Choice government careers for the taking. No experience necessary.
vangroovy
Vancouver named ‘world’s best city’:
For the fourth year in a row, Vancouver has claimed the top spot on an international ranking of the world’s most livable cities.
Toronto is ranked 9th; Calgary is 10th; no American cities made the list.
iron chef vs swedish chef
understanding record companies
When customers ask us why record companies have done various things (putting things out in one country but not others, pulling things out of print, playing games with pricing, etc), our stock answer has become “Because record companies are insane and evil.” The customers just tend to nod sagely.
— Joseph Zitt
fun in brooklyn
i can safely say is one of the finest pleasures i’ve experienced that doesn’t involve a second person.
the law is an ass
“If the law supposes that,†said Mr. Bumble,… “the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.â€
— Mr. Bumble, Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens)
the moron doesn’t fall far from the tree
“What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. And so many of the people in the arena were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.”
—Barbara Bush on hurricane refugees.
microsoft fixes their process
SmartOfficeNews summarized a Wall Street Journal article on Microsoft, covering how they fixed their software engineering process. Spin aside, the best part (emphasis mine):
By late October, Mr. Srivastava’s team was beginning to automate the testing that had historically been done by hand. If a feature had too many bugs, software “gates” rejected it from being used in Longhorn. If engineers had too many outstanding bugs they were tossed in “bug jail” and banned from writing new code. The goal, he says, was to get engineers to “do it right the first time.”
shabot 6000’s rosh hashannah
RIAA countersued
Tanya Andersen, a 41 year old disabled single mother living in Oregon, has countersued the RIAA for Oregon RICO violations, fraud, invasion of privacy, abuse of process, electronic trespass, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, negligent misrepresentation, the tort of “outrage”, and deceptive business practices:
11. Settlement Support Center also falsely claimed that Ms. Andersen had “been viewed†by MediaSentry downloading “gangster rap†music at 4:24 a.m. Settlement Support Center also falsely claimed that Ms. Andersen had used the login name “[email protected].†Ms. Andersen does not like “gangster rap,†does not recognize the name “gotenkito,†is not awake at 4:24 a.m. and has never downloaded music.