If the Chinese government thought that giving away free porn would end the criticism of their dealings with Tibet, Taiwan, Tainammen Square, Human rights, etc, they would be handing it out on the streets. The Chinese govt does not believe in "morals", otherwise they would not have run over innocent unarmed college students in Tiannamen square, would not have secret laws against talking about Tainammen square, or any secret laws and secret courts, all of which are inherently immoral.
Sorry, but you have to be pretty damned niave to believe otherwise. As a matter of fact, you have to be pretty damned naive to believe anything that comes from that government.
It is nothing more then another layer of control to further oppress those who would otherwise rebel against the evil that is the Chinese government.
The person who brought this story up is an idiot if they believe this is all about "porn." Yes, in the Tianamen Square incident a lot of people got screwed, but I would not call it "porn." Anyone want to take bets about how many sites concerning that particular obscenity will get blocked by these new initiatives?
"Porn" my ass.
It is about control. Plain and simple. Control to let the evil murdering bastards that run that country continue to do so. period.
Two simple answers to that question.
1) If my network connection goes down, on a PC I still have a Word Processor, Spreadsheet, etc. There is still SOME work that I can do. On a thin clent, I have a brick.
2) A small corporate setup will have certain things that users rely on, like email, word processing spreadsheets, corporate databases.
A setup baseds on a thin client will also have the servers for those thin clients.
If an email server goes down either way, users have no email.
If a word processing program goes bad:
At My company, with PCs, ONE of my users is SOL, until I get it fixed. If the world is ending, he goes next door and uses a coworkers machine to get his job done.
At my wife's company, EVERYONE is SOL, until the the problem is fixed, and there is no alternative.
Yes, this happens at all companies with SOME things, like the corporate database. If the Oracle machine dies, everyone is out of luck. However, with a thin client, that is true about EVERYTHING, every application, every bit of data, etc. At A 60 user company, My assistant and I ARE the IT department. My Wife's is off site, and the number of times I hear about the company being brought to a complete standstill, or some process being halted, is ridiculous. The problem is always either, something went down like an Application server, so no one can log in and do anything, or something broke with an application, and it took them an hour and a 1/2 to fix it. That hour and a half at MY company this stops 1 1/2 man hours of processing.
At her company, it stops 45 people times 1 1/2 hours of processing. I could never see operating that way.
"You're obligated to comply with a lawful order from a police officer. "
The 1st Amendment makes that request unlawful.
"So if the cop says,"tell them to leave [because you've created a dangerous situation by being here]" you'd better comply, or you'll get sent down."
Sorry, No. The cops can open their mouths and say whatever they want, they CAN NOT COMPEL others to speak. To do so is to violate thier constitutional rights.
They are gonna get sued, and they are gonna lose.
NJ Transit moves people a few miles at a time. You just don't have that kind of traffic going that distance on a regular basis. Those that do need cars on both sides. Yes, it will get som euse, if they ever managed to get up a functioning service, but it would never pay for itself, the taxpayers will be taxed for it every year forever, driving more and more business OUT of California.
Hell, just think of this: BART, is the local By area subway. It took DECADES before the brought bart to SFO. SFO was BUILT with a subway terminal way back from the get go, but the IDIOTS who run this thing, instead of bring BART right to the airport, decided to have the last stop miles away, so everybody has to get off of BART with theer baggage, a big enough pain in the ass, and then GET ON A BUS with thier baggage. It is this kind oa basic blatant incompetence that would be magnified from the millions for BART to the BILLIONS for high speed rail.
I may just be cynical, but show me one large expensive project that California has done right. Just one.
Just because it is a lot of money doesn't mean it is a bad investment...
True, but becasue it is a governmetn sponsored source of a lot of money, it IS a bad investment. there will be no competition, so it will be just like the DMV. Taxed to hell and back simply because it is there, unreliable, rife with incompetence, and another financial sinkhole.
Find some way to contract it out so that the state of California does ot get bent over a barrel if things go wrong, and I am for it.
Good luck finding anyone who would take that bet.
