Comment Acronym Overload (Score 4, Funny) 200
"..OOXML...IBM...ISO....ECMA"
Danger! Acronym overload!!!
Must....keep.....head.....from......exploding. (MKHFE).
Submission + - Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day!
lucabrasi999 writes: Ahoy! Drink up the Grog, me hearties! Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Grab your wenches and stop being a bilge-rat. In honor of ITLPD, a short video that includes a speaking part by Peter Saarrrrrssssssgaarrrrrd.
Submission + - The Analytics of Captain Kirk
lucabrasi999 writes: I have always been a huge fan of the original Star Trek. No other Star Trek captain could match Kirk flamboyantly running around the galaxy, bedding every woman he saw, ignoring the Prime Directive, changing history through time travel, all while fighting the evil Klingon empire (I know, The Shatner's overacting was a huge part of the show). Even with all of it's style, the number of times a red-shirted crew member dies in the original Star Trek series became a bad joke a long time ago. The frequency made me wonder why the red-shirted crew members didn't just mutiny, rather than let Kirk lead them to a horrible death. Matt Baily, a speaker and trainer for Direct Marketing Association, has analyzed the episodes where red-shirted crew members died and discovered the primary reasons for their death. He even created a Power Point presentation. The reasons why they died? Well, among others, the very act of beaming down with Kirk increased the chance of a red-shirt death. But we already knew that. More interesting is a key reason for the survival of the red-shirt. If Kirk met and engaged in 'diplomacy' with an alien woman, the red-shirted crew member had a much greater chance of survival.
See, Kirk wasn't just a sex-fiend. He was using the women in order to save the lives of his crew members!
Submission + - Your Beliefs versus the Facts (yahoo.com) 1
lucabrasi999 writes: Professor Thomas W. Martin of Arizona State University has an interesting article in the Chritian Science Monitor and was picked up by Yahoo. The basis of the article is that despite all of the evidence to the contrary, many of his students still prefer to believe in creationism over the evolution. This leads him to question why there are people who refuse to consider the opposing point of view. Even in science, there are scientists that fight publication of opposition articles, because they don't believe in them. Professor Martin's main point is, what would it take for people to realize that being 'wrong' on an issue is not necessarily a bad thing, but is part of the way we all become more intelligent. Learning, by it's very nature, means that we must be taught when our opinions are incorrect and we must learn to accept the fact that our individual views are not always correct.
Submission + - The 10 most overpaid jobs in the United States
lucabrasi999 writes: Almost everyone can point to a co-worker and say, "They are overpaid". Maybe that co-worker is lazy. Maybe they work hard, but their results are say, lackluster. Maybe they are a great worker, but they landed in a nice, cushy job. Well, Chris Plummer from Marketwatch has identified what he thinks are the most overpaid jobs in the United States. Longshoremen? Motivational Speakers? This list may make you wonder if it is time for a career change. Especially for those of us in IT.
Submission + - Today is "Day of the Ninja"
lucabrasi999 writes: While I give the ninjas some credit for trying, it still is just a cheap imitation of Talk Like a Pirate Day.
History of Slashdot Part 3- Going Corporate 126
When we last left off we were in early 1999- Slashdot had a small business behind it,
known as Blockstackers Intergalactic. But we knew that we would need real infrastructure to
handle the ever increasing traffic and needs of our readers as well as our employees. A
number of suitors approached us with deal of varying sizes and shapes, and we settled on
one nobody had never heard of: Andover. (As a reminder don't forget to get your
charity bid up ... some items are still reasonably priced! But the EFF always needs cash!)
Submission + - Favorite Distilled Beverage? 1
Submission + - IBM to go "Green"
lucabrasi999 writes: Big Blue has announced an effort to become more green. IBM is the largest Data Center operator in the world, and it will be introducing technology to reduce data center energy consumption and also offer those technologies to customers. By 2010, IBM plans on doubling the computing power at its own data centers without increasing energy consumption.
Bookmark Pittsburgh Post-Gazett (post-gazette.com)
Submission + - JetBlue's Windows Infrastructure Crashes
hawks5999 writes: JetBlue's reservation and communication systems have been down for 5 days leaving thousands of passengers stranded and stockholders seeing red. It was almost exactly 4 years ago that JetBlue trumpeted it's reliance on Windows to help it see black. From a 2003 news.com article:
I guess they didn't look at redundancy or reliability in their cost equation...So we marched down the road of the Windows platform. We don't have any Unix; we don't have an AS/400; we don't have any mainframes — we don't have anything outside of Windows. There has been tremendous cost savings....everything's Windows. Every technician that works on a server works on a Windows server. Every technician working on a desktop works on a Windows desktop. That's quite a bit easier than other flavors of desktops or OS/2 or whatever else is out there.
Journal Journal: Stock Market Weakness
Today (May 30th), the DJIA dropped a total of 184 points (almost 2%). That wiped out the gains that were made over the previous three days. I think that we are definitely out of the bull market from 2005 and early 2006. I also believe that, at best, we are in a trading range. But, I'm beginning to think we are heading towards a bear market. I'm mostly out of stocks (and have been so for about three weeks). I am now waiting for bear to be reached.
Journal Journal: A day pass!! Woo Hoo!
Wow, I am finally using a day pass to see all of the submitted articles first, just like real subscribers! I feel so privileged.
Hey, there's my first article! I can tell because it is in RED, whereas the rest of
Wow........uh..........well.........
Journal Journal: It's vs. Its
For the fourth time in my life, Slashdot accepted my submission. And, in the middle of my description of the story, I screwed up the grammar. I used "it's", instead of "its". Hey, what can I say? I never was all that good at grammar. To the credit of the slashdot editors, they did re-write my submission quite a bit (I had confused the issue in my original text). However, the editors also missed the in
Journal Journal: Greasemonkey rocks...
I installed the Firefox Extension Greasemonkey about a month or two ago. After using it for a few days, I decided to turn it off, mainly because some of the scripts were just annoying and I didn't have the time to deal with it.
I finally turned the Extension back on and I added some of the Slashdot scripts. Although I knew Greasemonkey really had the potential to be great, it wasn't until I used it for the past couple of days that I realized how great it is.
