It was meant to be funny while using logic and information. (My TNG rerun binge has made me worry that I might develop Data's personality without his power.)

My sig is an essential disclaimer. I am dyslexic in a way that causes a great number of misspellings in everything I write.

I depend heavily on the spell check built into the various software I use (God bless the person who added spell check to Firefox).

Unfortunately, spell-check is no match for a real word that sounds just like the word I intended to type.

There cannot be real standards because of several things.

1. Overlapping functions. Hardware, OS, Database, Application, Network. Who admins what gets vague. Very vague in offices where everyone gets along. (like mine)

2. Where do you draw the line between admin and user? At my current employer roughly 1/3 of the staff administers something or other with lots of overlap.

3. Adding customers to the equation confuses the issue further. I.e. Just a few people have access to the voice-mail platform. Most of those cannot log on as root, but it stores voice-mail for a couple million customers.

I could go on and on but at the end of the day, You may need a dozen admins to handle 8 servers and another dozen to handle 2000 desktops.

A better way to figure out this is to ask: "What is the value to the company of owning items X, Y and Z". Then subtract all the none human costs of keeping those systems (Power, Space etc...). Finally, subtract the cost of the responsible admins. If you aren't left with a substantial positive figure, you did something really really wrong.

It's "Tipsy Bear" from the care bear family. Either that or kind of "beer" you drink.

In other news Red Bull dose not actually give you wings and drinking it will not enable you to fly.

We return to our reporter at the scene where emergency crews are cleaning up the mess left by someone who took an add for a food or drink product literally.

Ginkgo is FOOD. Not medicine. Meaning that all the distributors need to prove is that it isn't poisonous and they can sell it with all kinds of wild claims attached. Perhaps the rules should change to require literal truth. "Our bear makes other people more beautiful to you"

That sounds more potent than this version

Never underestimate the value of a tall glass of Dihydrogen Monoxide. What bugs me though is the original stories implication the Romulan Ale dose not yet exist.

On the contrary, I was able to buy Romulan Ale AND Klingon Blood wine at the Star Trek Museum.

Of course this facility also hosts a Bar called "Quark's at which you are encouraged to drink a "Warp core breach", so some of these beverages may not be exactly as advertised.

All that harassment of decent passengers and once again the true "weapon against hijacking" saves the day. I.e. People don't like to blow up so they will beet the crap out of anyone who tries. If you aim to blow up a plane it had better freaking explode before anyone sees you doing anything suspicious.

Searching for bombs, detaining luggage, banning liquids etc... helps nobody. Hijack and bombing attempts fail when another passenger beets the crap out of you.

I disagree. The Human Sized Hamsters I have right now are quite harmless as long as the wheel is kept oiled and the food tray loaded.

I worked for 6 years in the local branch of a global support company. Often times the customer would buy several support contracts on different parts of the same solution from different vendors.

An example is a system where the Database Server is supported by Sun and Oracle. The Application Server is supported by Microsoft and Dell, The AntiVirus by Macafee, The FILE SYSTEM is supported by Veritas, The actual business application by the company that wrote it and the overall package by Fujitsu (The place I worked)

All this support was based on different SLAs and with different deliverables and response times and at different prices.

KDE at $10 per desktop is just a hypothetical example. It's up to the agency to determine which piece of software is important enough to require dedicated support from it's authors, what level of support and the cash value of that support.

It could be anything from 24/7 2 hour telephone response for show stopper errors on a device driver or system library to response within a week during business hours tweak requests and configuration queries on an end user desktop application or just delivery of routine updates and patches.

Real life prices could go from the $39 per year/machine our client paid for AV to the Thousands per year we paid for each of File System, Backup software, Database, Business App.

Are you telling me there is no space to add dedicated support for an application your agency considers critical? Or to pay someone with the required competence to deliver customization?

Not every project or developer can handle a support contract or even donations. For those you just have to give them moral support, but for those which are set up (like SAMBA and WINE that you named) this is a trivial move.

The Key thing is to make sure you can justify this expense to an auditor. Not a difficult thing when you swapped out a $1000+ package (Like Windows File Server) for SAMBA at a much lower cost and with better guaranteed response time than Microsoft offers.

You do if you want to drink the water expelled in your pee and sweat without any of those pesky toxins.

As for me, electricity costs are getting so high that a human sized hamster wheel attached to a basic generator coil looks really attractive right now. Additional benefits like exercise and looking cool on that thing should clinch the deal.

You also don't need to buy support from an existing provider. You can ask the project leaders for something you find valuable to submit a bid for annual support within a defined price range. With the price range limited, they automatically win on competence.

This means you could for-instance switch from Windows to KDE on 100 desktops and offer the KDE project the bargain basement fee of $10 per PC, per year to deliver the desktop the way you like and respond to concerns.

Close. Competition is the key. That Lawnmower and Battery has to compete with Gas powered mowers and plane old gasoline. If the gap got too wide, it wouldn't sell.

You are quite correct. Marx Was born into a Christian society as were his teachers. Ideas coming from the Bible in such a context, loose their sources once the wording changes. They become "common sense". The same is true for other holly books and the lands they dominate.

Now to the main point of the article. Poor parents also tend to be less in touch with the schools and less informed about medical and disciplinary matters. Most importantly they are less likely to assert their authority.

In short. The Middle class parents are going to pray to google about "Ritalin" and then respond: "You can prescribe all the methylphenidate you like but not for my child". In most cases, the poor single mom doesn't know and hasn't the confidence to assert her own authority against teachers and Doctors who are far more educated than she is.

It will be harder to track how many middle class parents were instructed to drug their kids and simply refused, often with the backing of a private doctor.

"cell", "Cellular" and "Celly" are among the slangs used for mobile phones in Jamaica and a lot of other places.

The 1st time I searched on my real name, I discovered a musical form I had never herd of before. My namesake was a band member.

The wife had a worse time of it. A search on her name is meaningless and attempts to drown it are doomed. Her namesakes include a porn star, a popular radio host and at least 2 convicted felons.

Taking my last name cleared up that confusion.

We are dealing with someone who already has negative information online about him. Such a person needs to drown that because anything on the Internet lives forever.

As for me. I use aliases too. (Dosn't everybody?). In addition I google my own name regularly to make sure nothing sick is under it. I also get involved in a few technical discussions using my real name because, positive info is cool.

Not that I have "applied" for a job in 15 years. I keep getting headhunted. by customers and people I help out on-line or off...

I.e. My current post was offered by someone I worked with on behalf of the tech support company I was with before. He later got into the habit of asking me for help with none business related tech issues. "How do I get that device to work under this OS?"