"Are you thinking that each trip only takes 1 person? Now that would be a boondoggle!"
I was not suggesting each train held one person. A trip is one person.
"Now let's say it's mildly successful, mostly used as a commuter train and there are 6 trains a day going each way... thats 12 trains a day, (whereas hugely successful would be more like 12 trains per hour)."
You do not have that many people "commuting" 400 miles each way. This is where the whole idea breaks down. This is why you will not have that kind of ridership. For me to use that train, I would have to drive 2 hours to get to San Francisco. If it was as busy as you suggest, there would be no place to park my car. When I get to the other side, then what? This massive tain will only take me one place, so I will have to rent a car or deal with more "mass transit", which is useless for most people. Until the entire state of mass transit is better, meaning it actually goes WHERE people want to go, WHEN people want to go, without having to make 50 connections or wait between changes, and this just is not going to happen as long as governmetn runs it.
That is is a Tokyo station. MASS Transit is the key there. There is not a MASS of people wanting to go from San Francisco to San Diego on a regular basis.
You can not compare local train traffic and subways to long haul routes.
The biggest problems with your numbers even if your analysis is correct?
The 4.7 billion is a pip dream. Cost overruns and construction delays will likely double it.
You forget the cost of personell, ongoing maintence, etc which will take most of that 60 dollars per fair. By the time yu got even close tp paying it off, all of the trains would need to be replaced. I do not believe such a thing will ever pay for itself.
This high speed train will not "save" money. You are looking a a high speed money pit where there will be no recourse for the inevitable cost over runs and ongoing maintenance issues.
"Why do we expect basic transport to make money? "
I don't. I just don't think the state of California needs ANOTHER stupid project to sink billions of HARD EARNED TAX DOLLARS into. We need to cut spending and reduce taxes, and all this will do is increase taxes and spending.
"and a sensibly priced choice will do that "
"California government" and "sensibly priced" like matter and anti matter. IF they ever came together, the entire planet would explode.
Yes It will just make stops in the big cities. A train hat never gets up to 200 MPH because it has to stop every couple of minutes is not a high speed train, just an over priced barf inducing carnival ride.
It is perhaps cheaper then driving, but few people drive that distance on a regular basis every day, unless they are moving Cargo. Practically speaking, when you add in the cost over runs and every cost associated with it, you would need thousands of full cars running every day just to break even.
This has got to be the stupidest idea yet.
If we assume 30 dollars one way as a reasonable fair, and it does not go into cost overruns, and it costs ZERO dollars to operate once it is built, it will take 156,000,000 trips to pay for itself. At 50 dollars one way, it is still 94 million trips. How many people make that commute? How long will it take to pay for itself?
Of course, we know it WILL go into cost over runs, and it will cost a great deal of money to keep going, for maintenance, employees, power, etc.
Can anyone explain to me how this will be economically feasible? Anyone?
Arnold?
"You think your point of view is the only valid ones and anyone who disagrees is an idiot. frankly, you are the type of person that gives IT workers a bad name."
Dude, get a grip. First of all, consider this a place to "vent." As a manager, you know that every company has an asshole, a nitwit, etc. and that all your staff know who this person is. I would HOPE that someone under you can come to you in confidence, and be free enough to call a spade a spade, or an asshole an asshole, without you getting on his case. Granted, such an attitude is for internal consumption only, and externally all should be smiles and daisies, but you gotta let your employees be real with you, or you are NOT an effective manager.
The fact of the matter is, this guy IS BEING REAL. There WILL be whiners, people who will whine, even if there is nothing whatsoever to whine about. If upper management says we change the logo to green on grey, yea, there will be whiners who are going to have to learn to stfu. If they say OO, then OO it shall be. Now, there are nice ways to say this, and I would not want MY people telling THEIR customers that bluntly, but I have no problem with them using such blunt language with me. We all know the score, who the problem people are, and there is no sense to pretend otherwise.
