WHY GOD OH WHY CAN'T i GET A SPAM FILTER ON THE US MAIL?

I've signed up for the 'don't send me credit card applications' and something like the national association of direct marketers leave-me-the-fsck-alone list.

But I still get several pounds of TRASH sent to my house every week.

The only thing I want to see in my mailbox are government bills & notices (seems the government can't be bothered to move into the 21st century) and the once or twice a year post card I might receive.

Am I the only one looking FORWARD to seeing the US Post Office shut down?

The best bet is to be ready to blame the vendor when things go south ;-)

Seriously, I'm right there with you. If management does not want to provide for a test lab & reasonable time to test. Then it's clear they've made a 'business decision' that the network is not of sufficient value / risk is not great enough for such investments.

This may change quickly once something goes south (assuming they understand why it did) but you're gonna be talking to a brick wall until then.

It could be worse, you could have management that are afraid of there own shadows & who freak out at the idea of replacing redundant components after a HW failure. (Ever had to get VP approval to replace a failed GBIC? Oh, I have & yes, I hate my life).

Here's the way I estemated it. Been using it since 1998, at that time redhat came on multiple ISOs. I figured 5 ISOs a year was very probable, so more then 50.

I'm not a nerd or nothin' though, I don't give arbitrary questions too much thought... nope, never do that.

Clearcase: UGH!

I don't code, I work in infrastructure support, but this app is HORRIBLY overcomplicated to support at that level for what it really does.

The phrase I am looking for, is "Pedantic Jerk"

I'll see your post dot-com bust graduation & raise you graduating EXACTLY one month before 9/11.

It was a struggle to even get interviews, but on 9/12 they where all canceled (try back next year I was regularly told). I wound up working as an intern, for not much more then 8$/hr, for 6 months (and this was after graduation). Thankfully that internship helped me find a real job (for rather low pay I might add).

It's taken me some time, and a change in employers, but I've at least gotten myself to an AVERAGE pay scale for my role & skill set.

There is certainly a great value in starting ones career on an economic high, rather then a near depression. I seriously pity the kids graduating right now. The term 'lost generation' from Japan's economic near-collapse comes to mind. I know just starting in a smallish recession my life long earning potential has been clipped.

I'd be laughing, if I wasn't weeping about how true that statement is 'round these parts.

Bah,

Last death throws of a failing regime. I feel horrible for the Iranian people right now, but thank god they don't seem to be taking this lying down.

It's like the 1960's over there, a huge boom of 'youth' and a repressive establishment to fight. Here's hoping the result of this revolution is a bit more friendly then the last, but more importantly that it treats it's people better.

You jest, but that makes perfect sense!

How else could the man evade us for 9 years spending all of our resources to find him? Who's looking for an eight foot red balloon connected to a dialysis machine in the middle of northern Pakistan when there's a "terr'st" to be hunted who's obviously in a "hidy hole".

(please god note the sarcasm there)

I'd modify your recommendation, if he can get around his sound issues. I'm permanently hopefully & permanently disappointed in XBMC's support for MythTV. I don't think I'll find XBMC to be a viable Myth frontend until that fateful future day when the PVR branch gets merged into the XBMC trunk & a good solid Myth plugin is made available for it. I will say the commercial skip feature in the 9.11 Beta is nice, but streaming is still flaky, no real guide feature to be had & library integration doesn't work. Seems even for the PVR branch the devs prefer different back end software then Myth (tvheadend? or pvr? or something). Don't get me wrong, I'm realy a huge XBMC fanboy, but a good myth frontend it isn't (yet).

What I'd recommend, and what I use myself, is a mythbuntu box with XBMC & Hulu desktop. I use XBMC for everything that isn't recorded from TV or Hulu streams. I use mythfrontend for what it does well, watch live TV & recorded programs. Generally I manage my recordings from mythweb, as I really don't like the myth interface at all! I have all three of the players configured to use the same LIRC remote, and have an infinite loop shell script cycle through 'em (a hack I know).

No netflix though, this is a failure of netflix not Linux.

Works very well for me, ymmv.

If your operating a large scale data center and not replacing the SERVERS every few years..... your doing it wrong.

Point 5, IMHO, is the big one.

The great thing about Slashdot & blogs is not necisarily the articles or any original content. It comes from the community's self generated editorials after the fact. I have my own deeply held opinions on things, but I do find it very interesting to hear others opinions, even if they differ wildly from my own.

Slashdot & others have made an entire business out of these communities. Couple a well designed & well cultivated community driven web site to you point number 1) local news, and you have a powerful force not only for revenue generation but also for driving local politics & change.

As I get older (where did my 20s go?!?!) I'm getting more & more interested in state & city issues around me. And the sites that cater to that are few & far between, and the 'community' behind them is often horrible (if it exists at all, comment sections with 0 comments are very common).

I thought it was common knowledge that google is an advertising company, with a search engine & other such trinkets.

The key is, some of those other trinkets could be used to drive eyeballs back to advertisement (clearly most will fail).

We'll just have to agree to disagree about google's long term viability without this R&D. I tend to be a tinfoil hat type paranoid. My basic thinking is if the company doesn't innovate by itself, then someone else will and outshine even the great google with a good enough idea.

Also realize I think anyone who calls 5 years or less "long term" is a nut job, here again I maybe divergent from the mainstream, I'm talking 10-20 years (or more).

The other great advertising companies, NBC Universal & friends... are clearly seeing that there lack of past R&D and assuming they had a solid long term future is coming back to bite them.

But that's just like, -my- -opinion-, man.

I do partly agree with you. Dividends should be paid from a "wildly profitable company", if it's in a strong long term position. That being said, and my apologies if I misinterpreted you, your attitude strikes me as a bit over the top. Dividends are gravy on the biscuit of increased stock valuation over the long term.

Google, TODAY, is profitable but without reinvestment of this type where will they be tommorow? We as investors and a society have gone way to far in the direction of short term gratification. We drive companies to constantly answer the "what have you done for me lately" question. Leading, far to often, to corporate leadership who sacrifice long term shareholder value for short term profits (which has been structured to drive there pay). I'm not sure if there's an Enron parallel to Godwin's law, but it would probably fit my comment right about now.

R&D is an investment in future shareholder wealth, all investments entail risk, so hedging the companies bets with a spaghetti cannon isn't necisarily bad. If Android takes off & chromeOS doesn't: they haven't needlessly bogged one down with the other (and vice versa). If both are wildly successful, merging shouldn't be too terribly hard if there's a value to be gained, given the profits both return.

Nope, not all gonna die. But a large chunk of us are gonna feel horrible for 2-3 days, and then harbor a slowly diminishing cough for several weeks.

At least watching the talking heads scream "OMFG where all gonna die!!!!!11elevin" was entertaining when I couldn't get outa bed.