets than poor people, let alone in different stores.

Comment Re:Trust in the IT department (Score 1) 110

The problem is that he didn't trust his IT department so he went around them. THAT is the root of the problem.

Yeah, his trust issues caused me a problem.

The fact that he got owned later on is merely the symptom of the problem.

No, the fact it got owned later on is how we know he's not as smart as he thinks he is.

Comment Re:An aid or a barrier? (Score 1) 110

And hey, at least you can enjoy a warez site, right?

Oh no, the absolute best part was that because the guy was the boss' friend, I didn't even get to do the post-mortem on the machine that got owned, which means I didn't even get access to the warez. Well, no. The absolute best part was that I got blamed for the server existing, because stuff like that was my job. Lesson learned: firewall outgoing traffic, even in a small org where surely that would be more hassle than it would provide actual technical reward? (I could literally walk to all the desks and had only one person beneath me.) Be more BOFH, not less, because that is the only way to CYA. And if people don't like it, they ought to remember that they get the IT department that they deserve.

Comment Re:Why no trust in the IT department? (Score 1) 110

The question you should be asking is why didn't he go to his IT department first?

Yeah, I asked that question, I didn't get an answer. As it turned out it had entirely to do with him being a) arrogant and b) buddy-buddy with the boss, so he got away with it. He was just a special snowflake who thought he knew better than me, but he was obviously wrong. But he went to school with the boss.

There has to be a reason he thought his buddy would be more helpful.

You misread that. He undertook to raise the server on his own, he got away with creating a warez site by doing something I was supposed to do because he was friends with the boss.

Yes IT can help get it right but that is not the problem. The problem is that they are seen as a barrier rather than an aid. They say "no" rather than "why don't we try this instead".

Bullshit. They say no to specific requests which are stupid. They don't say no when you come to them and ask them how you can accomplish something. You're upset for the IT department not answering the right questions when they're being asked the wrong ones. Stop coming to the IT department like you know what you're doing, tell them what you need to do, and you'll get the results you're looking for. Also, come to them when you first know that you have an IT need, not at the last minute. You're creating your own problems.

Comment Re:$70000 is poorest? (Score 1) 272

Keep that sh*t up and we'll civil war and yeah. Everything is as you want it.

In a war between haves and have-nots, the have-nots have one thing: gross numerical superiority. The haves have seen to that. Which returns to my earlier statement: Share your wealth with us, or we will share our poverty with you. There will be a class war. When that happens, the wealthy burn along with the poor, and we all lose.

Comment WTF indeed (Score 1) 344

The final threat for Google's Android may be the most pernicious: What if a significant number of the people who adopted Android as their first smartphone move on to something else as they become power users?

WTF

That was my reaction as well. That is precisely the opposite of how it works. If you become a Power User, you go Android, because that's the only phone in the game so far where you can build the system yourself from sources. By definition, the more of a power user you are, the more you're going to be an Android user.

Comment Re:Computers Kill Trees (Score 0) 128

Feel free to come to my farm and bring your measuring tape and hypsometer.

I don't have to; I can read and other people have done the studies for me, as you can see in the links I posted in the prior discussion. People with credibility, unlike yourself. People who have actually done peer-reviewed studies, unlike yourself. I don't fall into the fallacy of thinking I'm smarter than everyone — that's why I looked it up.

Comment Re:$70000 is poorest? (Score 2) 272

Why? Do you think theft is a virtuous goal to pursue?

I think sharing and cooperation are virtuous goals. The rich didn't earn what they have: for the most part, it is predicated directly upon the suffering of others, and it was mostly earned through the labor of others. And for what? So that people can stack up numbers in their bank accounts? Money they will never spend? Maybe they'll leave it to some progeny so that they can grow up to be useless, ignorant fucks as well?

Comment Re:An aid or a barrier? (Score 1) 110

GP makes a good point though, and actually both IT and the business often perceive the IT department as "plumbing".

Yeah, that's not the problem. The IT department is plumbing. The problem is that shitting is considered essential, so nobody grumbles about paying for plumbing because they know they need to shit, but nobody seems to realize that IT is also essential. It's not a value-add, it's a value-enabler. Without it, you don't have a business.

If a business guy tells you: "I need an FTP server", your answer shouldn't be "no way in hell", but "what is it you really need?".

They didn't even ask, they just set it up, and then it got owned because they didn't know half as much as they thought they did. And that's why we IT workers don't want people thinking they know what they're doing. Mostly they don't.

Comment Fact doesn't have to make sense... (Score 3, Insightful) 246

...only fiction. Like that "Feral Kid" theory.

Fact on the other hand is that the Director/Writer of ALL MAD MAX MOVIES, George Miller... doesn't give much fuck about continuity.

You know that character in the MM2 played by Bruce Spence, the gyrocopter pilot? Who ends up going with the convoy to the North and becoming the chief of the "Great Northern Tribe" at the end of the second movie?
Not the same character as Jedediah the pilot in the third movie, THOUGH he's also played by Bruce Spence and also has an aircraft and is a pilot.

George Miller doesn't give much fuck about continuity.

Slashdot Top Deals

As long as we're going to reinvent the wheel again, we might as well try making it round this time. - Mike Dennison

Working...