Yes, You always want to have an attitude of "how can I help", but we all know that there are going to be some people who cannot be "helped." The problem is not one of hardware, software, or training, but attitude. IT is not allowed to give people an attitude adjustment, ( a fact I sorely regret sometimes,) but you gotta plan for it, you gotta acknowledge it, and you gotta be able to talk about it.
My President decreed that no downloading of music or movies shall occur on the company 'net. I have to tell people to knock it off. Some of them whine.
Now, honestly, when someone comes to me whining because they can not download some crap off the Itunes store, what option do I have other then to tell them to STFU, whether I use politically correct forms of speech or not?
Hmm? Same situation here. You can bitch about a done deal, or you can deal with it. People have to know thier options, and in a case like that, it may very wel come down to stfu or gtfo.
Ya know?
Honest Answer? A perception, right or wrong, that the French are extremely arrogant and self important.
Something that is probably echoed as a perception of Americans.
Just for the record, I said I would "determine," not I would "answer." My personal MO would be to talk to the user, and ask why they need it. I might be able to eliminate the need, by showing them alternate ways of achieving their goals. You might be surprised to how many people will say some variation of "I didn't know ______(insert name of company approved widely used software used daily by employee in question) could do THAT!" Or I can steer them to a similar program that I do support. If someone wants to install CUTE ftp, I will tell them to use Filezilla, because it does the same thing and I support that one.
On the other hand, while I take cases one by one, NO-ONE I can think of needs I-tunes installed, and a few I-tunes users sharing their libraries with other users on the net, can indeed bring computers to a screeching halt. If there is a disagreement, certainly their manager can decide.
I am not Mordak the preventer of information services. My job is to help users with IT, individually and as a group. A negative response from me is based on it's potential impact on that user's ability to do his job, other people's ability to do their job, any my ability to do my job. If it is likely to trash your computer, pull the E-brake on the network or internet access, or pull me away from truly important things like keeping the rest of the company running because someone told someone else how great Limewire is, and now your machine is infested with 79 different distinct types of scumware, I fail in my job to simply allow that to happen.
Depends on the user. If a user wants to do something on their own, I determine if:
1) They REALLY need it to do their job.
2) It has potential to really screw things up for more then just themselves.
3) They have the brains to deal with typical issues themselves,
4) They have the brains to know when they are really about to screw the pooch, and stop before that happens.
Then, as long as I am comfortable with the answer to question (2), I make my suggestions, and inform them that if they wish to install something, they can, but I am not supporting it, if it screws up their system, fixing it will be a low priority for me.
I generally find that few people who are not really up to the task of self support decide to install, and the few that go on are generally not much of a problem.
Of course some things, like P2P, are a "Flat No Way in Hell," period.
This is coming from someone responsible for about 70 workstations, 20 of them laptops.
Letting everyonee do it "free for all" style? Only if I am not supporting them, and I would feel truly sorry for those that are...
Are you mixing up Guidelines with Mandatory sentencing? I like the idea that a similar crime will get a similar time. This does not rule out vastly different punishment for crimes which are quite different, such as this case. Mandatory sentencing is objectionable, as it leaves judges with little leeway.
In this case, these kids should be hit hard. 20 years, 250K is a little too hard, but some real punishment is due.
The idea that Video games should come before school is ignorant, to say the very least.
"Good grades in school are the most effective path to economic prosperity and happiness, but it is not the only path."
Bad grades in school are the most effective path to rampant ignorance and criminal behavior, but it is not the only path.
"but we should not deprive rights based on probability, it is a rather slippery slope."
Another perfect example of why good grades and school are so important, and it's lack leads to ignorance. Had you not dropped out at 14, you might know that there is no such thing as a "right" to purchase something. If I do not want to sell you something, I don't have to.
"If every kid gets a 100% on a test, the test is meaningless. The relevant authorities will then renormalize the standards so that more capable kids will receive higher scores."
Depends on whether it is the fault of the test, or the excellence of the students.
"I didn't need to study, I needed to do my work, and that's something that didn't stick no matter how many times video games, television, movies, Magic cards, time with friends, or books got taken away"
It may not work in every case, but the bottom line is still the same. Your time would have been better spent doing your work, and it is well within the rights of the salesmen to decide he will not encourage what he say as a cause of bad grades.
