Comment Re:Aliens among us... (Score 1) 181
I prefer to refer to them as outdoorsy.
Comment Warp Drive (Score 2) 181
How much would it suck to collide with a randomly floating planet as you're ripping around the cosmos at warp 9?
Comment To explore strange new worlds... (Score 1) 141
Starfleet - you knew it was coming.
Comment From a CIO's perspective (Score 2) 1307
I am the CIO/CTO of a major medical organization. Had you plugged that server in on my network without authorization from IT, without a security audit performed, and without any compliance auditing performed - you'd be looking for a new job. That being said, I completely understand the desire for tinkering and providing a good solution to your colleagues and peers. But, to do that without consulting the IT department is very inconsiderate. They are working their asses off to make sure that everything is working as it should, while managing user complaints, hardware failures, asset tracking, data retention policies, and a myriad of other odds and ends. By plugging in that server, you've just undermined everything that they are doing. You're putting an untested application onto a network that you're not familiar with and hoping it doesn't break anything - without any consideration of the port mapping schema, or IP addressing schema that is in place.
The next time you're feeling technically savvy, my recommendation would be to consult your IT department beforehand. At the very least, you should be severely reprimanded for your actions. You are jeopardizing the reliability and security of hospital systems with your little project.
Comment You suck. (Score 1) 542
This is the most depressing submission of the day. I could rant and rave about how humanity will overcome the barriers put before us, or perhaps about the evolution of technology. I could go out on a limb and say that all of the world's physicists are wrong, and that faster than light travel is indeed a possibility. But, I think I will take one from the page of the submitter and keep this concise:
You suck.
Submission + - "Rising IT productivity" = More Work, Less Respect (itworld.com) 2
jfruhlinger writes: "When hear that IT productivity is on the rise, that sounds like good news, right? Well, blogger Kevin Fogarty thinks that, for the actual IT folks in the trenches, it means fewer people doing more work and getting less respect."
Submission + - The Pirate Bay Acquires eBay (torrentfreak.com) 1
mlauzon writes: "TorrentFreak is reporting that The Pirate Bay has purchased eBay. From the article:
Here’s an announcement we don’t read every day. As of today The Pirate Bay is the proud owner of eBay. The torrent site plans to use eBay technology to code a better rating system for torrents. How much was paid for the auction site is still a mystery.
TorrentFreak talked to one of The Pirate Bay crew members who told us that they had to find a legitimate investment for the billions of dollars they’ve made from annoying pop-under ads, and this appeared to be a decent option."
Here’s an announcement we don’t read every day. As of today The Pirate Bay is the proud owner of eBay. The torrent site plans to use eBay technology to code a better rating system for torrents. How much was paid for the auction site is still a mystery.
TorrentFreak talked to one of The Pirate Bay crew members who told us that they had to find a legitimate investment for the billions of dollars they’ve made from annoying pop-under ads, and this appeared to be a decent option."
Comment Staples (Score 1) 218
This is precisely the reason that Staples now makes you fill out a liability waiver on any merchandise return that could potentially contain personal data. The merchandise is then given to their in-store technician (I use that term loosely) for a data wipe. This usually consists of running an OEM recovery, which as many of you know will do absolutely nothing for you if the device falls into the hands of someone remotely competent with computers. This all stemmed from a major lawsuit because a customer returned a machine with income tax information on it. Turns out that the customer that purchased the computer afterwards found the information and notified the original customer. Needless to say, Staples ended up settling out of court for an undisclosed amount of money. If I recall correctly, they paid out approximately ten settlements before implementing the waiver.
Comment Re:Ha Ha (Score 2) 1251
To quote George Carlin:
Religion convinced the world that there's an invisible man in the sky who watches everything you do. And there's 10 things he doesn't want you to do or else you'll to to a burning place with a lake of fire until the end of eternity. But he loves you! ...And he needs money! He's all powerful, but he can't handle money!
Sounds like a bi-polar god to me.
Comment Re:No (Score 1) 370
It's one of those "Don't call me, I'll call you" cards.
Comment Re:Doesn't mean much as long as the optics still s (Score 1) 192
It's always been a rule of thumb called the "Three Stop Rule"
If you stop your lens down by three stops from wide open, you'll generally experience the highest degree of sharpness that the lens has to offer.
Comment Re:They're black! (Score 1) 192
This was in response to Nikon's redesign of the same lens. The primary purpose, for Nikon at least, was to improve the Vibration Reduction feature in the lens and help combat the vignetting that was occurring on full frame bodies. While they were at it, they redesigned the barrel of the lens and improved the nanocoating on the elements. When these lenses were introduced Nikon was not producing a full frame digital SLR, so they were able to cut some corners and produce a lens that was amazingly versatile and retained a high degree of optical precision - a must have for sports, wedding, and journalistic photographers.
I can't speak for Canon, as I am a Nikon guy, but I would assume that their redesign was for similar reasons. That being said, I have always found that using full frame lenses on a crop sensor digital SLR (99% of the time) yields phenomenal results, as your sensor is always hitting the "Sweet Spot" on the lens.
Comment Outrageous (Score 1) 155
A global law enforcement agency just serves to usurp the rights of a nations citizens by rendering a nations laws harmless. While this may be in the best interest of large corporations, it is most certainly not in the best interest of the majority of internet users. This system will be abused, taken advantage of, and otherwise misrepresented to back the agendas and interests of organizations. Should this actually happen, which I highly doubt, I see a lot of innocent individuals getting crucified by this agency.
