Us old guys can easily beat you on that one... let's see. How 'bout Chicago V? Since 1973, I've bought 2 albums, an 8-track, a cassette and a CD. Maybe 2 CDs; I'm so damn old I can't remember anymore...
BTW, "Dialogue" on that album is an antiwar, anti-apathy song that couldn't fit any more with today's mood than if it were written yesterday.
Their hidebound corporate culture prevents the use of common sense. Several years ago, my wife rented a movie from Blockbuster that she promptly lost. Three months later, she found it again, and we returned it. By that time, our fees had run up to nearly $100. Blockbuster wouldn't allow us to rent again until we paid the fee. So we just switched to a local movie rental store. Two or three years later, I found myself again inside Blockbuster, but again, I couldn't rent a movie without paying the years-old fee. No amount of discussion or logic would sway the manager - that we had made a mistake, we had returned the movie, we had been using a competitor's services ever since, that they could decide to have our future business or send us back to the competitor forevermore, but either way, we weren't going to pay the $100 fee. The manager said that he couldn't/wouldn't dismiss the fee and that we couldn't rent from Blockbuster without paying for it, etc. At that time, Netflix was just gathering momentum. But on that day, I knew that Blockbuster was destined for a death spiral. They could have had our continued business if they had just been willing to let logic prevail and set aside a hidebound corporate policy, but they preferred not to. Even a few yeas later, when they announced their "no late fees" policy, they wouldn't make it retroactive. I wonder how many other stupid policy decisions turned away customers that they so dearly need now.
A couple of times a year, I pull up the following and read it, trying to realign my thinking process. I don't know who originally wrote it; I've had it for years. I apologize for the long post, but it's worth it.
++++++++++++++++++++
Some time ago I received a call from a colleague. He was about
to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question,
while the student claimed a perfect score.
The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter,
and I was selected.I read the examination question:
"SHOW HOW IT IS POSSIBLE TO DETERMINE THE HEIGHT OF A TALL
BUILDING WITH THE AID OF A BAROMETER."
The student had answered,
"Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long
rope to it,lower it to the street, and then bring it up,
measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is
the height of the building."
The student really had a strong case for full credit since
he had really answered the question completely and correctly!
On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well
contribute to a high grade in his physics course and to
certify competence in physics, but the answer did not
confirm this.
I suggested that the student have another try. I gave the
student six minutes to answer the question with the warning
that the answer should show some knowledge of physics. At
the end of five minutes, he had not written anything.
I asked if he wished to give up, but he said he had many
answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best
one. I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him
to please go on. In the next minute, he dashed off his
answer which read:
"Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean
over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its
fall with a stopwatch.Then, using the formula x=0.5*a*t^^2,
calculate the height of the building."
At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up.
He conceded,and gave the student almost full credit. While
leaving my colleague's office, I recalled that the student
had said that he had other answers to the problem,so I
asked him what they were. "Well," said the student,
"there are many ways of getting the height of a tall
building with the aid of a barometer. For example, you
could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure
the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow,
and the length of the shadow of the building,and by the
use of simple proportion, determine the height of the
building."
"Fine," I said, "and others?"
"Yes," said the student,
"there is a very basic measurement method you will like.
In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk
up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the
length of the barometer along the wall. You then count
the number of marks, and this will give you the height
of the building in barometer units."
"A very direct method."
"Of course. If you want a more sophisticated method, you
can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as
a pendulum, and determine the value of g at the street
level and at the top of the building. From the
difference between the two values of g, the height of
the building,in principle, can be calculated."
"On this same tact, you could take the barometer to the
top of the building,attach a long rope to it, lower it
to just above the street, and then swing it as a pendulum.
You could then calculate the height of the building by the
period of the precession".
"Finally," he concluded, "there are many other ways of
solving the problem.Probably the best," he said, "is to
take the barometer to the basement and knock on the
superintendent's door. When the superintendent answers,
you speak to him as follows: 'Mr. Superintendent,
here is a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height
of the building, I will give you this barometer."
At this point, I asked the student if he really did
not know the conventional answer to this question. He
admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with
high school and college instructors trying to teach
him how to think. The student was Neils Bohr.
