Flattr tried. And this kind of service is a political quagmire.

Oh, you're not wrong, but the same can be said for SEI, Lincoln Labs, and other academically related FFRDCs.

Something still smells funny here.

"Merging" isn't sensible. GTRI is the contracting arm. This never should have gone through GTRC (main academic campus) unless pieces are missing from this story. Something else is at play here.

This, to an extreme. Having "served" at GT during the period in question, I agree. It's not /too/ feasible in an academic research environment. You can establish some perimeter, but it's extremely leaky even in corporate or lab life.

One reason why DoD, etc. come to academia is because of their increased flexibility. Why something that isn't "fundamental research" (DARPA terminology widely used) went to GTRC and not GTRI with subcontracts for narrow, "safe" areas is confusing. CIPHER at GTRI often was the point-of-contact for these in the security sphere.

Also, GT had someone try to impose a completely impossible "security policy" around this time. No results that had not been published could be published (almost a quote)... So there's some subtext here in terms of the push back against "to-be-policies" that were flat-out idiotic. As is common, trying to strangle folks just make them fight harder to breathe.

I know this is the same at many research universities.This must be giving some institutional research directors heartburn.

Some of this has a whiff of exterior agendas... I was mistreated there, so I understand the anger, but this is next-level. Typically folks would sue GT and make off with a quiet settlement. (I didn't and wouldn't do that. Only the students end up paying for it. Some people at research universities care about the students.)

That's where this is headed.

And then the software can repeat itself ad infinitum. Followed by A"I"-generated comments.

This was about ensuring that everyone in the supply chain could verify everyone else's efforts.

Not everyone wants their supply chain interactions visible to their competitors. Ford tried something similar.

Without that, it's just a single-supplier thing all the way through. That rather defeats the purpose of competition.

Yup. I have a bunch of GFBR holes in the ground nearby. And I had to call and complain to get them to clean the graffiti off their hut.

And Infocom and other games off the pegboard. sigh.

Hence... More to sell!

I sold resistors. Capacitors. Inductors. And, most of all, hearing aid batteries.

WHAT THE FUCKSHITSICKLES IS THIS?

I despair for humanity,

"Changes in latitude
changes in attitude
nothing remains quite the same
through all of the islands and all of the highlands
if we couldn't laugh we would all go insane." -- Jimmy Buffet, "Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude"

Community and college radio continues to introduce people to new music, old music they do not know, and all sorts of cool stuff. Listen to KALX, WWOZ, KFJC, and others. Online, mostly, given how few are left physically available. But as younger people grow older, they'll find less time to futz with their playlists and appreciate the DJs who guide them well.

Also, there is an absurd amount of wasted space in urban environments, often the same areas that have convenient access only to "dollar stores" and gas stations.

More growers locally means (ideally) more food available without having to spend hours on a bus. The next step is education. Many people quite honestly do not know the difference between cheezy poofs and actual food. They never have had easy access to actual food. It's different, so it is met with some trepidation. Here appealing to the elderly is HUGE. They remember eating from victory gardens. And they can lay on the guilt...

No, Chris Latner started clang while at UIUC. Apple hired him to continue.

On the flip side, there would be *no* free Objective C compiler had gcc used a non-copyleft license. Apple (well, NeXT, now better considered Apple-in-exile) tried to run around the GNU GPL but failed. They were forced to release the source, leading to gobjc. Note that gobjc has not been able to keep up with Apple's Objective C and C++ changes *because* of Apple's switch to an LLVM-based system. Also, note that previous Apple animosity against the GPL was not entirely technical.

On the flip side, I recently sent in my Thinkpad T21 for service. The keyboard bevel broke within two weeks of receiving the laptop originally, but that wasn't why I sent it in. The screen has been accumulating dead pixels, the connector between the screen and the unit is loose, and the laptop won't boot unless it's squeezed the right way.

IBM's first-line folks were fine. They sent out a box for my laptop immediately. But then the tech folks declared it to be "liquid spillage" and not under warrantee. I was told they would send me the photos proving it later that afternoon. Calling back a few days later, I was told they would send me the photos that afternoon. A week later, they would send me the photos that afternoon. A few days later... Finally I gave in (after many escalations) and had them return the laptop. This all took about a month.

Since it was no longer under warrantee (the "liquid spillage" excuse), I took it apart myself. There was a nice glob of thermal grease in the keyboard connector that was not there when I sent it in. (I sometimes removed the keyboard to dust it. The manual detailing how is available on-line.) I had different memory modules installed. Same capacity, but now they had "certified used" stickers on them. I also found thermal grease on the motherboard in a few places, and some interesting fingerprints etched in the metal around the screw holes.

I tightened some connectors, cleaned the board as best I could, and reassembled. The dead pixels are still there, but it boots reliably now and the screen connector doesn't go dead.

And they'll still be sending me the images showing that it's liquid damage this afternoon. I no longer trust IBM's thinkpad support. If this were a commercial account, I would have gone through the sales rep, and they would have dealt with everything. But the personal support I encountered was definitely not trustworthy.

End-user service is always a crap shoot. You may get great service, you may get lousy service, all from the same company. That's why businesses will pay more to go through sales reps. The sales rep will deal with it. Oh well.

Jason