His Boss has the right to fire him for his actions.
However, NO-ONE has a "right" to buy a damn thing. IF I don't want to sell to you, I don't have to sell to you, and the only right you have in the deal is to take a hike. If more people graduated from high school, (and public highschool actualyy TAUGHT stuff, more people would understand what IS and is NOT a "right."
Who said, (besides his boss) that he has to SELL to kids that get bad grades?
In my opinion, any parent that allows a poorly performing student to play video games, or watch TV, when that time is much better spent STUDYING, is doing a great disservice to their children. Anyone who supports the idea that SCHOOL COMES FIRST is alright in my book.
Yes, not everyone graduates high school, but such people are generally LOSERS, destined to crappy jobs, and doomed to a life of ignorance and pushing French Fries.
The idea that a certain percentage of kids will get bad grades, as part of the structure of the system, is bogus. If every kid gets 100% on every test, then they will get good grades. If a kid is not doing well on tests, they have far more important things to be doing than playing video games.
It has a large ball, operated by my pointer and middle finger, with a button on the side for my thumb, and two more under my ring and pinky. I love it. I find that I can adjust the armrest of my chair so that it is exactly even with desk, and my hand can comfortably and naturally fall into a position allowing me to move the ball and hit the buttons easily, with a minimum of movement.
I use a computer all day, although not in Computer graphics. It is a real wrist saver, quite precise, and the momentum from a good spin combined with a fairly high acceleration rate allows me to get anywhere on the screen quickly and precisely, and I run at high res.
The ball is a medium weight, unlike the kensington models I have seen, which have a heavier ball. I would think that a heavy ball might lead to fatigue, and that a ball which is too light to coast a little would not be as responsive, but of course, that is a matter of personal taste.
"As an IT manager, I have a nice Sony Vaio
Well, thats your first mistake.:)"
Actually, I am pretty happy with it.
"Do you really buy the latest, greatest video card every 6-months? "
NO, but with a laptop, you CAN'T.
"The laptop chassis itself may only have on output, but its a dual-head card,"
I know, I run dual monitor, but that still ONE adapter.
With the newest desktops, you can bridge multiple GPUs together from multiple cards to get absolutely screaming edge performance. Can't do that in a laptop. Not diss'en the portables, I love em. But there will always be a need for something more expandable, which means desktops of one form or amother will be around for a while.
Slashdot Mirror
Let me put it this way. Do you think anti China, Pro Tibet, or tiannamen Square activist sites will end up on this "whitelist?" Wanna bet?
If the Chinese government thought that giving away free porn would end the criticism of their dealings with Tibet, Taiwan, Tainammen Square, Human rights, etc, they would be handing it out on the streets. The Chinese govt does not believe in "morals", otherwise they would not have run over innocent unarmed college students in Tiannamen square, would not have secret laws against talking about Tainammen square, or any secret laws and secret courts, all of which are inherently immoral. Sorry, but you have to be pretty damned niave to believe otherwise. As a matter of fact, you have to be pretty damned naive to believe anything that comes from that government. It is nothing more then another layer of control to further oppress those who would otherwise rebel against the evil that is the Chinese government.
The person who brought this story up is an idiot if they believe this is all about "porn." Yes, in the Tianamen Square incident a lot of people got screwed, but I would not call it "porn." Anyone want to take bets about how many sites concerning that particular obscenity will get blocked by these new initiatives? "Porn" my ass. It is about control. Plain and simple. Control to let the evil murdering bastards that run that country continue to do so. period.
