Agreed. You should really research the comments. If you did you would find that equating MS to *nix is a false statement, though it gains more weight if you incorrectly categorize Macs as a *nix.

A well thought out response.

The reason that most of family has migrated away from Windows has to do with the XP to Vista/7 disease.

That would include BrotherA (2 PCs, 1 laptop, 1 Netbook), BrotherB (1 PC, 1 Netbook), Father (2PCs, 1 laptop), StepSis (1PC, 1Laptop), and WifeA (2Laptops).

They (the group above) often asked about the various things that I had going on on my machines, and I would explain how it works, and why Windows could not do it, but blah blah blah. Despite having AV/Malware detection installed and a local proxy service (BlueCoat K9) the machines would need to be scrubbed down and/or have crapware uninstalled semi-annually. So far, we at nearly a year, and no problem calls. The users above use the following functions of their PC's:

1. Wifi connectivity (out of the box)
2. Photo editing
3. Video editing
4. Internet usage including Flash games
5. Office applications (Word processing, spreadsheets, small databases)
6. Various small end CAD systems used in CodeWeavers (AutoDesk Lite if I remember correctly)
7. Cell Modem/AirCard connectivity
8. Media consumption (DVD, AVI, MP3 etc)

The one common usage that they don't do is PC Gaming for WoW, EverCrack or anything else...

The actual case was for sexual harassment. The accuser made the error of thinking that the fellatio article would be the strongest piece of evidence, rather than the coworker's repeated complaints about unwelcome touching and comments.

The attack on the article is ludicrous. If the guy who wrote the article is a creep, then he should probably be censured.

New flash. The above sell what people want to buy.

Starbucks proves that coffee can sell at a premium. McD's starts selling coffee.

If you don't buy it, they don't sell it. Good food is just as cheap as fast food. You just have to work harder to get it, because it doesn't sell as well. Deal.

There are lots of things that you can do to help kids not be so fat.

1. Go to the local Boys and Girls club. Spend some time trying to volunteer or helping with events.
2. Talk to your local swim club, wrestling club, runner's club, soccer club, t-ball club, pop warner league about their outreach. Spend time with them recruiting kids, doing expositions, or donate cash to sponsor low-income kids or teams.
3. Boys Scouts, Girls Scouts, Explorers etc are always looking for speakers, demonstrations, or leaders.

The problem (as I see it) is that a great many people spend a lot of time bitching about the status quo and saying choice things like "There oughta be a law." when it is far more effective for you to get off your ass. This also helps the overall fatty to not-so-fatty ratio.

An excellent example is Dynamic Source NATing based on the both the source and Dest. GUi's have alternated between screwing it up and making magic. In some cases, if you didn't know how to CLI you were led to believe that it was impossible.

Yes. That's by design, believe it or not the Internet still operates around rules that were in place in 1995. Sorry 'bout that. Unfortunately, the telepathic OS and Application sense UI hasn't been developed yet.

Every player has one. I personally like the concept of CSM(Cisco) and Juniper(NSM) both of those tools will allow for consistent portions of the policy across several devices while allowing you to change the hierarchy when necessary for a section or rule to take precedence locally. The things that I think they have over CheckPoint Provider-1 (1) Common ports and protocols, nothing new to allow for NSM, or CSM (2)The configs can include things like SNMP servers and routes.

Caveat: CSM interface stinks. CSM4.0 is looking better, but who knows when that goes GA?

Look into the above. Also take a look at Palo Alto, and Cisco NSM (for uber-large deployments)

No. If you did, it would suck. Anybody who said they were writing such a tool would get a guffaw from me. Icky, Icky.

