I agree. There are many alternative scenarios for rejection that the submitter did not mention, although we must admit the possibility that it was rejected for the suggested reason (community reticence and its significant funding implications). It's hardly a perfect process. PNAS isn't exactly slumming it, though.
I keep a text file, but it's only visible as root and its name doesn't make it seem like a text file. Furthermore, within it I never actually spell out my passwords, just a couple of characters to remember my sequence. I used to do the same for the system for which it applied, but then I found that I would forget my clever-at-the-time abbreviations for those (that leaky brain problem you mentioned...). I think that's sufficient obfuscation for now.
(Caveat: Are you sure this program isn't part of a research study? If so, most of this discussion is moot.)
I'm referring to the tinfoil hat, not the heart-rate monitor.;) Two things...
1. You right to be concerned about a program that, although it might be well-intentioned, has clear potential to be misused by a health-insurance company down the road. With that sort of concern, I hope you're for health-care reform.
2. Heart-rate monitors are red herrings. You don't need one to know if you're exercising hard. Trust me, you'll know because you want to get it to be over with and collapse onto the floor. Their value is primarily to endurance athletes trying to tune a specific pace. There many, many other athletes whose sports are of shorter duration who don't benefit much from a heart-rate monitor. Even more importantly, kids shouldn't focus on their heart rate at this stage. They should focus on having fun while exercising and playing, trying different sports, developing motor skills and learning correct for foundational functional movements (e.g., don't round your back in a deadlift).
150 burpees for time requires no equipment and humbles most everyone. (Note to original poster: don't try this full-bore immediately...scale down extensively)
This parent is correct. First, confirm that your concept of "staying in shape" is in line with what CrossFit can do for you: you'll get stronger, faster, and more powerful. You won't develop a bodybuilder's physique, which is very different from how CrossFit defines fitness. It will not be easy, because being truly fit is not easy. As many have stated before, CrossFit is for anyone, but it is not for everyone. Take it easy at first. Although some CrossFit workouts are relatively short (if you're very powerful), which suits the original poster's goals, don't neglect warm-ups and skill exercises. Get a 5' length of PVC pipe and bring it into your office to practice various barbell lifts. Watch some videos, practice, video yourself, practice some more.
The original poster mentioned that, regardless of what he ate, he gained weight when not exercising. Diet must be addressed to produce meaningful results. I've made excellent progress with the Paleo/Caveman/hunter-gatherer diet (the name is easy to make fun of but the results are impossible to ignore). Many others follow Paleo also with Zone ratios.
Up front: I agree with all of your listed strengths for LaTeX. However...
The problem that arises with an academic manuscript (that isn't your thesis) is that you have collaborators, and probably some who aren't local. These collaborators will likely need to make useful comments on your manuscript drafts. They might even know how to use LaTeX (most of mine do). But sharing a raw.tex file with them to solicit comments, or even the typesetted pdf? Forget it!
With the.tex file, they'll mash it all up, it won't compile again, and you'll waste a lot of time "collaborating." With the.pdf, Acrobat Reader's commenting feature is too cumbersome and inherently not interactive (if the pdf is even commentable). In my experience, Word's "track changes" feature is the only way to go. It enforces some critical ground rules (only one way to comment; *every* edit is recorded, etc.) that your time-starved colleagues can't ignore, and it favors "show, don't tell" attitudes with corrections.
Word itself is, of course, erratic, but as I recently discovered for a proposal, it can do a lot of things reasonably well (if not as beautifully and perfectly as LaTeX). Section numbers come to mind.
The odds are very high that the original poster could not possibly do better, in terms of an exercise program, than to start doing CrossFit. Most posters have suggested long-distance endurance workouts, weight machines (ugh!) and/or non-functional, bodybuilding exercises (curls, anyone?). CrossFit is functional, varied, and fun! It self-selects for a certain type of highly motivated individual, which the original poster may be. CrossFitters can do many, many things very well.
A geek bonus is that it's open-source and internet-based. IMHO, it is one most important sites on the internet. For fitness, nothing else comes close.
