Also, you have mentioned several times that the would-be customer claims that the clerk didn't know but that's not proof that the clerk didn't know what was going on. Possible explanations include but aren't limited to "clerk knows farsi" and "customer is one of those people who think no one notices what they're saying if they don't say it directly at them".
I believe that "inconclusive" can also mean "urine is too diluted". That is, that they think you may have tried to cheat by drinking lots of water to lower the concentration of THC metabolites in your urine.
That's because people who order a skyscraper to be built don't call those contracted to design and build it halfway through construction to tell them "Oh yeah, it needs to fly and also double as a ship and a subway station" (which is later clarified to "we need a helipad in the lobby" which itself is finally clarified three months after the deadline, what they meant was "we'd like to make sure there's a second entrance near the 14th street bus stop so employees don't have to walk around the building to get in". Of course, for this to be like software development after each of these change requests they would also demand that work immediately begin on converting the building to the new specs so that by the time it's finished it has wings sticking out from the 12th floor, the basement has a subway tunnel with a large propeller in it and the front desk is placed inside a large hangar).
I think you missed the point. It wasn't about withdrawal, it was about how tests for cannabis use actually almost always test for secondary metabolites like THC-COOH which are present in the body long after use while tests for most other drugs only pick up very recent use. In fact, with some drugs you can be fairly certain that if a person tested positive he/she was high while taking the test, with cannabis it's more of a "did this person smoke pot at some point in the last few weeks?" which isn't very useful.
The Alienware M14x has a 14" 1600x900 monitor (I assume TN). It's 1.71" thick, It weighs 6.45 lbs. I can only assume you're the stereotypical "all that matters is performance per dollar" type who will not be swayed by any argument...
I'm pretty sure the manufacturers know that the smart users will figure out how to open whatever electronic gizmo they've used special screws for. Hell, the dumb ones will as well. The difference they make is that they do mean you have to actually put in a bit of effort to get into the case, stops idiots from opening up their hardware, breaking it and then claiming it was already broken...
Actually, it actually renders at 2880x1800. It just scales the UI elements, text and such, not the complete rendered screen. They're not just upscaled like some crappy DVD on a 1080p monitor. Basically, anything that can be rendered full-res is done so, for anything that can't (like say, custom UI widgets) will however be upscaled.
You were never worried about your student loans? Wow, I worried about them every month.
Sheltered? I'd say my experience was a bit different, I was surrounded by people who for the first time in their lives actually had to do things on their own, manage their own personal economy, get up in the morning, cook their own food, deal with authorities and the associated paperwork...
High school, now there was a sheltered environment. Kids living off their parents' money, a dictatorial environment where the leaders (teachers) would pretend there was a semblance of democracy but the moment the kids disagreed it was back to the teachers making the decisions as "benevolent" dictators. The vast majority of kids really not having any major worries. That's where the goofball ideologies flourished, the kids on the right where neo-liberals, anarcho-capitalists, nazis, libertarians, "randroids" and the like, the kids on the left were anarchists, syndicalists, marxists, maoists, anarcho-primitivists...
To a lot of users wired networking is not a major feature, it's something that might be nice to have. These users will either not carry the dongle with them or they will keep it at the bottom of their bag (in which case the thinner form-factor and lower weight of the laptop can still be an advantage even when bringing the dongle along).
Personally I'd probably leave it plugged in at my desk in my home office or at work (or maybe one at either location), if I was anywhere else I'd just use wifi (or if I suspected there might not be wifi I could just bring the dongle).
You seriously think "the only reason" for dropping Rosetta (PPC emulation layer for those who don't know) and Classic (Mac OS 9 compatibility layer) is greed?
How about you maintain your own legacy compatibility layers then? Unless maybe doing so is actually something that requires a lot of extra effort for very very little good reason since by now the vast majority of users have moved away from both PPC and OS 9.
Seriously, Rosetta I can almost understand that a handful of people still haven't gotten completely free from but Classic? That means you have been running (most likely) unsupported software on a deprecated platform for 10+ years without figuring out how to move away from the software and platform at hand to something slightly more modern...