Two simple answers to that question. 1) If my network connection goes down, on a PC I still have a Word Processor, Spreadsheet, etc. There is still SOME work that I can do. On a thin clent, I have a brick. 2) A small corporate setup will have certain things that users rely on, like email, word processing spreadsheets, corporate databases. A setup baseds on a thin client will also have the servers for those thin clients. If an email server goes down either way, users have no email. If a word processing program goes bad: At My company, with PCs, ONE of my users is SOL, until I get it fixed. If the world is ending, he goes next door and uses a coworkers machine to get his job done. At my wife's company, EVERYONE is SOL, until the the problem is fixed, and there is no alternative. Yes, this happens at all companies with SOME things, like the corporate database. If the Oracle machine dies, everyone is out of luck. However, with a thin client, that is true about EVERYTHING, every application, every bit of data, etc. At A 60 user company, My assistant and I ARE the IT department. My Wife's is off site, and the number of times I hear about the company being brought to a complete standstill, or some process being halted, is ridiculous. The problem is always either, something went down like an Application server, so no one can log in and do anything, or something broke with an application, and it took them an hour and a 1/2 to fix it. That hour and a half at MY company this stops 1 1/2 man hours of processing. At her company, it stops 45 people times 1 1/2 hours of processing. I could never see operating that way.
"You're obligated to comply with a lawful order from a police officer. " The 1st Amendment makes that request unlawful. "So if the cop says,"tell them to leave [because you've created a dangerous situation by being here]" you'd better comply, or you'll get sent down." Sorry, No. The cops can open their mouths and say whatever they want, they CAN NOT COMPEL others to speak. To do so is to violate thier constitutional rights. They are gonna get sued, and they are gonna lose.
NJ Transit moves people a few miles at a time. You just don't have that kind of traffic going that distance on a regular basis. Those that do need cars on both sides. Yes, it will get som euse, if they ever managed to get up a functioning service, but it would never pay for itself, the taxpayers will be taxed for it every year forever, driving more and more business OUT of California. Hell, just think of this: BART, is the local By area subway. It took DECADES before the brought bart to SFO. SFO was BUILT with a subway terminal way back from the get go, but the IDIOTS who run this thing, instead of bring BART right to the airport, decided to have the last stop miles away, so everybody has to get off of BART with theer baggage, a big enough pain in the ass, and then GET ON A BUS with thier baggage. It is this kind oa basic blatant incompetence that would be magnified from the millions for BART to the BILLIONS for high speed rail. I may just be cynical, but show me one large expensive project that California has done right. Just one.
Just because it is a lot of money doesn't mean it is a bad investment... True, but becasue it is a governmetn sponsored source of a lot of money, it IS a bad investment. there will be no competition, so it will be just like the DMV. Taxed to hell and back simply because it is there, unreliable, rife with incompetence, and another financial sinkhole. Find some way to contract it out so that the state of California does ot get bent over a barrel if things go wrong, and I am for it. Good luck finding anyone who would take that bet.
"Are you thinking that each trip only takes 1 person? Now that would be a boondoggle!" I was not suggesting each train held one person. A trip is one person. "Now let's say it's mildly successful, mostly used as a commuter train and there are 6 trains a day going each way... thats 12 trains a day, (whereas hugely successful would be more like 12 trains per hour)." You do not have that many people "commuting" 400 miles each way. This is where the whole idea breaks down. This is why you will not have that kind of ridership. For me to use that train, I would have to drive 2 hours to get to San Francisco. If it was as busy as you suggest, there would be no place to park my car. When I get to the other side, then what? This massive tain will only take me one place, so I will have to rent a car or deal with more "mass transit", which is useless for most people. Until the entire state of mass transit is better, meaning it actually goes WHERE people want to go, WHEN people want to go, without having to make 50 connections or wait between changes, and this just is not going to happen as long as governmetn runs it.
That is is a Tokyo station. MASS Transit is the key there. There is not a MASS of people wanting to go from San Francisco to San Diego on a regular basis. You can not compare local train traffic and subways to long haul routes.
The biggest problems with your numbers even if your analysis is correct? The 4.7 billion is a pip dream. Cost overruns and construction delays will likely double it. You forget the cost of personell, ongoing maintence, etc which will take most of that 60 dollars per fair. By the time yu got even close tp paying it off, all of the trains would need to be replaced. I do not believe such a thing will ever pay for itself.
This high speed train will not "save" money. You are looking a a high speed money pit where there will be no recourse for the inevitable cost over runs and ongoing maintenance issues.