Right now, Pitckforkmedia.com is running a feature on its favorite albums from 2000-2004. Some good albums by more mainstream artists (e.g., The Strokes, Eminem) barely made the list. It doesn't like they had any trouble filling the list out to 100. Yet this would be the period I would expect to show evidence of this technologically-induced "death of an album" decline that is hypothesized.
The point isn't whether you agree with their list. No single person does, and arguing about it and the various banalities of each album is part of the fun. There's lots of great albums out there, some of it less mainstream than others but with a little help from your buddy technology, it's easy to find. Pitckfork and ITMS are excellent examples of this. But I do agree with others that this certainly dependent on what type of music you're interested in.
Technology isn't to blame for whatever perceived decline of an album there may be: radio is. Nearly a decade ago, I remember mainstream stations that would play album tracks (i.e., not just the singles) regularly, just to be different. Not so anymore. Whenever I go back to Denver (a ClearChannel hotspot), I'm always increasingly shocked at how stale everything sounds. Brand new? I first heard this a year ago!
P.S. The solution to bad radio is easy: www.kexp.org.
Some say a comet will fall from the sky. Followed by meteor showers and tidal waves. Followed by faultlines that cannot sit still. Followed by millions of dumbfounded dipshits. Some say the end is near. Some say we'll see armageddon soon. I certainly hope we will cuz I sure could use a vacation from this Silly shit, stupid shit... One great big festering neon distraction, I've a suggestion to keep you all occupied. Learn to swim.
Shackleton definitely set the bar high for quality leadership. Related to your link (that's the coffee table 'Endurance' book, right? I think I've only skimmed through that one), there are a couple of books explicitly addressing Shackleton's leadership abilities. One of them is quite good, and another is somewhat gimmicky and annoying. The authors try to apply Shackleton's methods to business today. There are definitely rules of thumb that can be derived from the Endurance expedition that are applicable to business today.
It would be worthwhile for the poster's bosses to have a look at them. There several stories in both books about leaders and managers that discovered Shackleton's story (usually by reading Endurance) and transformed their approach to leading others.
I went through pretty much the same experience that the reviewer had in terms of being introduced to What Should I Do With My Life? Read the article linked from Slashdot, bought the book, listened to the NPR review.
Some posters seem to think it's a career advice book, but I think that's an oversimplification that Bronson dismisses early on. It's a collection of stories about how various people figured out (or, more often, tried to figure out) what they really wanted to do with their time. It's not a book about parceling your time or a set of tips on how to kiss up to your manager.
Bronson's stories are charming, and although I agree that he infused the book with a little too much of his own experience, those stories were never so flat that I wanted to skip them. I particularly enjoyed the story about the good 'ole boy that jumped out of the consulting-to-Big-Oil business not just to try something different, but the complete opposite of what he had been doing. The absurdity of the whole process was also humorously revealed in the story of the guy that figured out while interviewing with Bronson what he really ought to do: "I want to help people...play better golf!"
I found this book at a time when I needed some reminding of what I thought my purpose was. I just started graduate school last fall and, as it seems nearly everyone does, got to the point why I wondered why the hell I was going through the academic motions all over again. All my other friends had moved on to something new, and here I was in the same old grind.
I had forgotten that I had come to graduate school to study a topic that I'd dreamed about pursuing (polar glaciology, not exactly something you can just pick up) for several years. It was virtually the only thing that got me really jazzed as an undergraduate so when the opportunity arose to get into it, I jumped at it.
But then all the other grad school stuff kicked in, and it didn't seem like such a good use of 6 years anymore. Bronson's book helped me refocus on why came to do what I'm doing. A friend said that if I had to read the book to remind myself why I was in grad school, then I must not be doing what I really want to do. But I think if she read the book, she'd realize (as I eventually did) that your "calling" is, as Bronson concludes, a glimmer that can oscillate. It's almost never an epiphany, instead it's a trend towards what you really want to do.
Gnucleus is not a bad utility, but it lacks a sufficient userbase to be of use to me. I recently switched to KazaaLite after using Gnucleus for what was probably a good 8 months, and files that I searched for that whole time on Gnucleus no one ever had...but I found them immediately with various users on KazaaLite.