Your argument is flawed. The argument was that the added value of a thinner computer outweighs the value of the ethernet port and the cost of the adapter for a lot of users. Just because it doesn't fit your use-case perfectly doesn't mean it's useless.
(As an aside, the most heinous are the websites where you Forgot your password? and they email it right back to you in plaintext.)
I'm more bothered by the ones that require you to either supply your email address and answer som weird "security question" like "what's your mother's maiden name?", especially since I always give a junk answer to that question.
Then there are the ones that want both your username and email address yet when you create your account they don't actually put the username in the email so you have to guess which username you used.
After the security factor these are the two big reasons for why I use KeePass these days...
I know of university *nix systems that still do the whole "first 8 characters" thing as well. AFAIK it's to be compatible with legacy systems still running somewhere on their network.
Microsoft in the 1990s might not have been an "innovator", but they had virtually flawless execution
Well, I suppose that's true if your definition of "flawless execution" is "products of questionable quality but excellent marketing and abuse of their dominant position on the market".
First time I saw "BYOD" it meant "Bring Your Own Display" and was used in reference to desktop computers sold without a monitor in the late 90's (as opposed to the common package deal of a tower/desktop computer with keyboard, mouse and a 14-17" CRT monitor). Can't say I saw it used very often though.
When I last worked in the ISP business, or more specifically for an open citynet which handled last-mile access for a number of ISPs, we would get the occasional request about IPv6, both from regular customers who couldn't get a clear answer from their ISP and from the ISPs using "our" network. From the number of requests and the tone of the requests from the ISPs there was clearly customer demand for IPv6.
After a very long time of us forwarding all of these requests to upper management the reply finally came through. The official stance of the citynet was that there had been no noticeable demand for IPv6 and thus there were currently no plans to make the network IPv6-capable. This was told to all tech support and customer service staff as well, any requests from ISPs (or customers calling us directly) was to be answered with some version of "well as far as I know you're the first to ask and we currently don't have any plans to make our network IPv6-capable in the foreseeable future.".
Yup, upper management thought the investment would be too big so they "decided" that there was no demand and ordered everyone else to play along with their little fantasy.
Not to mention that software-wise if you truly wanted to use your entire/64 (or/48) to stay somewhat anonymous it shouldn't be extremely hard to hack up an IPv6 stack that uses one address per remote host. So facebook.com sees one address, slashdot.org sees another, google.com sees a third. Doesn't even have to be sequential.
Mostly because a lot of enterprise IT departments have serious issues with anything new and thus "scary" and "untested". Hell, I know places that still critical production systems on NT4 and think Subversion is too new and untested to be used as a production VCS so they just stick to CVS since "everyone knows it and it works".
On a similar note, these are the kind of places that mandate that all database queries be made as stored procedures (T-SQL, of course) since that's the only "safe" way of accessing a database. Bring up parameterized queries and they look at you like you're mad. In places like that they have working security put in place 10 - 15 years ago and they have no intention of changing anything until they absolutely have to. In their world security "needs" NAT (because that's what their equally old firewall appliance needs).
The tech worker visa auction thing just might work. The trick would be to keep the cost of a visa at a level that just barely makes it unprofitable to screw with the system (to bring in lower-paid foreign workers or as you said, just bring them in as step one of an outsourcing plan) while still being affordable enough that any company seriously looking to hire someone from another country could easily stomach paying for the visa.
The statement I replied to was "I don't think there are stupid people". If you manage six months of tech support and come out believing there are no stupid people only "people who are smart in different ways" then I'll be amazed. They are out there. Statistically they make up a large portion of the population (just look at the normal distribution curve for IQ and tell me with a straight face that the 30% on the far left of the curve aren't stupid, have you ever met someone with a sub 60 or so IQ? That's stupid no matter how you cut it).
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Let's be honest, does Apple make a better product? No [...]
Hold on there. What metric are you using? Does it cover all possible use cases or just your own personal (that is, subjective) one?
Wow, you sure post a lot in this discussion.
Also, you have mentioned several times that the would-be customer claims that the clerk didn't know but that's not proof that the clerk didn't know what was going on. Possible explanations include but aren't limited to "clerk knows farsi" and "customer is one of those people who think no one notices what they're saying if they don't say it directly at them".