"Why do we expect basic transport to make money? " I don't. I just don't think the state of California needs ANOTHER stupid project to sink billions of HARD EARNED TAX DOLLARS into. We need to cut spending and reduce taxes, and all this will do is increase taxes and spending. "and a sensibly priced choice will do that " "California government" and "sensibly priced" like matter and anti matter. IF they ever came together, the entire planet would explode.
Yes It will just make stops in the big cities. A train hat never gets up to 200 MPH because it has to stop every couple of minutes is not a high speed train, just an over priced barf inducing carnival ride. It is perhaps cheaper then driving, but few people drive that distance on a regular basis every day, unless they are moving Cargo. Practically speaking, when you add in the cost over runs and every cost associated with it, you would need thousands of full cars running every day just to break even.
This has got to be the stupidest idea yet. If we assume 30 dollars one way as a reasonable fair, and it does not go into cost overruns, and it costs ZERO dollars to operate once it is built, it will take 156,000,000 trips to pay for itself. At 50 dollars one way, it is still 94 million trips. How many people make that commute? How long will it take to pay for itself? Of course, we know it WILL go into cost over runs, and it will cost a great deal of money to keep going, for maintenance, employees, power, etc. Can anyone explain to me how this will be economically feasible? Anyone? Arnold?
"You think your point of view is the only valid ones and anyone who disagrees is an idiot. frankly, you are the type of person that gives IT workers a bad name." Dude, get a grip. First of all, consider this a place to "vent." As a manager, you know that every company has an asshole, a nitwit, etc. and that all your staff know who this person is. I would HOPE that someone under you can come to you in confidence, and be free enough to call a spade a spade, or an asshole an asshole, without you getting on his case. Granted, such an attitude is for internal consumption only, and externally all should be smiles and daisies, but you gotta let your employees be real with you, or you are NOT an effective manager. The fact of the matter is, this guy IS BEING REAL. There WILL be whiners, people who will whine, even if there is nothing whatsoever to whine about. If upper management says we change the logo to green on grey, yea, there will be whiners who are going to have to learn to stfu. If they say OO, then OO it shall be. Now, there are nice ways to say this, and I would not want MY people telling THEIR customers that bluntly, but I have no problem with them using such blunt language with me. We all know the score, who the problem people are, and there is no sense to pretend otherwise. Yes, You always want to have an attitude of "how can I help", but we all know that there are going to be some people who cannot be "helped." The problem is not one of hardware, software, or training, but attitude. IT is not allowed to give people an attitude adjustment, ( a fact I sorely regret sometimes,) but you gotta plan for it, you gotta acknowledge it, and you gotta be able to talk about it. My President decreed that no downloading of music or movies shall occur on the company 'net. I have to tell people to knock it off. Some of them whine. Now, honestly, when someone comes to me whining because they can not download some crap off the Itunes store, what option do I have other then to tell them to STFU, whether I use politically correct forms of speech or not? Hmm? Same situation here. You can bitch about a done deal, or you can deal with it. People have to know thier options, and in a case like that, it may very wel come down to stfu or gtfo. Ya know?
Honest Answer? A perception, right or wrong, that the French are extremely arrogant and self important. Something that is probably echoed as a perception of Americans.
On the other hand, while I take cases one by one, NO-ONE I can think of needs I-tunes installed, and a few I-tunes users sharing their libraries with other users on the net, can indeed bring computers to a screeching halt. If there is a disagreement, certainly their manager can decide.
I am not Mordak the preventer of information services. My job is to help users with IT, individually and as a group. A negative response from me is based on it's potential impact on that user's ability to do his job, other people's ability to do their job, any my ability to do my job. If it is likely to trash your computer, pull the E-brake on the network or internet access, or pull me away from truly important things like keeping the rest of the company running because someone told someone else how great Limewire is, and now your machine is infested with 79 different distinct types of scumware, I fail in my job to simply allow that to happen.
1) They REALLY need it to do their job.
2) It has potential to really screw things up for more then just themselves.