With filesharing, you have to go where everyone else is to have any hope of finding anything specific that you're looking for. Sure, roaming someone else's shared files for something new can be fun, but it's time-consuming and often fruitless.
I used to agree with all the arguments you made about why Gnucleus is worthwhile, but I finally broke down and said: "Damnit, I just want to find what I'm looking for." And having Gnucleus spend 10 minutes trying to connect to SuperNode every time just so I can get zero results for a search doesn't impress me too much.
So last spring a buddy of mine and I were going to a climb a mountain near Leadville, CO. He's a real smart guy but kind of a mountain man, not too up on Internet lingo. We got to talking about climbingboulder.com, a great resource for CO climbers that has a commenting system for routes. We talked about the people that posted comments on the site and he said:
"There's this one guy on there that I fucking strive to be like. This Anonymous Coward guy, dumb name, but he's climbed *all over*. I don't know he does it."
I couldn't keep a straight face for very long. It had never occurred to him to take the name literally;-)
I moved to Seattle a few months ago, and its traffic seems to have to the same root cause as any other place: too many damned people driving too many damned cars by themselves. People here seem to want to try what they're already doing in Denver: making the highway a little wider and pray. But it just ain't gonna work. Commuters' attitudes need to evolve, not the highway.
At least the monorail will help curb the amount of people commuting by car within Seattle. I agree that the buses (with reduced funding) certainly aren't helping a whole lot. I haven't used the longer-range commuter buses here, but the intra-city buses suck hard. Dirty, late, expensive and confusing...not a good mix.
Now if they could just make the Burke-Gilman a little safer/well-lit, I'd be happy. Why drive/bus when you can bike?
Well, I'm not sure if I'd qualify getting a PhD in physics an "everyday life choice," but I definitely agree with cybermace5's advice. I just started a PhD in geophysics (substantially easier, I suspect, than what you're considering), but I've already spent 4+ years finding out that I enjoy geophysics. Borrowing course notes isn't really enough experience to figure out whether or not you like physics enough to dedicate, and I do mean dedicate, the better part of a decade to its study. Find a way to work near physicists for a while and see what you think.
link to something that actually works
on
Netrek
·
· Score: 1
After doing a little searching, here's a link to a Windows client on another page on the netrek.org site that actually works. The ftp server they list doesn't work properly
It is interesting how noticeably different conclusions can be reached by different books on a subject. Although I'll certainly go out and read this book for the varied perspective (thanks for pointing it out), considering Shackelton's whole life, as Roland Huntford's "Shackleton" does, is probably a better way of understanding Shackleton's philosophy.
From Huntford's biography, it is apparent that while Shackleton might have superficially believed in "Explore and Serve," his principal motivation consisted simply of the quest for quintessential Edwardian glory. His polar adventures were simply the most ambitious and publicized instances of his reach for fame and fortune; he formulated numerous ill-fated get-rich-quick schemes throughout Europe.
Several times, I have read of the glorification of Shackleton's desires when the facts present him as an opportunist. Granted, he was a superb leader of men and optimist, but his motivations are somewhat plain and not particularly praiseworthy.
Sounds an awful lot like another current PS2 game with exhaustive non-interactive movie scenes.
Metal Gear Solid 2
The comments about the linearity of FFX also ring mostly true for MGS2. Get to a point, watch another friggin' 30-minute cutscene, get to another point, etc. Awesome gameplay, very limited implementation.
Sometimes the only way to get to the root of a problem is extreme sarcasm mixed in with the most telling elements of the truth. The parent is an excellent example of this.
Why can't you simply expect good service from UPS? Many replies seem to enjoy nitpicking on a couple of details rather than facing the obvious: the poster got bent over by UPS.
There is, of course, a site dedicated to how much UPS sucks: http://www.ups-sucks.com/html/
"Human face recognition" is a painfully naive concept. Even if Osama Bin Laden himself shaved his beard, wore Western clothing and then tried to walk through security/customs/whatever at any airport in the country, how likely is he to be recognized? Maybe...*maybe* if some CIA analyst who had devoted his career to Mideast terrorist organizations walked by he *might* recognize Bin Laden, but I'd even consider that a longshot.
