It's interesting that the preference towards "free" discussion was brought up, as opposed to moderated forums like slashdot.
All you have to do is read/. comments at -1 to see what it would be like without moderation. Did you really want to see all that? Yes, sometimes, it's good to see what's down there, to keep an eye on the moderation, or moderate. (Remember, it's always better to use that point to moderate up an interesting AC than it is to use it to moderate down a boorish but otherwise harmless +1 user)
The problem with really large communities tho, isn't so much the signal to noise ratio as it is the way a large community can distance a person from the whole.
BBSs gave us, as users, the same sense of belonging that a small town gives someone. It's not that you feel a member because you're like everyone around you, it's that you feel you can relate to those around you.
This doesn't mean that it's impossible for a large city to have functioning communities, it means that it's harder, in the relatively metaphor-poor arena of the internet, to develop a functioning sub-community that's small enough to create the same sense of belonging.
Lots of people post comments on slashdot. Even more read them. Nearly everybody recognizes Bruce Perens, even if you don't know who he is outside of slashdot. I'm sure one or two of you recognize me, but it's not the same. It's the division between the luminaries and the public that makes the distinction uncomfortable, but it's unavoidable in a large forum, and it's nobodies fault.
It's not that it makes anyone feel jealous, it's the sense of disconnection.
If this was a BBS, I'd be throwing these words before a bunch of people I kinda feel that i sorta know, that i sorta relate to. That would allow me to adjust the way i phrase things so that my ideas are accessable to a particular group of people that i'm trying to communicate with.
Here, well, I don't have any sense of the identity of my reader. It's a lonely feeling, when you look at it that way.
But in another way, it's somehow empowering to know that possibly thousands of anonymous geeks will paruse my feeble ramblings, and maybe even approve of what i had to say.
When I'm putting a password on something I'm not going to use every day, or at least not often enough that I'll remember it, I generally use CD catalog numbers.
You know, the string of numbers and letters on the label. This has saved my butt many, many times.
I may forget the exact string of letters, numbers, and non-alpha-numerics. But I always, always remember which CD.
If I'm home, I can pull it off the shelf. That's easy enough. But here's the cool part.
If you're away from home, any record store can look it up for you. This has saved me from having to hack into my own systems many times. And when you call a record store at 11:00 in the morning and say "I have a strange request", the lone person managing an empty store in off business hours is generally eager to help, too.
I don't care if they know the password - they don't know who i am or what i'm unlocking.
Sure, you could come to my house and take down a list of my entire cd collection, but it would take you a while. I have a lot of music, and i also mix upper and lower case on the letters.
Of course, if you have a small music collection, or predictable tastes, maybe it's not such a good idea. Personally, 70% of my cds were special-order.
Frankly, I would have given him a D for the spelling errors alone.
Aside from that, the grammar is all but nonexistant.
Even if I was being extremely kind, I would feel that was being remiss in my duty as a teacher if i scored it higher than a B-.
I'm not shocked that they locked him up. I'm cynical enough that I've come to expect that sort of thing. There are two things that shock me.
The first thing, obviously, is how easy it is to get an A these days. I would have flunked out of english writing drivel like that 10 years ago.
The second thing is the discrepency between the school's description of the student to the press and their description they put on his report card.
His report card says that he is an "Outstanding" student, while the school told the press that he is a "consistent discipline problem"
I used to work for a software company that sold their wares exclusively to the primary education industry. I dealt with public school educators day in and day out. Dozens of them every day, hundreds of them in a month. In my unqualified opinion, our education system should be burnt to the ground and rebuilt from scratch.
Disclaimers: I am not a teacher, but both of my parents are.
All in all it's prolly worth the $30. I played the heck out of SimCity Classic on my kickass PC-XT with 640k of ram and a totally pimp EGA graphics setup. 8Mhz, dude!
*cough* anyway, yeah, it's pretty slick. Takes a few seconds to render a map when you start a new city. Eats up about 300k of memory.
