Comment most depressing sci fi book (Score 1) 1365
the road....
Comment ISP's and greed (Score 1) 430
Whats amazing to me is that all of these ISP's would make customers happy and grow their business if they used the money from the boat load of lawyer fees they are going to have to pony up to expand their networks. You want me to pay more, OK give me something more! Remember when business was about making a profit for stockholders and keeping customers and employee's happy. What the hell happened! It's weird, this seems to be one of the various businesses that keep shrinking their level of service and wanting more money for it. The biggest issue is in most places there exists no choice so you have to put up with it. Sucks :-(
Comment Re:Freedom (Score 1) 513
Oh that's easy. We are apathetic and generally disinterested in politics until it affects us. Our representatives do not represent the people who elected them in general. I think if you were to randomly go up to anyone is the US and ask who represents them in congress and the Senate most wouldn't have a clue. It cost so much money to get elected that its become common place for companies and special interest groups to pay for said elected official. In my mind I share you're opinion in that these "contributors" want something for their support.
Comment more nefarious purposes (Score 1) 94
Perhaps making people buy products they already have over and over!
IT Worker's Revenge Lands Her In Jail 347
aesoteric writes "A 30-year-old IT worker at a Florida-based health centre was this week sentenced to 19 months in a US federal prison for hacking, and then locking, her former employer's IT systems. Four days after being fired from the Suncoast Community Health Centers' for insubordination, Patricia Marie Fowler exacter her revenge by hacking the centre's systems, deleting files, changing passwords, removing access to infrastructure systems, and tampering with pay and accrued leave rates of staff."
RIP, SunSolve 100
Kymermosst writes "Today marks the last day that SunSolve will be available. Oracle sent the final pre-deployment details today for the retirement of SunSolve and the transition to its replacement, My Oracle Support Release 5.2, which begins tomorrow. People who work with Sun's hardware and software have long used SunSolve as a central location for specifications, patches, and documentation."
Corporations Hiring Hooky Hunters 610
No longer satisfied with your crinkled doctor's note, a growing number of corporations are hiring "Hooky Detectives." Private investigator Rick Raymond says he's staked out bowling alleys, pro football games, weddings and even funerals looking for people using sick days. From the article: "Such techniques have become permissible at a time when workers are more likely to play hooky. Kronos, a workforce productivity firm in Chelmsford, Mass., recently found that 57 percent of salaried employees take sick days when they're not sick — almost a 20 percent increase from statistics gathered between 2006 and 2008."
Debt Collectors Using Facebook To Embarrass Those Who Owe 266
Not even the tranquility of FarmVille can save you from the long arm of debt collectors. Melanie Beacham says that a collector from MarkOne Financial contacted her relatives about her past due car note via Facebook. She is filing suit alleging that the company is harassing her family. Tampa based consumer attorney Billy Howard of Morgan & Morgan says, "Now Facebook does a debt collectors work for them. Now it's not only family members, it's all of your associates. It's a very powerful tool for debt collectors to use."
1928 Time Traveler Caught On Film? 685
Many of you have submitted a story about Irish filmmaker George Clarke, who claims to have found a person using a cellphone in the "unused footage" section of the DVD The Circus, a Charlie Chaplin movie filmed in 1928. To me the bigger mystery is how someone who appears to be the offspring of Ram-Man and The Penguin got into a movie in the first place, especially if they were talking to a little metal box on set. Watch the video and decide for yourself.
Today's Children Are Officially Potty Mouths 449
tetrahedrassface writes "When the Sociolinguistics Symposium met earlier this month swearing scholar Timothy Jay revealed that an increase in child swearing is directly related to an increase in adult swearing. It seems that vulgarity is increasing as pop culture continues to popularize vulgarities. The blame lies with media, public figures, politicians, but mostly ourselves. From the article: 'Children as young as two are now dropping f-bombs, with researchers reporting that more kids are using profanity — and at earlier ages — than has been recorded in at least three decades.'"
Woman's Nude Pics End Up Online After Call To Tech Support 197
Tara Fitzgerald couldn't find the nude pictures she planned on sending to her boyfriend, but instead of just taking more, she decided to see if a Dell tech support call could fix her problem. Apparently the tech support guy found them. Unfortunately, he then put them up on a site called "bitchtara."
Comment Re:MSDN? Hello? (Score 1) 775
Has anyone in here heard of bizspark. I used it and I like it. Really does give you an opportunity to use just about every dev tool MS has and addresses the issue of laying out a lot of money to try out tools and dev platforms.
amorphous-codeworks.com
Websites That Don't Need to Be Made Anymore 161
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but there is a finite number of social networking or selling websites that the world needs. Here is a collection of the eight kinds of websites that absolutely don't need to be made anymore. I'd add dating sites and anybody who uses pop-up ads myself, but I think that would eliminate half the Web.
OpenBSD 4.7 Preorders Are Up 191
badger.foo writes "The OpenBSD 4.7 pre-orders are up. That means the release is done, sent off to CD production, and snapshots will turn -current again. Order now and you more likely than not will have your CD set, T-shirt or other cool stuff before the official release date. You get the chance to support the most important free software project on the planet, and get your hands on some cool playables and wearables early. The release page is still being filled in, but the changelog has detailed information about the goodies in this release."
North Korea's Own OS, Red Star 316
klaasb writes "North Korea's self-developed computer operating system, named 'Red Star,' was brought to light for the first time by a Russian satellite broadcaster yesterday. North Korea's top IT experts began developing the Red Star in 2006, but its composition and operation mechanisms were unknown until the internet version of the Russia Today TV program featured the system, citing the blog of a Russian student who goes to the Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang."
