Gotta love Chrysler, thanking us for stealing our money. They should thank the shysters in Washington for giving it to them. Not the taxpayers who didn't want this "theft of taxpayer dollars" to occur.

It's plainly irreverent, and a slap in the face to every American Taxpayer.

Chrysler Faces Criticism for Full-Page ‘Thank You’ Ads - FOXNews.com Transition Tracker | dc0de's notes...

--sarcasm--

This CAN'T be true... I won't hear of it... SSL is no longer safe?

--sarcasm--

Was it ever "really" safe?

Web browser flaw could put e-commerce security at risk | Security - CNET News

--sarcasm--

This CAN'T be true... I won't hear of it... SSL is no longer safe?

--sarcasm--

Was it ever "really" safe?

Web browser flaw could put e-commerce security at risk | Security - CNET News

--sarcasm--

This CAN'T be true... I won't hear of it... SSL is no longer safe?

--sarcasm--

Was it ever "really" safe?

Web browser flaw could put e-commerce security at risk | Security - CNET News

Acidus wrote:
--snip--
Let me explain. I work for a Fortune 15 technology corporation. They pay me very, very, very well. However in return I'm subjected to (with a fair bit of good things) unbelievably stupid bullshit. They don't seem to realize that I couldn't give 2 shits about their money otherwise I'd have alot less bullshit in my life.

Jay Chaudhry met with me twice in the spring of 2008 and asked me to join his new start up Zscalar. I turned him down for a couple reasons, the biggest being he kept appealing to the wrong side of me. He kept talking dollars, he never talked projects. How are you doing "in the cloud" security. Are you buying or building? Which parts are you buying and which parts are you building. I'm not leaving a role where I get to shape research and product features to babysit a farm of 1U Barracuda boxen. I even flat told him I don't care about money and he looked at me like I was an idiot. And still could not to my satisfaction tell me what I would do.

I go for the project. Yet at both ends of the extreme, from large to small, companies kept appealing to the money side of the "pay/project" coin. From my limited experience the "performance mertic pay" side is taken care of at both extremes of company size and type. Perhaps I'm just really lucky.

However that's not true for the project side of the coin. Smart people go where the innovative products are. And while rewarding performance may be taking hold in large corporations (and I'm certainly proof that it does) innovation is still very much tied to seniority.

So, in my view, the "performance metric problem" is one side of the problem coin. However I believe it is second in importance to the other, far larger and undiscussed side: "The Innovation Problem". The Innovation Problem is this: It is easier for smart people to develop new products or technology in a start up and have a higher degree of success than doing so of inside a large technology corporation.

This is odd considering that the costs of starting a start up are approaching zero. It should cost a corporation hardly anything to incubate new ideas. And indeed I see "incubators" at tech firms all the time. And like startups, most fail. However they fail for far different reasons than traditional startups fail. In-company incubators fail because they starve.

You don't see it unless you have lived in both worlds. At large corporations "innovation" comes from a certain group of people. Phd. Senior Fellow. Technologist. Vint Cerf style. These groups have support structures because they are somehow viewed by the corporation as the "real researchers" even th... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

RE: The Innovation Problem

And people laughed at me for going back to a cashed based finance system. I've closed all my credit cards, locked my credit reports, and refuse to open any new lines of credit without significant and careful consideration.

I don't trust how much of our lives are online already, and news like this furthers to justify our decision to keep our finances "off-line".

Hundreds of Stolen Data Dumps Found - Security Fix

Here's a list I'd like to share with everyone, compiled at our recent dc404 meeting. It's a list of software tools that we each install, "first thing" on our systems. The tools that we use everyday to make our computing experience "nicer", "easier", or "better"...

If you have more tools that you use, please, feel free to post a reply, and we'll add them to the list!

Thanks for looking,

-
dc0de.

Tools that I cannot live without... | dc0de's notes...

I laughed SOOO hard when I saw this today... I actually received it from another former colleague of mine...

I just had to put it somewhere special...

OMG! I used to work there!!!! | dc0de's notes...

In recent years, some industry and government critics, including Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, have sought to have Fannie Mae's privileges removed. They say the company could pose a significant risk to taxpayers if it became troubled. And the White House, concerned about any political fallout if Fannie were to stumble, has declined to make 5 appointments to the 18-member board.

Until recently, Fannie successfully beat back the efforts to dilute its power by promoting its housing function. But it is now expected to face a reinvigorated effort in Congress to limit its growth.

Fannie Mae does not itself issue mortgage loans. But it serves as a bridge between lenders on Main Street and enormous pools of capital on Wall Street. By buying mortgages up to a certain dollar level - currently $333,700 - from banks and savings institutions, and either holding them as an investment or selling them in the secondary markets as mortgage-backed securities, it has made housing financing widely available.

In the process, it has built a steadily profitable business for shareholders and enriched its top executives. Together with a smaller brother company, Freddie Mac, it holds or guarantees more than $7 trillion in mortgages.

From a December 21, 2004 New York Times article.

This was foreseen, and discussed, and most importantly, beaten back by the democrats...

Now that we have a Majority of democrats, what else are they going to set in motion?

The New York Times - Business - Chief Is Ousted at Fannie Mae Under Pressure --December 21, 2004--

President-elect Barack Obama has said getting affordable high-speed Internet service to every American home would create jobs, fuel economic growth and spark innovation. Yesterday, representatives from technology and telecommunications companies, labor unions and public interest groups frequently at odds with one another agreed to provide the next president with a roadmap for how to accomplish those goals.

Because this is more important than the economy? Pushing broadband is going to fuel growth? Create Jobs?

More like it'll fuel the labor unions that provided him his $$$ to gain office.

Pluuueeeeeze...

New Coalition Drawing Up Nationwide Broadband Access Strategy - washingtonpost.com