I'm pretty sure the meager savings the average adult owns count as owning the means of production. At least not when compared to those at the top.
I believe that "inconclusive" can also mean "urine is too diluted". That is, that they think you may have tried to cheat by drinking lots of water to lower the concentration of THC metabolites in your urine.
That's because people who order a skyscraper to be built don't call those contracted to design and build it halfway through construction to tell them "Oh yeah, it needs to fly and also double as a ship and a subway station" (which is later clarified to "we need a helipad in the lobby" which itself is finally clarified three months after the deadline, what they meant was "we'd like to make sure there's a second entrance near the 14th street bus stop so employees don't have to walk around the building to get in". Of course, for this to be like software development after each of these change requests they would also demand that work immediately begin on converting the building to the new specs so that by the time it's finished it has wings sticking out from the 12th floor, the basement has a subway tunnel with a large propeller in it and the front desk is placed inside a large hangar).
I think you missed the point. It wasn't about withdrawal, it was about how tests for cannabis use actually almost always test for secondary metabolites like THC-COOH which are present in the body long after use while tests for most other drugs only pick up very recent use. In fact, with some drugs you can be fairly certain that if a person tested positive he/she was high while taking the test, with cannabis it's more of a "did this person smoke pot at some point in the last few weeks?" which isn't very useful.
"You're not a person until you're in my phonebook." -- Bill Hicks
The Alienware M14x has a 14" 1600x900 monitor (I assume TN). It's 1.71" thick, It weighs 6.45 lbs. I can only assume you're the stereotypical "all that matters is performance per dollar" type who will not be swayed by any argument...
I'm pretty sure the manufacturers know that the smart users will figure out how to open whatever electronic gizmo they've used special screws for. Hell, the dumb ones will as well. The difference they make is that they do mean you have to actually put in a bit of effort to get into the case, stops idiots from opening up their hardware, breaking it and then claiming it was already broken...
Actually, it actually renders at 2880x1800. It just scales the UI elements, text and such, not the complete rendered screen. They're not just upscaled like some crappy DVD on a 1080p monitor. Basically, anything that can be rendered full-res is done so, for anything that can't (like say, custom UI widgets) will however be upscaled.
You were never worried about your student loans? Wow, I worried about them every month.
Sheltered? I'd say my experience was a bit different, I was surrounded by people who for the first time in their lives actually had to do things on their own, manage their own personal economy, get up in the morning, cook their own food, deal with authorities and the associated paperwork...
High school, now there was a sheltered environment. Kids living off their parents' money, a dictatorial environment where the leaders (teachers) would pretend there was a semblance of democracy but the moment the kids disagreed it was back to the teachers making the decisions as "benevolent" dictators. The vast majority of kids really not having any major worries. That's where the goofball ideologies flourished, the kids on the right where neo-liberals, anarcho-capitalists, nazis, libertarians, "randroids" and the like, the kids on the left were anarchists, syndicalists, marxists, maoists, anarcho-primitivists...
To a lot of users wired networking is not a major feature, it's something that might be nice to have. These users will either not carry the dongle with them or they will keep it at the bottom of their bag (in which case the thinner form-factor and lower weight of the laptop can still be an advantage even when bringing the dongle along).
Personally I'd probably leave it plugged in at my desk in my home office or at work (or maybe one at either location), if I was anywhere else I'd just use wifi (or if I suspected there might not be wifi I could just bring the dongle).
You seriously think "the only reason" for dropping Rosetta (PPC emulation layer for those who don't know) and Classic (Mac OS 9 compatibility layer) is greed?
How about you maintain your own legacy compatibility layers then? Unless maybe doing so is actually something that requires a lot of extra effort for very very little good reason since by now the vast majority of users have moved away from both PPC and OS 9.
Seriously, Rosetta I can almost understand that a handful of people still haven't gotten completely free from but Classic? That means you have been running (most likely) unsupported software on a deprecated platform for 10+ years without figuring out how to move away from the software and platform at hand to something slightly more modern...