Vonage (and I suppose others) have been a Godsend to expats. I own a business in the US, yet live in Brasil. Vonage allows me to have a US phone number that my customers can call, and allows me to call them as many times as I want for $25 per month. Not to mention keeping up with friends and family. VOIP phones have transformed the experience of moving to another country.
Yeah, I hear you guys.
I don't use a lot of graphics/sound crap. I run a company, and what I want from my computer is to simply work. About 10 years ago, I got tired of sending my money to Bill and I decided to give Apple a try (since college, I've used everything from CP/M to OS/2 to XP, so trying a new OS isn't a new experience for me). I sent off for a spanking new Wallstreet Macbook, complete with OS 8.5. I sprung for new MS Office. I bought a new printer, because God knows, you can't have your IBM printer connect to a Mac. Got it. Set it up. All I wanted it to do was work. It didn't. The hardware is beautiful (I still have it today), but the damn thing crashed more often than the Wright Bros. It would die in the middle of an app and give you a cryptic message like "An error type 2 occured". WTF is that? Or it would freeze up and leave you with a box with nothing but a carat in it. What a POS. The best part was that it would read the error message to me, as if I couldn't figure out for myself that I had just lost my work. It Just Didn't Work. That experience cost me about $2500, and taught me not to believe fanboys. Now, my generic IBM laptop running Ubuntu works just fine. No freezeups. No BSOD. No new Office. It doesn't try to read the mail, or anything else, to me. It Just Works (TM).
I live in Brasil, and buy my international tickets at a travel agent, and sure enough, I still get the old style, red inked tickets. It's a hoot to present these at the gate in the US.
I've been doing this for years with my HF amateur rig and a florescent bulb. Now I just gotta wire my house into a huge antenna array, get my tinfoil hat ready and key the mic.
I second the comment about Brazil. I understand that the country is energy independent as a result of hard choices made in the 1980s and 1990s. The government mandated the sale and use of ethanol fuel. Now all the auto manufacturers have flex-fuel engines that operate on ethanol, gasoline, or any proportional blend of the two. As they're made by the likes of GM & Ford, I expect to see these engines appear in the US soon.
There's another reason, however, for the use of ethanol. Any fuel that reduces our reliance on fuel from politically unstable regions gets my vote. Can you imagine the geopolitical ramifications of an energy-independent United States?
This is not a troll. This is simply an off-topic question from an old geek. Besides doing research and emails, obviously, what do you use computers for on campus these days? (certainly not file sharing, eh??). Registration for classes was mentioned. Hmmm. I didn't realize that. What else? Communications with professors? And??
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Us old guys can easily beat you on that one... let's see. How 'bout Chicago V? Since 1973, I've bought 2 albums, an 8-track, a cassette and a CD. Maybe 2 CDs; I'm so damn old I can't remember anymore... BTW, "Dialogue" on that album is an antiwar, anti-apathy song that couldn't fit any more with today's mood than if it were written yesterday.
Their hidebound corporate culture prevents the use of common sense. Several years ago, my wife rented a movie from Blockbuster that she promptly lost. Three months later, she found it again, and we returned it. By that time, our fees had run up to nearly $100. Blockbuster wouldn't allow us to rent again until we paid the fee. So we just switched to a local movie rental store. Two or three years later, I found myself again inside Blockbuster, but again, I couldn't rent a movie without paying the years-old fee. No amount of discussion or logic would sway the manager - that we had made a mistake, we had returned the movie, we had been using a competitor's services ever since, that they could decide to have our future business or send us back to the competitor forevermore, but either way, we weren't going to pay the $100 fee. The manager said that he couldn't/wouldn't dismiss the fee and that we couldn't rent from Blockbuster without paying for it, etc. At that time, Netflix was just gathering momentum. But on that day, I knew that Blockbuster was destined for a death spiral. They could have had our continued business if they had just been willing to let logic prevail and set aside a hidebound corporate policy, but they preferred not to. Even a few yeas later, when they announced their "no late fees" policy, they wouldn't make it retroactive. I wonder how many other stupid policy decisions turned away customers that they so dearly need now.