I watch the news regularly and could recognize him immediately... if he were wearing his tunic-robe-thingy, had his somewhat distinctive facial hair and was carrying an AK-47 or walkie-talkie.
Let's face it: human face recognition is just a euphemism for racial profiling. I certainly don't advocate computer face recognition, but it's got a lot more going for it than a concept that doesn't hold true in the real world.
Although I don't pretend to know much beyond OSHA HAZWOPER taught me about chemical regulations, perhaps the reason for some of the more exotic/dangerous solutions might be that these people are based in Leeds, which is in the UK. From what I have been told by my British chemistry teacher Mom, regulations are a little more lax in the UK.
Doesn't InkLink (that Shockwave pictionary game) already do this? Nothing really new, I don't really mind the ads but then again I have cable so they don't waste any time downloading them.
Funny that it's a British company that will introduce this type of frequent interrupt advertising to the "mainstream," since, as I recall, British TV ads are much less intrusive than American ads in that they only come up every 15 minutes.
Fair enough, I certainly hadn't ever heard of CSI before Survivor 2... they must not have advertised it during 60 Minutes.;)
Hey wait a sec, if I'm part of this 18-49 demographic how come I have no money to buy things? Stupid college.
Survivor lead-in more important
on
C.S.I.
·
· Score: 4
I think a larger part of CSI's success, because I've seen it and been disappointed a couple of times, is the tremendous advantage it gets from being led into by Survivor 2.
Let's face it: Survivor 2 is really good. I don't even like the reality genre that much but Survivor 2 really compells me. It's just about the only reason I watch CBS (except for 60 Minutes, I'm sure not many others here do that:)).
As for the redeeming qualities of CSI, I think they've all been developed at least as effectively on Discovery Channel, History Channel and PBS.
I agree that the kind of scientific analysis that CSI involves in a drama can be fun to watch, but CSI is not the best vehicle for it. The tackiness overwhelms it. The true drama of a scientific investigation can be just as present on NOVA as the fake melodrama of CSI.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. There are many alternative scenarios for rejection that the submitter did not mention, although we must admit the possibility that it was rejected for the suggested reason (community reticence and its significant funding implications). It's hardly a perfect process. PNAS isn't exactly slumming it, though.
I keep a text file, but it's only visible as root and its name doesn't make it seem like a text file. Furthermore, within it I never actually spell out my passwords, just a couple of characters to remember my sequence. I used to do the same for the system for which it applied, but then I found that I would forget my clever-at-the-time abbreviations for those (that leaky brain problem you mentioned...). I think that's sufficient obfuscation for now.
(Caveat: Are you sure this program isn't part of a research study? If so, most of this discussion is moot.)
;) Two things...
I'm referring to the tinfoil hat, not the heart-rate monitor.
1. You right to be concerned about a program that, although it might be well-intentioned, has clear potential to be misused by a health-insurance company down the road. With that sort of concern, I hope you're for health-care reform.
2. Heart-rate monitors are red herrings. You don't need one to know if you're exercising hard. Trust me, you'll know because you want to get it to be over with and collapse onto the floor. Their value is primarily to endurance athletes trying to tune a specific pace. There many, many other athletes whose sports are of shorter duration who don't benefit much from a heart-rate monitor. Even more importantly, kids shouldn't focus on their heart rate at this stage. They should focus on having fun while exercising and playing, trying different sports, developing motor skills and learning correct for foundational functional movements (e.g., don't round your back in a deadlift).
150 burpees for time requires no equipment and humbles most everyone. (Note to original poster: don't try this full-bore immediately...scale down extensively)
This parent is correct. First, confirm that your concept of "staying in shape" is in line with what CrossFit can do for you: you'll get stronger, faster, and more powerful. You won't develop a bodybuilder's physique, which is very different from how CrossFit defines fitness. It will not be easy, because being truly fit is not easy. As many have stated before, CrossFit is for anyone, but it is not for everyone. Take it easy at first. Although some CrossFit workouts are relatively short (if you're very powerful), which suits the original poster's goals, don't neglect warm-ups and skill exercises. Get a 5' length of PVC pipe and bring it into your office to practice various barbell lifts. Watch some videos, practice, video yourself, practice some more.