It would almost certainly be broken. Currently there are plenty o ways to administer your devices using objects. You can also create Objects that have multiple attributes such that you can drop an object into another object (a group) and then republish the ruleset and get the access that you desire. However, using this sort of shorthand is the kind of stuff that can get you to fail a pen test. However, if you balance it right you can get a lot of work done by a few FW admins, and still maintain a relatively high level of security. (For examples on how a template system for server types and drag and drop would be broken, please refer to just about any firewall and DNS enforcement in a Windows environment.) Also, most FW management platforms have GUI that illustrate the network as the management platform sees it. First thing that a competent FW admin does is turn the thing off for two reasons, 1. The diagram is wrong. 2. It sucks up resources on the manager and on the client (My workstation)

Cisco, and Checkpoint do this with AAA rules. The cascade through multiple firewalls is stupid because if you're dealing with something that secure that you have to go through multiple layers then hopefully you're using multiple auth factors, one of which should be time limited (SecurID). You won't be able to re-use the authorization token. Palo Alto does this but requires that you depend on an AD polling service and that you have your auth groups set up in AD properly, and know one has jacked with them. Icky.

Seriously? Multitasking security configuration? Umm. this is where the "MBA" moment really shines through in you post. Each config needs to be combed for optimization, conflicts, and general nonsense. You have to do this in an iterative and detail-oriented manner, or you suck.

Next? All of the next products are more of the same. Anything else, like attaching particular attributes to VMs of a certain type or what not are just asking to pwned. If someone could just do the multi-domain, hierarchical config management very well... then I'd be happy. If they could do that with good AAA and possibly auth tagging such that a token is passed for session setup (similar to some of the WebVPN auth passing available in the Cisco ASA) then it would be another good.

Peace, I'm out.

Your public school option does not address the problem that you posit either.

Parents, are, and should be the defining influence in a child's development. To propose anything else is to lessen freedom and diversity in our system, which is a loss.

If a child is home-schooled and can meet or exceed all of the academic standards that are required within a state, then you cannot argue against home-schooling unless you argue for state control. Arguing for state control of people's thought and development process is not a new argument for the American Liberal (i.e. PC Speech, aka ThoughtCrime) so I could accept that in your position.

However, if your standards are sufficiently high and require a diverse enough level of education then a child who could pass those exams should be able to review the given literature (The Bible vs various scientifically derived texts) and come to their own conclusions. Early in their life they may be swayed by their environment, but they will make a decision as to which is philosophically more acceptable at many points in their life.

By arguing against home education you make your argument appear weak. I disagree with your view because I was raised in a very religious region of the US by somewhat religious parents, but I developed doubts about the Bible at ~12 yrs old. (This caused my expulsion from a Bible study class when I quoted several contradictory verses to a position the teacher had proposed.)

My wife has taken all of the courses required to get her teaching cert for the sole reason that people like you may someday pass a law like California's attempt at banning home-schooling unless taught by a certified professional. May all people who propose such things find themselves infected with three different flavors of antibacterial resistant STD's.

I'm sure that many Federal judge appointees would like to parley with you about your opinion.

Perhaps you should rethink your statement.

On the face of it, this has been the most partisan move that we've seen in politics in a long time. It's to the point where Dems are refusing to listen to their own voters.

Also, in case you hadn't noticed, Dems had a super-majority in both Houses when this crapfest was thrown up. So the blockade consists of other Dems. This is still the case in the House.

Please refer to above posts pointing that the decline of of exemptions (5%) was less than the decline in requests (11%) resulting in a higher net ratio of declined to requested under Obama.

Not that I give a crap.

Also, if you do some real study of Chinese culture and history you will find that there were many disruptive and non-productive periods in their history. These periods would be analogous to the European Dark Ages. They have also regressed in tech and learning for extensive periods.

Interestingly, I find that they nicely parallel the development of other civilizations, each with their peaks and valleys lasting for some time. I also tend to think (despite loving the language) that their language and culture retaining such a great deal of historical detritus is artifact of their current tech and knowledge discrepancies. As the culture and money sharing move into a more modern mode, they will probably undergo several stark changes that will create efficiencies and also make them more compatible with Western culture... but that's a long term vision.