At my last job, upper management had different password strength requirements because they couldn't handle the normal ones designed to make them use secure passwords. Instead of 8 characters minimum with at least one capital letter, number and special character, they simply got away with 8 characters. Why? Because they complained enough, couldn't remember their passwords, and had the power to exempt themselves.

While working at Enron Broadband Services in 2000, we had partnered with Blockbuster to create a video on demand service, and had all the main/regional CLEC/ILECs as partners to provide last mile connectivity. We were able to stream better than VHS, but slightly worse than DVD quality video over a 1Mbps Internet connection that required you to have a set top box. We had successfully demonstrated the technology in the lab and were going into the first run trials to beta customer homes when Blockbuster pulled the plug. So they could have beat Netflix to the punch by bypassing the DVD rental business entirely and going straight to VOD, but they decided not to. Also, a little known fact is that it was the pro-forma $150 million Enron booked as earning on that VOD project before it ever hit a customer home that brought increased scrutiny to their financials before they ultimately went out of business a year later.

I would also state that in the vast majority of companies, managers are trained not to take risks. I work for a multibillion dollar company where the most common management decision at the mid-management level is simply to do nothing. By not making a decision, they believe they minimize the risk of making the wrong decision, never mind that doing nothing is rarely the right decision. It also means that most management decisions then come from the very top down, which means there's no innovation from the bottom, nor is there any real quality feedback loop since suggestions for improvement never make it up the chain of command. Of course, we're a health insurance company that wastes our members money on high administrative costs, but as long as we don't lose a substantial amount of members (and won't because the individual members don't decide who their company uses for insurance) we have no reason to change. We simply keep raising our rates. It's a very dirty business, and horribly run.

The OS has nothing to do with it. Firewire ports are DMA, as are Thunderbolt ports if I remember correctly, which means access to the port means direct access to the RAM. That means you can not only read the data, but you can also potentially manipulate it (killing processes, injecting code into already running processes, etc.).

EXACTLY! Mod parent up please! This is not exactly new. Snagging encryption keys from hibernation files or RAM dumps is nothing new. And the Truecrypt win32 binary will allow you mount the volume in read only mode if you want to view the contents and have the acquired key. So, this does everything you can already do for free, but with the added benefit of being a $300 product. I guarantee you that law enforcement is going to be the biggest purchaser of this product, even though this capability already exists and has existed without spending a dime.

My home school kids of MS/HS age are learning chemistry from a PhD chemist through our local home school group co-op. Barring access to a home school co-op, there's plenty of information and fun experiments available that should interest a 10 year old, either from online sources like youtube and google, or from books at Amazon. If you have a local science museum, you can contact them about any local science clubs/groups that cater to children that age. But unless he is more than just interested, most official curriculum is going to be at the high school level and a bit over the head of a 10 year old.

I've been boycotting them for years, starting with their rootkits on CDs, which should have been charged as a criminal act.

That's how the multi-billion dollar company I work for does it. I get generic PTO days and how I use them is up to me. I get a lump sum on Jan. 1, generally for "sick day" purposes, then earn additional PTO days each month. I also get at least one "diversity day" a year, which is a holdover from allowing each employee to take their birthday off. We actually got two of them this year since so many of our normal paid holidays fell on weekends. Now, I can take them all for vacation, or mix and match them as I need them. I can also take them off as half-days if I want instead of whole days. And yes, it's perfectly acceptable to take unscheduled PTO for a "mental health day," as my manager takes them too, so long as you don't abuse it and get important tasks done. But honestly, my company is really, really good about PTO. The only crappy thing is that starting next year everyone loses one day of PTO as some sort of cost reduction bullshit to increase productivity. I guess our HR goons haven't been following the working productivity studies showing that current working productivity is going down now after so many months of rising. You can only work your employees so hard without rest/PTO before they quit giving a damn. And taking away PTO just makes people sullen and resentful.