The original poster mentioned that, regardless of what he ate, he gained weight when not exercising. Diet must be addressed to produce meaningful results. I've made excellent progress with the Paleo/Caveman/hunter-gatherer diet (the name is easy to make fun of but the results are impossible to ignore). Many others follow Paleo also with Zone ratios.
The truth is out there.
Up front: I agree with all of your listed strengths for LaTeX. However...
.tex file with them to solicit comments, or even the typesetted pdf? Forget it!
.tex file, they'll mash it all up, it won't compile again, and you'll waste a lot of time "collaborating." With the .pdf, Acrobat Reader's commenting feature is too cumbersome and inherently not interactive (if the pdf is even commentable). In my experience, Word's "track changes" feature is the only way to go. It enforces some critical ground rules (only one way to comment; *every* edit is recorded, etc.) that your time-starved colleagues can't ignore, and it favors "show, don't tell" attitudes with corrections.
The problem that arises with an academic manuscript (that isn't your thesis) is that you have collaborators, and probably some who aren't local. These collaborators will likely need to make useful comments on your manuscript drafts. They might even know how to use LaTeX (most of mine do). But sharing a raw
With the
Word itself is, of course, erratic, but as I recently discovered for a proposal, it can do a lot of things reasonably well (if not as beautifully and perfectly as LaTeX). Section numbers come to mind.
The odds are very high that the original poster could not possibly do better, in terms of an exercise program, than to start doing CrossFit. Most posters have suggested long-distance endurance workouts, weight machines (ugh!) and/or non-functional, bodybuilding exercises (curls, anyone?). CrossFit is functional, varied, and fun! It self-selects for a certain type of highly motivated individual, which the original poster may be. CrossFitters can do many, many things very well.
A geek bonus is that it's open-source and internet-based. IMHO, it is one most important sites on the internet. For fitness, nothing else comes close.
Right now, Pitckforkmedia.com is running a feature on its favorite albums from 2000-2004. Some good albums by more mainstream artists (e.g., The Strokes, Eminem) barely made the list. It doesn't like they had any trouble filling the list out to 100. Yet this would be the period I would expect to show evidence of this technologically-induced "death of an album" decline that is hypothesized.
The point isn't whether you agree with their list. No single person does, and arguing about it and the various banalities of each album is part of the fun. There's lots of great albums out there, some of it less mainstream than others but with a little help from your buddy technology, it's easy to find. Pitckfork and ITMS are excellent examples of this. But I do agree with others that this certainly dependent on what type of music you're interested in.
Technology isn't to blame for whatever perceived decline of an album there may be: radio is. Nearly a decade ago, I remember mainstream stations that would play album tracks (i.e., not just the singles) regularly, just to be different. Not so anymore. Whenever I go back to Denver (a ClearChannel hotspot), I'm always increasingly shocked at how stale everything sounds. Brand new? I first heard this a year ago!
P.S. The solution to bad radio is easy: www.kexp.org.
Tool wasn't far off the mark either...
Some say a comet will fall from the sky. Followed by meteor showers and tidal waves. Followed by faultlines that cannot sit still. Followed by millions of dumbfounded dipshits. Some say the end is near. Some say we'll see armageddon soon. I certainly hope we will cuz I sure could use a vacation from this Silly shit, stupid shit... One great big festering neon distraction, I've a suggestion to keep you all occupied. Learn to swim.
It would be worthwhile for the poster's bosses to have a look at them. There several stories in both books about leaders and managers that discovered Shackleton's story (usually by reading Endurance) and transformed their approach to leading others.
I went through pretty much the same experience that the reviewer had in terms of being introduced to What Should I Do With My Life? Read the article linked from Slashdot, bought the book, listened to the NPR review.
