Remember when Katrina happened? There was this one Slashtard (DesCorp?) who was writing these really dark JEs where he wrote (verbatim) "they should just open up the floodgates and wash the entire city [of New Orleans] into the Gulf and not bother rebuilding it." And of course he was blaming the victims for "choosing" to live in such a disaster prone area.

So anyway, is that what they're saying now about the evacuees in California? Their fault for choosing to live in a tinderbox? Just let the whole thing burn to the ground and don't bother moving back? Someone fill me in - I've been working 60 - 80 hour weeks for the last 4 months and haven't had time to keep up on current events (or Journals outside My Amigos)

WSJ: Veronis Buys Stake in Vault.com
By DANA CIMILLUCA
September 25, 2007; Page A15

Vault.com Inc. announced today a majority investment by private-equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson. The investment values the online job-and-education information service at between $60 million and $85 million, people familiar with the matter say. Full terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

Vault.com is an 11-year-old Web site that provides surveys and other information about colleges and universities, employers and occupations such as investment banking and consulting. The company also contains a network of message boards for young professionals, and features job postings. Much of its revenue comes from advertising.

Veronis Suhler is hoping to speed up Vault.com's growth in part through acquisitions, a mainstay of Veronis's investing strategy. Sales growth at Vault.com is already running at 30% to 50% a year, and its backers say it makes a profit, though they wouldn't specify how much. The play for New York-based Veronis may be to nurture Vault for a few years until it can be sold to a major media or information company. These companies are hungry for online investing opportunities, and are often willing to pay high prices for the access.

"We started the category 11 years ago, and it's just starting to burgeon," said Samer Hamadeh, who founded the company with his Stanford University classmate, Mark Oldman, and his brother, Hussam Hamadeh.

The coming wave of baby-boomer retirement poses a "huge challenge" for corporate America, which Vault.com hopes to help it tackle, said Veronis Suhler Managing Director Trent Hickman.

Erik Sorenson, the former president of television channel MSNBC, and Ledgemont Capital are joining in the investment. All of Vault.com's founders, who have previously provided its funding, will remain shareholders and stay with the company, as will other senior executives. Mr. Sorenson will become chief executive.

"We're aiming to make this a broader, more widely attractive place for people to visit," he said.

Although Veronis began discussions on the investment last year, the investment is the kind that may become increasingly popular in a world where credit is tougher to come by and large buyout deals are scarce. New investments are expected to be smaller and employ less borrowed money, at least for now.

The 54 "platform" companies that Veronis has invested in over the past 20 years have done more than 230 add-on acquisitions.

Vault.com also sells premium packages of information to institutions and individuals. "The world is getting very competitive when it comes to the top jobs and to admission to the top universities and graduate schools," Mr. Hamadeh said.

YEAH, HOW DO YA LIKE ME NOW WEB 2.0?!!!1111oneone$$$

TRANSFORMERS!

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE!

TRANSFORMERS!

ROBOTS IN DISGUISE!

AUTOBOTSRAGETHEIRBATTLETODESTROYTHEEVILFORCESOF...

THE DECEPTICONS!!!!!1111one

TRANSFORMERS!!!!!!

Fox 11 Los Angeles reports on a Hacker group called "Anonymous".

'Nerd' taunt drove Navy man to arson

William Hung.

Think about it.

Air Sex

http://blog.wired.com/tableofmalcontents/2007/04/air_sex.html

Ok, I just finished watching Eureka SeveN. While finishing the series wasn't the same level of catharisis as finishing Neon Genesis EVANGELION, it was satisfying. For once, a happy ending! Anyway, here are the questions I have, which weren't really answered during the series.

1) What was the "Summer of Love?"

2) What is the Seven Swell?

3) Is Anemone a Corallian?

4) What is the "Dispair sickness?"

5) What exactly is the Compac Drive?

6) What is the political structure and history of their world? The Council of Sages, the Voderac, the wars they keep refering to, etc. They have this army, but no apparent enemy nation.

7) What they heck was humanity doing for 10,000 years after they left Earth?

8) An explanation of the last scene of the series. What is the final resolution?

(I understand that Japanese anime producers count on Otaku buying and reading all the source books associated with a series, so that they don't have to cover everything during their limited air time).

Since I realize it wasn't really that clear...

God = CmdTaco
Hell = /.
Heaven = "Multiply"
Guy Defiantly Flippin' the Bird at Taco = Me

Nope, I ain't going anywhere. I'm staying right here.

"I aim these directly at you! Bring it on!"

Al fine de le sue parole il ladro
le mani alzò con amendue le fiche,
gridando: "Togli, Dio, ch'a te le squadro!"

- Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, Canto XXV

Fuck Ron Moore and fuck SciFi network. That's just plain sloppy writing. I'm sorry I ever started watching this hack-job of a TV series.

It's no wonder that its ratings are so low they can barely get it back for one more season and all the cast members are jumping ship. I hope they series gets cancelled mid-season and Ron Moore and his writers never work again. Fuck all of them.

WHAT A TWEEST!!!1

UNIX uses '\n'

Windows uses '\r\n'

Who though that one up?

(Yes, I'm aware some other systems use '\r' alone. Those systems aren't used to host enterprise messaging applications).

http://maven.apache.org/
http://esper.codehaus.org/
http://mc4j.org/confluence/display/stripes/Home/

Tomorrow we'll have a JIRA install at work. I'm pretty psyched! Finally, buh-bye scarab.

Recommended:

http://xstream.codehaus.org/

Java Concurrency in Practice - NOTE: THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE

Last month I discovered Order of the Stick. After reading the whole series and buying Neverwinter Nights Diamond I decided to buy the Core Rulebook set.

What's interesting, is that a lot of the content is the same as first edition, but revised. So the Monster Manual has a lot of the same monsters as the original, such as devils and demons, unlike the Second Edition.

It's also clear that as much as D&D has been a influence on PC games, PC games have had an influence on D&D. Characters now increase their attributes every four levels, have skill "ranks," etc. And all characters are above average - when creating a character, you now are supposed to roll four dice and throw out the lowest number.

It's also clear that the designers of the 3rd edition have re-oriented the game towards fun. Any character is allowed to multi-class, no matter what their race. What to have a gnome barbarian-sorcerer? No problem! In fact, make that a half-gnoll fighter-cleric - the Monster Manual includes content on playing various humanoid races as Player Characters.

Another thing that's interesting is that Halflings are now more like Kender than Hobbits. At least, their description of the race is more Weiss/Hickman than Tolkien, and Halflings are all slim in their illustrations with no mention of being barefoot.

Sorry to all the nay-sayers, but I pretty confident now that multiply isn't going away. I already find myself going to that page before slashdot. I'd suggest picking it up, just so you have an ID there and are associated with it in case we don't come back.

Here's me as a starting person to be joined to. Make sure you give me you /. id when you join, though.

FYI - I've requested to the site a way to grab /. historical journal entries, and they are considering it (they already have this feature for blogger, blogspot, etc...). I'd also like to see cross-posting for those too stubborn to leave...