Not taking antibiotics and not being properly treated for a mental disorder are two ENTIRELY different things. Having an infection does not render you less capable of making rational decisions about your own treatment. Many mental illnesses do - and not just the way-out-there ones, either. Should those people get treatment? Of course. If it's unhealthy for their loved ones to be around them when they're not treated, should those loved ones do what's healthy for themselves? Of course. But saying that you're "disgusted" by something that is a god damned symptom of the illness in and of itself is disgusting.

I believe strongly in equal rights for both genders-but exactly equal. No special favors, no special treatment, no monthly excuse for bad behavior. Men don't get those, so that can hardly be asserted as an "equal" right. It's not "misogynist" to think people of any gender should be held equally accountable for their decisions and behavior.

No, it's misogynistic to ignore biology and claim that accepting it is "special treatment." Do you think that women who have pre-menstrual problems enjoy them? Many women do go on birth control specifically to avoid those problems! But to say, as the grandparent did, that ANY woman who has this problem and is not fixing with through HBC is "negligent" is to completely ignore the fact that for some women it is not treatable or the treatment is worse for them than the condition.

Why is the male experience the default that women must try to match in your scenario? I would say that it's special fucking treatment for a man to expect the women in his life to ignore hormonal problems that he will never have to experience or try to ignore so that they can live up to his ideal. Why does he deserve for her to do that when he will never do it for her?

Yes, there are probably women out there who use their periods as an excuse to act extra bitchy when they don't really need to. Just like there are men who use their wives' premenstrual touchiness as an excuse to cheat on her. Both are examples of unethical behavior. But if you really think that that's the norm instead of an anomaly, you should just go say a little prayer, or thank your lucky stars, or whatever you do that you will never experience the hormonal hell that many women have to deal with on a regular basis. Be glad things aren't equal in that regard.

The fact that you are "disgusted" by the mentally ill who "refuse" to stay on their meds says a whole lot about your levels of ignorance (and douchiness), as does the fact that you think that's a majority opinion. Just keep digging that hole.

And yet how many men expect their girlfriends/wives to pump themselves full of hormones so that their ovaries temporarily stop working?

Wow, this has to be one of the most misogynistic comments I've ever seen on Slashdot - and that's saying a lot.

Here, I will pretend like you're not a total douche, merely ignorant, and try to explain things politely:

The implant is hormonal birth control. Many women cannot take HBC, or only some HBC, due to extreme side effects such as depression or mood swings, weight gain, and heavy bleeding. Only some women stop getting their period on the implant - up to 20% actually have heavier periods than before. Also, HBC puts you at higher risk of clotting problems (such as heart attacks, strokes, and embolisms), which means that women with other risk factors may want to avoid it. And women on certain medications, such as anti-epileptics, can't use the implant.

Other women may simply prefer other forms of birth control for other reasons. For example, some women actually appreciate getting a "Hey, you're still not pregnant" reminder every month. Some are uncomfortable with getting something implanted in their body. While their preferences may inconvenience you, it is far from "negligent" for them to make that decision for themselves.

Perhaps if you feel you are having to "endure" your significant other, you should let her know that. In those exact words. I'm sure she'll be refreshed by your honesty and see you in a completely new light, and will happily rearrange her biology for your convenience.

LMAO

The sad part is that the commenter above you was actually serious.

Disclaimer: This management method looks like it would be a bitch to scale. Not my fucking problem, thank Cthulu.

IDK, it's pretty much how academia works. Maybe without #2, even (depends on just how embarrassing and in what direction). Some schools only have a couple hundred faculty, but the largest state schools can have a couple thousand, plus other research staff. And all that matters is getting your job done - other than the time you're actually teaching a class, nobody cares where you are or what you're doing at any given moment, so long as your tenure file is nice and fat when they come around to take a look at it.

While you have a point, and professors are more likely to be receptive to this kind of thing, publishing research is really the wrong metaphor here. It's more like a professor with a patentable invention - and these days, the patent almost always goes to the university automatically.