Game play is very similar to the real thing, though i haven't figured out the heuristic for how it places zones (industrial, commercial, etc). So far i have most of them landing way off their mark. This is confusing, because i have no problem bullseyeing things like roads and power lines.
What's unfortunate tho, is that a lot of engineering types really/do/ go for June Lockheart rather than any other type of girl.
Personally, I'd probably get bored married to the female version of myself. One of the reasons to have someone else around is to share a complementary perspective on life.
On the other hand, if i was married to someone who was completely apathetic to all aspects of technology, I would probably go completely nuts obsessing over the fear that my wife is smiling and nodding entirely for my own benefit, and dying of boredom on the inside.
The vast majority of people in the world don't work in highly technical fields. An auto assembly line worker marrying another auto assembly line worker isn't so much an issue as it would be if the profession was more involved. There really isn't that much to the job, so the major interests are more than likely well outside of their field of employment.
But in studied careers, be they technology related, literary, artistic, legal, whathaveyou, there is the possibility of a feeling of competition between two people who are otherwise partners. I've seen this in action, and it's not a pretty sight.
I would by no means rule out girls who are just as big a geek as i am. Nor would i rule out girls who's interests are elsewhere. And i say "girl" meaning "female who is significantly younger than my mother".
So, yeah, I'd have to agree that it's bad advice, but "Uncle Robin" is just trying to chop up a larger personality issue into smaller pieces so that it's easier to handle.
Or maybe he just sees that there are millions of geek guys longing after the hundreds of thousands of geek girls when their ideal mate may or may not be one of them.
Sometimes you can exclude entire groups. I don't think I'll be marrying any racists or smokers. I've kissed a girl who smokes camels, and man, tho i love the girl and liked her a whole lot at the time, sheesh, yuck. Kissing my dirty socks would taste better. We parted for unrelated reasons, but when you start talking about "forever", issues that don't make a big difference when you're dating start to be a bigger deal.
But it's foolish to try and focus in on a particular group. What you can do, if you get serious about getting hitched, is try to weed out the individuals who have traits that are obviously going to cause friction down the road. And that's where the greater personality issues come into play.
Too many people these days get married foolishly, why else would we have such a high divorce rate? Try to save the world a little heartache, find someone who is as happy being with you as you are being with them.
You're missing some key points of the reality of this thing.
An actual psychiatrist or an experienced therapist will know if you're fudging answers by a lot of cues that have nothing to do with the answer itself.
However, this is software. It's not even sophisticated software.
I saw this on the news a few weeks ago. Essentially they showed an old Zenith laptop running a text DOS program that asked questions like "Do you often think agressive thoughts?"
I suppose they could have a carefully laid out tree of questions to be asked based on previous answers, but i really doubt it. Frankly, I wish i'd thought of it, so that i could laugh all the way to the bank just like the goon who did.
Maybe what he's refering to there is that stock Linux kernels aren't capable of allocating large (like, 4-16 megs) contiguous physical chunks of memory.
X doesn't need this, the gui doesn't need it generally speaking.
It is however pretty helpful for some sorts of video streaming setups.
Currently there's a BigPhysArea patch that allows you to remove a large physical area from the pool that the kernel draws from, which you can then use in a userland driver.
It's certianly possible to advance the kernel to make this sort of thing possible, Linux isn't heavily video-oriented at the moment, But if you want bragging rights, compare X to the windowing system used in BeOS.
The only reason NT's gui gets everything it wants is because it's inserted into the kernel. That's a gargantuan trade-off in terms of robustness, and certianly nothing to brag about.
No, I'm actually pretty certian they'll make the same mistake over and over.
We're a pretty small demographic, all things considered. And as long as the general public thinks we're people of godlike capabilities, we'll all have job security.
While everybody else in the industry is working overtime to discover new ways of doing things in order to make their video processors as fast as possible . . . .