Your argument is flawed. The argument was that the added value of a thinner computer outweighs the value of the ethernet port and the cost of the adapter for a lot of users. Just because it doesn't fit your use-case perfectly doesn't mean it's useless.
I'll take an ethernet dongle and smile if it's attached to a 15.4" laptop with a 2880x1800 screen.
Has it not?
There are still plenty of places that consider themselves "Microsoft shops".
And did you forget about the OOXML scandal? (You know, where they paid MS partner companies to vote in favor of OOXML)
Just two quick examples.
(As an aside, the most heinous are the websites where you Forgot your password? and they email it right back to you in plaintext.)
I'm more bothered by the ones that require you to either supply your email address and answer som weird "security question" like "what's your mother's maiden name?", especially since I always give a junk answer to that question.
Then there are the ones that want both your username and email address yet when you create your account they don't actually put the username in the email so you have to guess which username you used.
After the security factor these are the two big reasons for why I use KeePass these days...
I know of university *nix systems that still do the whole "first 8 characters" thing as well. AFAIK it's to be compatible with legacy systems still running somewhere on their network.
Microsoft in the 1990s might not have been an "innovator", but they had virtually flawless execution
Well, I suppose that's true if your definition of "flawless execution" is "products of questionable quality but excellent marketing and abuse of their dominant position on the market".
First time I saw "BYOD" it meant "Bring Your Own Display" and was used in reference to desktop computers sold without a monitor in the late 90's (as opposed to the common package deal of a tower/desktop computer with keyboard, mouse and a 14-17" CRT monitor). Can't say I saw it used very often though.
When I last worked in the ISP business, or more specifically for an open citynet which handled last-mile access for a number of ISPs, we would get the occasional request about IPv6, both from regular customers who couldn't get a clear answer from their ISP and from the ISPs using "our" network. From the number of requests and the tone of the requests from the ISPs there was clearly customer demand for IPv6.
After a very long time of us forwarding all of these requests to upper management the reply finally came through. The official stance of the citynet was that there had been no noticeable demand for IPv6 and thus there were currently no plans to make the network IPv6-capable. This was told to all tech support and customer service staff as well, any requests from ISPs (or customers calling us directly) was to be answered with some version of "well as far as I know you're the first to ask and we currently don't have any plans to make our network IPv6-capable in the foreseeable future.".
Yup, upper management thought the investment would be too big so they "decided" that there was no demand and ordered everyone else to play along with their little fantasy.
Not to mention that software-wise if you truly wanted to use your entire /64 (or /48) to stay somewhat anonymous it shouldn't be extremely hard to hack up an IPv6 stack that uses one address per remote host. So facebook.com sees one address, slashdot.org sees another, google.com sees a third. Doesn't even have to be sequential.
Mostly because a lot of enterprise IT departments have serious issues with anything new and thus "scary" and "untested". Hell, I know places that still critical production systems on NT4 and think Subversion is too new and untested to be used as a production VCS so they just stick to CVS since "everyone knows it and it works".
On a similar note, these are the kind of places that mandate that all database queries be made as stored procedures (T-SQL, of course) since that's the only "safe" way of accessing a database. Bring up parameterized queries and they look at you like you're mad. In places like that they have working security put in place 10 - 15 years ago and they have no intention of changing anything until they absolutely have to. In their world security "needs" NAT (because that's what their equally old firewall appliance needs).
The tech worker visa auction thing just might work. The trick would be to keep the cost of a visa at a level that just barely makes it unprofitable to screw with the system (to bring in lower-paid foreign workers or as you said, just bring them in as step one of an outsourcing plan) while still being affordable enough that any company seriously looking to hire someone from another country could easily stomach paying for the visa.
The statement I replied to was "I don't think there are stupid people". If you manage six months of tech support and come out believing there are no stupid people only "people who are smart in different ways" then I'll be amazed. They are out there. Statistically they make up a large portion of the population (just look at the normal distribution curve for IQ and tell me with a straight face that the 30% on the far left of the curve aren't stupid, have you ever met someone with a sub 60 or so IQ? That's stupid no matter how you cut it).