Some posters seem to think it's a career advice book, but I think that's an oversimplification that Bronson dismisses early on. It's a collection of stories about how various people figured out (or, more often, tried to figure out) what they really wanted to do with their time. It's not a book about parceling your time or a set of tips on how to kiss up to your manager.
Bronson's stories are charming, and although I agree that he infused the book with a little too much of his own experience, those stories were never so flat that I wanted to skip them. I particularly enjoyed the story about the good 'ole boy that jumped out of the consulting-to-Big-Oil business not just to try something different, but the complete opposite of what he had been doing. The absurdity of the whole process was also humorously revealed in the story of the guy that figured out while interviewing with Bronson what he really ought to do: "I want to help people...play better golf!"
I found this book at a time when I needed some reminding of what I thought my purpose was. I just started graduate school last fall and, as it seems nearly everyone does, got to the point why I wondered why the hell I was going through the academic motions all over again. All my other friends had moved on to something new, and here I was in the same old grind.
I had forgotten that I had come to graduate school to study a topic that I'd dreamed about pursuing (polar glaciology, not exactly something you can just pick up) for several years. It was virtually the only thing that got me really jazzed as an undergraduate so when the opportunity arose to get into it, I jumped at it.
But then all the other grad school stuff kicked in, and it didn't seem like such a good use of 6 years anymore. Bronson's book helped me refocus on why came to do what I'm doing. A friend said that if I had to read the book to remind myself why I was in grad school, then I must not be doing what I really want to do. But I think if she read the book, she'd realize (as I eventually did) that your "calling" is, as Bronson concludes, a glimmer that can oscillate. It's almost never an epiphany, instead it's a trend towards what you really want to do.
Gnucleus is not a bad utility, but it lacks a sufficient userbase to be of use to me. I recently switched to KazaaLite after using Gnucleus for what was probably a good 8 months, and files that I searched for that whole time on Gnucleus no one ever had...but I found them immediately with various users on KazaaLite.
With filesharing, you have to go where everyone else is to have any hope of finding anything specific that you're looking for. Sure, roaming someone else's shared files for something new can be fun, but it's time-consuming and often fruitless.
I used to agree with all the arguments you made about why Gnucleus is worthwhile, but I finally broke down and said: "Damnit, I just want to find what I'm looking for." And having Gnucleus spend 10 minutes trying to connect to SuperNode every time just so I can get zero results for a search doesn't impress me too much.
So last spring a buddy of mine and I were going to a climb a mountain near Leadville, CO. He's a real smart guy but kind of a mountain man, not too up on Internet lingo. We got to talking about climbingboulder.com, a great resource for CO climbers that has a commenting system for routes. We talked about the people that posted comments on the site and he said:
"There's this one guy on there that I fucking strive to be like. This Anonymous Coward guy, dumb name, but he's climbed *all over*. I don't know he does it."
I couldn't keep a straight face for very long. It had never occurred to him to take the name literally ;-)
I moved to Seattle a few months ago, and its traffic seems to have to the same root cause as any other place: too many damned people driving too many damned cars by themselves. People here seem to want to try what they're already doing in Denver: making the highway a little wider and pray. But it just ain't gonna work. Commuters' attitudes need to evolve, not the highway.
At least the monorail will help curb the amount of people commuting by car within Seattle. I agree that the buses (with reduced funding) certainly aren't helping a whole lot. I haven't used the longer-range commuter buses here, but the intra-city buses suck hard. Dirty, late, expensive and confusing...not a good mix.
Now if they could just make the Burke-Gilman a little safer/well-lit, I'd be happy. Why drive/bus when you can bike?
Well, I'm not sure if I'd qualify getting a PhD in physics an "everyday life choice," but I definitely agree with cybermace5's advice.
I just started a PhD in geophysics (substantially easier, I suspect, than what you're considering), but I've already spent 4+ years finding out that I enjoy geophysics. Borrowing course notes isn't really enough experience to figure out whether or not you like physics enough to dedicate, and I do mean dedicate, the better part of a decade to its study. Find a way to work near physicists for a while and see what you think.