. . . ATi has aparantly thrown in the towel on technology and is just gonna put two of their second rate chip on the same card?
Sheesh.
Stuff like this isn't new. Way back when, Radius put out a card for PC's tht used three S3 864's. True, they weren't handling things exactly like this - they were assiging one to each primary color - but hell, even Intel had the good taste to put two pipelines on the same die when they came out with the Pentium Pro, instead of just telling people they ought to build SMP systems instead.
Hey now, I'm not a dirty hippy, and I have a job, I probably make more money than you do. And frankly, people pay top dollar for ugly ass arty crap.
Heck, a mexican guy canned his, dated it, and sold it at auction. Made millions.
From a marketing perspective, this is just the kind of arty crap people gobble up with a spoon. At least if you put the right spin on it.
Success in art has a lot more to do with conspiracy than it does with talent. Take for instance Vincent VanGogh - So talented it made him smell bad, but he never got to be part of the whole art media game during his own life span, so he sold his paintings mostly to relatives and siblings, and died dirt poor.
Yeah, talent's great, I'm all for it, but orangutans have made things with rotten fruit that sold for more money than I've made in my life. And that guy who stands behind jet engines and tosses paint in the air, sheesh . . .
Better yet, make sure the sculpture is/really dumb/, and then you can run it on a dialup line without problems!
I'm sitting here trying to think of a sculpture medium that wouldn't be particularly harsh towards functioning electronics that you wish to stay functioning throughout the process.
You certianly can't use a torch for anything, and an arc welder would fry every component in the computer in about 1/13th of a second. With paper mache you'd have to be very careful you didn't drip any goo inside the vents. Clay would similarly be bad juju.
Epoxy based putties would work alright, as long as you got it right the first time. Flying debris from griding or chizzling it down could be very bad for the machine, not to mention the vibration problems.
For the same reasons, if you wanted to use wood you'd have to cut it well away from the computer and finish it before attaching it.
As an artist i'm intregued. Conceptual stuff isn't my bag, so I'd never consider putting a live computer inside something i was working on (More likely a dead one, or I'd save the live system as the last piece of the puzzle), but I'm finally getting around to having a studio to do stuff in, and I wonder how well a computer fits into the game.
You know, I mean, stuff tends to get pretty messy. And live computers aren't the sort of thing that mix well with fits of inspiration that involve picking something up and slamming it back down in a different position. Even excepting a spinning harddrive and fans, cables and cards tend to get knocked loose, sparks fly, etc.
If the computer survives the sculpture, that's art in itself. Go for it. Lemme know how it works out.
The US Government can place an import tarrif on german goods. But no, they're not responsible for charging sales tax.
Can your state require them to collect tax when you purchase from them? No more than they can require another state to do that.
Can your state require you to pay a "Use Tax" on items which were purchased across the state line on which you paid no other state's taxes? Chances are they already do, and you're already breaking the law.
The issue of the internet tax moritorium has been interesting. I don't know of a state that doesn't have a "use tax" that doesn't bear striking resemblance to sales tax. In almost all states, when you make any kind of interstate or international purchase that isn't taxed by another state, you are required to pay a "use tax" for no other reason than that they can argue you maybe oughta be taxed.
So, for all these years when people loved buying from a catalog since there was no sales tax, technicly they were breaking the law when they didn't declare those purchases on their state tax form for the year and poney up the use tax.
So it's pretty odd that the internet would be treated different.
There's a lot of good info in here, a lot of good advice, and very little that could possibly need to be moderated down, so, I almost feel odd skipping over page after page of commentary that probably contains the same sentiments I'm about to espouse.
I've seen contracting done well and contracting done poorly. I've worked in situations where i felt it was done poorly.
Yes, by and large, there is at least the myth that all contractors make more money. This isn't always true. I'd venture to say it's more often than not a myth these days.
I can't say i enjoyed my experience as a contractor. I love the company that i worked for, I just got tired of being citizen 2nd class.