3) They have the brains to deal with typical issues themselves,
4) They have the brains to know when they are really about to screw the pooch, and stop before that happens.
Then, as long as I am comfortable with the answer to question (2), I make my suggestions, and inform them that if they wish to install something, they can, but I am not supporting it, if it screws up their system, fixing it will be a low priority for me.
I generally find that few people who are not really up to the task of self support decide to install, and the few that go on are generally not much of a problem.
Of course some things, like P2P, are a "Flat No Way in Hell," period.
This is coming from someone responsible for about 70 workstations, 20 of them laptops.
Letting everyonee do it "free for all" style? Only if I am not supporting them, and I would feel truly sorry for those that are...
Are you mixing up Guidelines with Mandatory sentencing? I like the idea that a similar crime will get a similar time. This does not rule out vastly different punishment for crimes which are quite different, such as this case. Mandatory sentencing is objectionable, as it leaves judges with little leeway. In this case, these kids should be hit hard. 20 years, 250K is a little too hard, but some real punishment is due.
The idea that Video games should come before school is ignorant, to say the very least.
"Good grades in school are the most effective path to economic prosperity and happiness, but it is not the only path."
Bad grades in school are the most effective path to rampant ignorance and criminal behavior, but it is not the only path.
"but we should not deprive rights based on probability, it is a rather slippery slope."
Another perfect example of why good grades and school are so important, and it's lack leads to ignorance. Had you not dropped out at 14, you might know that there is no such thing as a "right" to purchase something. If I do not want to sell you something, I don't have to.
"If every kid gets a 100% on a test, the test is meaningless. The relevant authorities will then renormalize the standards so that more capable kids will receive higher scores." Depends on whether it is the fault of the test, or the excellence of the students.
"I didn't need to study, I needed to do my work, and that's something that didn't stick no matter how many times video games, television, movies, Magic cards, time with friends, or books got taken away" It may not work in every case, but the bottom line is still the same. Your time would have been better spent doing your work, and it is well within the rights of the salesmen to decide he will not encourage what he say as a cause of bad grades.
His Boss has the right to fire him for his actions. However, NO-ONE has a "right" to buy a damn thing. IF I don't want to sell to you, I don't have to sell to you, and the only right you have in the deal is to take a hike. If more people graduated from high school, (and public highschool actualyy TAUGHT stuff, more people would understand what IS and is NOT a "right."
Who said, (besides his boss) that he has to SELL to kids that get bad grades? In my opinion, any parent that allows a poorly performing student to play video games, or watch TV, when that time is much better spent STUDYING, is doing a great disservice to their children. Anyone who supports the idea that SCHOOL COMES FIRST is alright in my book. Yes, not everyone graduates high school, but such people are generally LOSERS, destined to crappy jobs, and doomed to a life of ignorance and pushing French Fries. The idea that a certain percentage of kids will get bad grades, as part of the structure of the system, is bogus. If every kid gets 100% on every test, then they will get good grades. If a kid is not doing well on tests, they have far more important things to be doing than playing video games.
I use a computer all day, although not in Computer graphics. It is a real wrist saver, quite precise, and the momentum from a good spin combined with a fairly high acceleration rate allows me to get anywhere on the screen quickly and precisely, and I run at high res.
The ball is a medium weight, unlike the kensington models I have seen, which have a heavier ball. I would think that a heavy ball might lead to fatigue, and that a ball which is too light to coast a little would not be as responsive, but of course, that is a matter of personal taste.
"As an IT manager, I have a nice Sony Vaio Well, thats your first mistake. :)"
Actually, I am pretty happy with it.
"Do you really buy the latest, greatest video card every 6-months? "
NO, but with a laptop, you CAN'T.
"The laptop chassis itself may only have on output, but its a dual-head card,"
I know, I run dual monitor, but that still ONE adapter.
With the newest desktops, you can bridge multiple GPUs together from multiple cards to get absolutely screaming edge performance. Can't do that in a laptop. Not diss'en the portables, I love em. But there will always be a need for something more expandable, which means desktops of one form or amother will be around for a while.