#2: You have to tell the doctor *where* it hurts, not just *that* it hurts.

I have a simple solution: Follow me around for a day (and a night).

Watch what happens when two people, either of whom could fire both of us, issue demands that are diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive.

Watch when the new guy gets ignored by his team members and forgets that Google exists so he comes to us expecting days of basic training on how to do his job.

Watch when the workaholic engineer expects us to be there around the clock for everything from new machines to coffee runs as he compulsively works his 72-hour shifts.

Watch when we spend six hours fixing a machine somebody botched horribly because we told them to push button A then button B then button C, but they pushed button B then button A then button C. For the third time.

Watch when Mr. Hot Temper screams at us for 15 minutes because the network is down, even though not only are we not permitted to do anything with the network, we're not even allowed into the wiring closet.

Watch how we're never thanked for anything, but we're informed on a regular basis as to what people think our mothers did for a living.

I could go on, but rest assured, you'll want your own job back.

I shot freelance for a newspaper in Toronto during the 80s and 90s. And although the work was a lot of fun, I think its time is long over. Consider the adage from dead tree papers: If it bleeds it leads. How many different, artistic ways can you shoot the following, that hasn't been done a zillion times in the past:
1) Large or medium-sized structure fire--this was my specialty.
2) Personal injury accident.
3) Victim(s) being transported.
4) Reminder to set clocks ahead/back.
5) Look how Hot/Cold/Snowy/Icy the weather was yesterday!
6) Perp walk or subject under arrest.
7) Politician making a speech on in a media scrum.
8) Drug/weapons seizure evidence on the table.
9) Presentation of a giant cheque to a lottery winner or charitable .org.
10) Devastation after a large natural disaster, governor/official doing official tour
11) Sad kid/parent after a bully stole their lunch money, bicycle or all the toys for Christmas presents at the poor house.

Now. Go fetch today's paper (good doggie!). How many of the above items do you see in the hard news section? Now factor this: If it's a major disaster, fire, accident, etc, the news editor will be fielding calls from hundreds of people with photos of the event. Probably some with pro-sumer levels of kit. If that isn't available they'll buy a wireservice image and run it. Everything else mentioned is shootable with a phonecam or a shirt-pocket cam, and the level of knowledge needed to shoot it is somewhere between "f/8-and-be-there," and "push-here-stupid."

Sports is an entirely different kettle of fish, and I don't know how they're going to handle Bulls/Black Hawks/Bears/Cubs/Sox games. Again, probably just buy freelancers' materials or stuff off the wires.

Gone are the days when a newspaper NEEDS actual photographs. Unless you're living under a rock the audience already knows what the governor looks like, what a perp-walk looks like, a building fire, a traffic accident or the President making a speech. We can get that anywhere. The hard news reporting is what I care about (not that there's all that much of it these days). Pretty pictures I can find online. They made the right call.

But that is what the new nyc machines are. Paper ballot, pen, paper, and a scanner, but the voters and poll workers still have not figured it out. They make you wait on line to find out which line to wait in to get your ballot, then wait on line to get the ballot(and sign for it) the you have to fill it in where they can see you, but not your ballot, then you bring it to the scanning area, and the whole process takes more Room than the lever machines and walking from point a to b. last election, we had lines around the block to get into get your ballot, and with the levers, I never had more than 5 people in front of me

OK, here's the slightest failing I've felt numerous times: Old laptop whose graphics under WinXP were just fine, if a little slow. Install Linux with your favorite desktop (LXDE works best for me on that machine). Machine is under moderate load. Click and drag a window to move it. When you release the mouse button, the window is still following the cursor, because the mouse-button-up event was not handled properly.

JWZ complained abut this sort of thing (events not being presented to the handler in proper order) when he was working on the Unix/X version of Mozilla. ISTR him saying that it was a problem wih the protocol itself, which would explain why the problem persists almost 20 years alter.

We know about GNU/Linux and GNU/Hurd. ISTR someone cobbling together a GNU/BSD at some point. Any others? GNU/Solaris? GNU/HP-UX? GNU/DR-DOS?

depending on where you live, even in the US, you want to build an addition to you house, go right ahead. a lot of the country does not have zoning laws

Talk about bricking your device!

The same thing happened with HP/UX 9. HP tried all sorts of things, including free consulting to get customers to upgrade to 10.x, but the don't-fix-what-isn't-broken crowd kept driving their dump trucks to Cupertino. They finally ended it by pointing out that there was no way to make it Y2K compliant without breaking backwards binary compatibility.

And if you think they will, look at when Microsoft originally wanted to EOL WinXP, and when they actually did.

I just took a 21" CRT to the recycling place. In 1995, it cost about $2200 new. In 2001, my employer gave it to me as scrap when our building was closed and they decided that a lot of that stuff was cheaper to give away than to move to some warehouse across the country. (Plus it was a tiny bit of good will that the local management could show the laid-off employees when the Big Guys were being callous pricks kicking us to the curb while we were still going to 9/11 funerals.)

ObTopic: $400 is an expensive monitor these days, but it wasn't that long ago that $400 wouldn't buy you a useable SVGA monitor.

But the Government doesn't CARE about a level playing field. There are anti-money laundering laws, many of which were the actual original reason for the RICO act in the first place. They don't have to PROVE that you laundered money, just that you set up a system that could, and didn't follow the "Know Your Customer" rules, and things like Dodd Frank (come April 10th). The mere agreeing to setup a system that COULD be used to bypass is enough for you to go away for a LONG LONG LONG time.

"Should have" was meant in the legal way. By building in money laundering without tracking, they ARE in violation of RICO. That means they Can do life without parole, as can anyone who assists, the second the govt decides to crack down. They can say " we don't know" and the govt says "you should,and should have, retroactively" life in jail for not playing the game tends to end this stuff

In addition, they just 'prove' that Bitcoin is being used to circumvent Money Laundering laws, and that the admins SHOULD have known/built tracking in, and they get arrested for RICO act violations, and the founders/admins/server admins, do life in Federal Prison. Lather, rinse, repeat like they did for the mob, and...