Comment Throw a stick in the wheels! (Score 1) 268
Seeing as how you can only pirate an application if you have a jailbroken iPhone, why not implement a feature that nags the heck out of the pirate?
I think it is fairly safe to say that most people with jailbroken iPhones have left the default root password in place, it should be possible to place a nice gigantic message on their lock screen, or even change their wallpaper to something less than glamorous. Make it inconvenient.
Submission + - Church of Scientology violates Federal Law (rapidshare.com) 5
FreedomToThink writes: "This is a very long story I'm sure the editors will have fun with, but I couldn't see how to cut it down at all.
On the eve of the Ides of March protest, from the source of the recent 'Anonymous' submitted CCHR leak on wikileaks, comes this message
Included was yet another PDF this time including yet more emails leaked from a Church of Scientology front group.
Vote Rigging?
Lunch with your preferred Presidential candidates for a high price?
From the head of the "Non Proffit" CCHR Bruce Wiseman
Currently, the law prohibits political campaign activity by charities and churches by defining a 501(c)(3) organization as one "which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office."
An OCMB (Operation Clambake Message Board)regular adds :
Apologies in advance as the Enturbulation servers will not be up to a slashdotting so the Coral Cache link is here Enturbulation Discussion (already cached for you)
ANYONE CAN REPORT TAX FRAUD DIRECTLY TO THE IRS : http://www.irs.gov/compliance/enforcement/article/0,,id=106778,00.html It does require that you print out and mail in an actual hardcopy, but it does not require you to identify yourself.
Just a casual user passing on a message from the Enturbulation forum, this is already out there, there's no reason to attack the messenger."
On the eve of the Ides of March protest, from the source of the recent 'Anonymous' submitted CCHR leak on wikileaks, comes this message
"Dear $cientology,You attempt injunctions.I respond.Shall we continue the game? Much Love, DEEP CLAM"
Included was yet another PDF this time including yet more emails leaked from a Church of Scientology front group.
Vote Rigging?
From: "Mike Kaplan" <mkaplan@tampabay.rr.com>
To: <Undisclosed-Recipient:;>
Subject: Fw: RE-ELECT FRANK HIBBARD, MAYOR OF CLEARWATER
Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 11:53:07 -0400
See below. Everyone in Clearwater MUST vote. Every vote will be needed to be
sure Hibbard gets re-elected. The alternative is Rita Garvey who is an SP.
— Original Message —
From: Shelly <mailto:shelly.bauer@Earthlink.net> Bauer
To: Shelly Bauer <mailto:shelly.bauer@earthlink.net>
Sent: Sunday, January 06, 2008 8:09 AM
Subject: RE-ELECT FRANK HIBBARD, MAYOR OF CLEARWATER
DO YOUR PART
RE-ELECT FRANK HIBBARD
MAYOR OF CLEARWATER
VOTE!!!
JANUARY 29TH
TAKE NOTHING FOR GRANTED!
Lunch with your preferred Presidential candidates for a high price?
ONE SEAT LEFT
I have arranged a private one-hour luncheon with Ron Paul on 11/28 in St.
Pete when he will be in town for the CNN/YouTube Republican debate.
This luncheon is reserved for $1000+ donors to Ron Paul's presidential
campaign. 19 people so far have paid and confirmed and will have the honor
and pleasure of having lunch and communicating with Ron Paul directly.
From the head of the "Non Proffit" CCHR Bruce Wiseman
Go the the HELP committee website. The link is here.
http://help.senate.gov/About.html
Here you will see the names of the Committee members on the left hand
side
of the page. Please go to the individual websites of the Republican =
members
(this will take just a bit of leg work on your part by putting their =
name
into Google) and calling their office or sending a fax to them (email is =
the
least effective) stating your opposition to S. 1375 The Mother's Act.
Currently, the law prohibits political campaign activity by charities and churches by defining a 501(c)(3) organization as one "which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office."
An OCMB (Operation Clambake Message Board)regular adds
I downloaded myself a copy and started looking through them. I found an interesting one on pages 47-48.
http://rapidshare.com/files/99292051/CCHRLeak3.pdf.html
Karin Pouw of OSA of CofS writes a message.
It's forwarded by Michael Genung. He's the guy who runs ACSR, Association for Citizens Sociel Reform. http://www.citizensforsocialreform.org/ ["CSR Background and Philosopy: CSR was founded in 2001 by a group of Scientologists and other like-minded individuals concerned with the escalating social ills in society. CSR's purpose is to work with in the field of public policy to bring about more effective and humane solutions to these social ills of illiteracy, criminality substance abuse and general decay of character."]
Then it's forwarded by Doyle Mills, of LEAF fame (Letters to the Editor Attack Force).
Then it's forwarded by Mary C. (possibly one of two Mary C's I'm thinking of, but unsure).
Then it's forwarded by Mike Kaplan, another person who runs an email list and forwards CCHR type stuff to CofS members.
If that ain't stringing a line from the CofS to CCHR and the CofS front group ("grassroots") movements, then I don't know what is!
Apologies in advance as the Enturbulation servers will not be up to a slashdotting so the Coral Cache link is here Enturbulation Discussion (already cached for you)
ANYONE CAN REPORT TAX FRAUD DIRECTLY TO THE IRS : http://www.irs.gov/compliance/enforcement/article/0,,id=106778,00.html It does require that you print out and mail in an actual hardcopy, but it does not require you to identify yourself.
Just a casual user passing on a message from the Enturbulation forum, this is already out there, there's no reason to attack the messenger."