After doing a little searching, here's a link to a Windows client on another page on the netrek.org site that actually works. The ftp server they list doesn't work properly
http://www.netrek.org/cow/
It is interesting how noticeably different conclusions can be reached by different books on a subject. Although I'll certainly go out and read this book for the varied perspective (thanks for pointing it out), considering Shackelton's whole life, as Roland Huntford's "Shackleton" does, is probably a better way of understanding Shackleton's philosophy.
From Huntford's biography, it is apparent that while Shackleton might have superficially believed in "Explore and Serve," his principal motivation consisted simply of the quest for quintessential Edwardian glory. His polar adventures were simply the most ambitious and publicized instances of his reach for fame and fortune; he formulated numerous ill-fated get-rich-quick schemes throughout Europe.
Several times, I have read of the glorification of Shackleton's desires when the facts present him as an opportunist. Granted, he was a superb leader of men and optimist, but his motivations are somewhat plain and not particularly praiseworthy.
Sounds an awful lot like another current PS2 game with exhaustive non-interactive movie scenes.
Metal Gear Solid 2
The comments about the linearity of FFX also ring mostly true for MGS2. Get to a point, watch another friggin' 30-minute cutscene, get to another point, etc. Awesome gameplay, very limited implementation.
Sometimes the only way to get to the root of a problem is extreme sarcasm mixed in with the most telling elements of the truth. The parent is an excellent example of this.
Why can't you simply expect good service from UPS? Many replies seem to enjoy nitpicking on a couple of details rather than facing the obvious: the poster got bent over by UPS.
There is, of course, a site dedicated to how much UPS sucks: http://www.ups-sucks.com/html/
Dude, I totally agree. I actually let it update my Shockwave for that shit? I need to read comments before I click links.
"Human face recognition" is a painfully naive concept. Even if Osama Bin Laden himself shaved his beard, wore Western clothing and then tried to walk through security/customs/whatever at any airport in the country, how likely is he to be recognized? Maybe...*maybe* if some CIA analyst who had devoted his career to Mideast terrorist organizations walked by he *might* recognize Bin Laden, but I'd even consider that a longshot.
I watch the news regularly and could recognize him immediately... if he were wearing his tunic-robe-thingy, had his somewhat distinctive facial hair and was carrying an AK-47 or walkie-talkie.
Let's face it: human face recognition is just a euphemism for racial profiling. I certainly don't advocate computer face recognition, but it's got a lot more going for it than a concept that doesn't hold true in the real world.
Although I don't pretend to know much beyond OSHA HAZWOPER taught me about chemical regulations, perhaps the reason for some of the more exotic/dangerous solutions might be that these people are based in Leeds, which is in the UK. From what I have been told by my British chemistry teacher Mom, regulations are a little more lax in the UK.
Doesn't InkLink (that Shockwave pictionary game) already do this? Nothing really new, I don't really mind the ads but then again I have cable so they don't waste any time downloading them.
Funny that it's a British company that will introduce this type of frequent interrupt advertising to the "mainstream," since, as I recall, British TV ads are much less intrusive than American ads in that they only come up every 15 minutes.
Fair enough, I certainly hadn't ever heard of CSI before Survivor 2... they must not have advertised it during 60 Minutes. ;)
Hey wait a sec, if I'm part of this 18-49 demographic how come I have no money to buy things? Stupid college.
I think a larger part of CSI's success, because I've seen it and been disappointed a couple of times, is the tremendous advantage it gets from being led into by Survivor 2.
:)).
Let's face it: Survivor 2 is really good. I don't even like the reality genre that much but Survivor 2 really compells me. It's just about the only reason I watch CBS (except for 60 Minutes, I'm sure not many others here do that
As for the redeeming qualities of CSI, I think they've all been developed at least as effectively on Discovery Channel, History Channel and PBS.
I agree that the kind of scientific analysis that CSI involves in a drama can be fun to watch, but CSI is not the best vehicle for it. The tackiness overwhelms it. The true drama of a scientific investigation can be just as present on NOVA as the fake melodrama of CSI.
Didn't the OpenNap servers get a cease-and-desist order recently? I could be wrong but I seem to recall reading that.