Businesses can't survive without teamwork, and a team oriented perspective is aided by actually, well, being made a member of the team.
Loyalty is a two way street. If you see a long term need for your contractors, offer them a full time position. Offer them an equitable salary and job security. Let them know that they can take their pick, that you don't wish to force them to change the way they work for you, but you'd like to offer them job security because you value their work. See how many of them will bite. I suspect a fair number of them will, and a fair number won't. To each his own.
I think it's absurd to think you need to hire contractors to get the best people. You may find excellent people working as contractors, and better than what you'll drag in off the street generally, but by no means the best.
At some point in their life, most people find themselves in a situation where they realize their stress level, or the stress level of the people they love, would be greatly relieved if they were to aquire a position of security in a good company, and feel assured that they have no reason to believe they'll be looking for work in a few months or years.
That being said, I'm afraid there are too many companies hiring contractors on a "when we feel like it" basis. It's incredibly unfortunate that the lines between "technical contractor" and "temp" have become so blurred.
If you know you're only going to be using someone for a limited time, let them know how long that is. If you're filling for a 3 month project, give them a contract for three months with the option for you as the employer to extend the contract, and give them the option to negotiate to leave early if the project completes before the deadline and they are nolonger needed.
Give them a definate date, guarantee them work for an agreed-upon length of time, so they know when they will be available, and when they should start looking for other work. Leave yourself the option to forewarn them of possible contract extension if the project is going longer than expected. Leave them the option to negotiate to leave early if the project is ahead of schedule.
In short, give them a clear cut, sane, and equitable package.
And lastly, by all means, even if they are a pinch hitter, let them join the team. They've signed the nondisclosure agreement, so you can let them come to meetings that pertain to their work. Let them come to the company picnic, have them bring their family or a friend of they like. They feel uncomfortable getting involved, and may decline, but it's only polite to invite them. Let them know that for the duration of their contract, granted some obvious security risks that need to be looked out for, they are indeed one of the gang.
Otherwise, if you've shown them no great consideration for their person, you can expect them to show you a smiliar ammount of consideration for your project.
It's just food for thought. There were days when i was between "real" jobs when i felt like i wasn't doing all i could do for the company i was with, but couldn't totally convince myself that I wasn't more of a water boy than a pinch hitter.
I feel bad about that, but what i wanted was a secure position with like-minded, team oriented people, and i couldn't help feeling disappointed with the situation i was in.
Some people like contracting. Treat them well, they'll treat you well. When you need them again, they'll come back to you.
Some people are just looking for the right company, or are waiting for the right company but haven't fully visualized the need for it. If you need them, offer to take them into the fold, it's a better relationship for both of you. If you don't, give them as much stability as you can. They will appriciate it, and will do you the same favor in retun.
Well, yaknow, I'd pretty much consider myself a "true geek", and honestly most of my cases don't have screws in them. Actually, half of them are partially disassembled.
But, you know what, last time i went to build a computer from scratch, I looked around the lab, and i realized i had 4 full tower cases that were uniformly big, uniformly unweildy when i needed to carry them around, and generally louder than i needed them to be.
More research needs to be done on what models of muffin fans make acceptable low-noise replacements for different heating loads. I'm not the least bit convinced that PC Power & Cooling deserves any of my hard earned money for putting what's probably a $10 fan in a $30 power supply and charging $90.
But looks i can do something about.
I wouldn't say the case i settled on would win any awards. it's merely short, chubby, and has pleasing curves. the first reaction i got was "That's not a computer, that's a pet"
That's more or less what I wanted. I embedded a temperature readout in the front, stuck one of those penguin stickers in the badge area, and was done with it. I really like it.
The case cost me all of $28. I'd provide a url but i can't find the thing online. The side panels slide off, the motherboard plate is removable, the drive cage and power supply snap in and out. the metal is pretty thin, but the edges are rolled so there's no cuts on my hands from messing with it.