A couple of times a year, I pull up the following and read it, trying to realign my thinking process. I don't know who originally wrote it; I've had it for years. I apologize for the long post, but it's worth it. ++++++++++++++++++++ Some time ago I received a call from a colleague. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed a perfect score. The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected.I read the examination question: "SHOW HOW IT IS POSSIBLE TO DETERMINE THE HEIGHT OF A TALL BUILDING WITH THE AID OF A BAROMETER." The student had answered, "Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it,lower it to the street, and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building." The student really had a strong case for full credit since he had really answered the question completely and correctly! On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a high grade in his physics course and to certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this. I suggested that the student have another try. I gave the student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics. At the end of five minutes, he had not written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said he had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on. In the next minute, he dashed off his answer which read: "Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch.Then, using the formula x=0.5*a*t^^2, calculate the height of the building." At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded,and gave the student almost full credit. While leaving my colleague's office, I recalled that the student had said that he had other answers to the problem,so I asked him what they were. "Well," said the student, "there are many ways of getting the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer. For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building,and by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the building." "Fine," I said, "and others?" "Yes," said the student, "there is a very basic measurement method you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this will give you the height of the building in barometer units." "A very direct method." "Of course. If you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of g at the street level and at the top of the building. From the difference between the two values of g, the height of the building,in principle, can be calculated." "On this same tact, you could take the barometer to the top of the building,attach a long rope to it, lower it to just above the street, and then swing it as a pendulum. You could then calculate the height of the building by the period of the precession". "Finally," he concluded, "there are many other ways of solving the problem.Probably the best," he said, "is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent's door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows: 'Mr. Superintendent, here is a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of the building, I will give you this barometer." At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think. The student was Neils Bohr.
Vonage (and I suppose others) have been a Godsend to expats. I own a business in the US, yet live in Brasil. Vonage allows me to have a US phone number that my customers can call, and allows me to call them as many times as I want for $25 per month. Not to mention keeping up with friends and family. VOIP phones have transformed the experience of moving to another country.
Yeah, I hear you guys. I don't use a lot of graphics/sound crap. I run a company, and what I want from my computer is to simply work. About 10 years ago, I got tired of sending my money to Bill and I decided to give Apple a try (since college, I've used everything from CP/M to OS/2 to XP, so trying a new OS isn't a new experience for me). I sent off for a spanking new Wallstreet Macbook, complete with OS 8.5. I sprung for new MS Office. I bought a new printer, because God knows, you can't have your IBM printer connect to a Mac. Got it. Set it up. All I wanted it to do was work. It didn't. The hardware is beautiful (I still have it today), but the damn thing crashed more often than the Wright Bros. It would die in the middle of an app and give you a cryptic message like "An error type 2 occured". WTF is that? Or it would freeze up and leave you with a box with nothing but a carat in it. What a POS. The best part was that it would read the error message to me, as if I couldn't figure out for myself that I had just lost my work. It Just Didn't Work. That experience cost me about $2500, and taught me not to believe fanboys. Now, my generic IBM laptop running Ubuntu works just fine. No freezeups. No BSOD. No new Office. It doesn't try to read the mail, or anything else, to me. It Just Works (TM).
I live in Brasil, and buy my international tickets at a travel agent, and sure enough, I still get the old style, red inked tickets. It's a hoot to present these at the gate in the US.
I've been doing this for years with my HF amateur rig and a florescent bulb. Now I just gotta wire my house into a huge antenna array, get my tinfoil hat ready and key the mic.
I second the comment about Brazil. I understand that the country is energy independent as a result of hard choices made in the 1980s and 1990s. The government mandated the sale and use of ethanol fuel. Now all the auto manufacturers have flex-fuel engines that operate on ethanol, gasoline, or any proportional blend of the two. As they're made by the likes of GM & Ford, I expect to see these engines appear in the US soon. There's another reason, however, for the use of ethanol. Any fuel that reduces our reliance on fuel from politically unstable regions gets my vote. Can you imagine the geopolitical ramifications of an energy-independent United States?
This is not a troll. This is simply an off-topic question from an old geek. Besides doing research and emails, obviously, what do you use computers for on campus these days? (certainly not file sharing, eh??). Registration for classes was mentioned. Hmmm. I didn't realize that. What else? Communications with professors? And??