There's a lot to be said for brute force technology. I'll leave that at work, in the rack, where it belongs. Some times you just want to have something that works and stays put.
I'm currently looking for what i might be able to put together to be good looking, durable, and portable. A computer that doesn't look like a computer, that i can carry under my arm comfortably.
For that matter, I'd also kill for a 2-unit-high rack mount case for under $300 that doesn't look like crap. NLX formfactor would be perfect. I've found a supplier, but the cases are one-offs and cost $700+ each. No way I'm going there. And don't send me links to penguin computing either, their markup on that 2ru system is amazing, and i think they get the cases from the same guy.
Unfortunately, our government is opposed to letting the unwashed masses see in brilliant detail everything they did. They say that mirroring all congressional action to a web server would be "too expensive", among other things.
As much as i dispise journalists for the slime-sucking worms so many of them are, I would not be the least bit opposed to the idea of appointing state funded journalists to cover each and every thing a single representative does. What does a communications major cost these days, $35k/yr? In the grand scheme of things, a little muckrake is pretty easy to come by.
Unfortunately, you'd need to pass a law to get away with that, and the people who pass laws aren't about to open themselves up to public scrutiny. they're "above" that.
As i vaguely recall from AP US History, oh so many years ago, Yes, at least once the electoral college prefered a different candidate than the election itself. If you really desperately need to know exactly which election, I'm sure someone can dig it up, but i sold that text book like 5 years ago.
Interestingly, the actions of the republican party against making registration and voting easier and thus more appealing to the lower class, obviously cause the lower class to disagree with them more completely.
"Why would i want a republican in office? they don't even want me to *vote*"
Personally, I vote libertarian on the off chance that we might get a few in office, 'cause that would cause quite a ruckus and make a lot of party liners very angry.
Slashdot Mirror
It's interesting that the preference towards "free" discussion was brought up, as opposed to moderated forums like slashdot.
/. comments at -1 to see what it would be like without moderation. Did you really want to see all that? Yes, sometimes, it's good to see what's down there, to keep an eye on the moderation, or moderate. (Remember, it's always better to use that point to moderate up an interesting AC than it is to use it to moderate down a boorish but otherwise harmless +1 user)
All you have to do is read
The problem with really large communities tho, isn't so much the signal to noise ratio as it is the way a large community can distance a person from the whole.
BBSs gave us, as users, the same sense of belonging that a small town gives someone. It's not that you feel a member because you're like everyone around you, it's that you feel you can relate to those around you.
This doesn't mean that it's impossible for a large city to have functioning communities, it means that it's harder, in the relatively metaphor-poor arena of the internet, to develop a functioning sub-community that's small enough to create the same sense of belonging.
Lots of people post comments on slashdot. Even more read them. Nearly everybody recognizes Bruce Perens, even if you don't know who he is outside of slashdot. I'm sure one or two of you recognize me, but it's not the same. It's the division between the luminaries and the public that makes the distinction uncomfortable, but it's unavoidable in a large forum, and it's nobodies fault.
It's not that it makes anyone feel jealous, it's the sense of disconnection.
If this was a BBS, I'd be throwing these words before a bunch of people I kinda feel that i sorta know, that i sorta relate to. That would allow me to adjust the way i phrase things so that my ideas are accessable to a particular group of people that i'm trying to communicate with.
Here, well, I don't have any sense of the identity of my reader. It's a lonely feeling, when you look at it that way.
But in another way, it's somehow empowering to know that possibly thousands of anonymous geeks will paruse my feeble ramblings, and maybe even approve of what i had to say.
When I'm putting a password on something I'm not going to use every day, or at least not often enough that I'll remember it, I generally use CD catalog numbers.
You know, the string of numbers and letters on the label. This has saved my butt many, many times.
I may forget the exact string of letters, numbers, and non-alpha-numerics. But I always, always remember which CD.
If I'm home, I can pull it off the shelf. That's easy enough. But here's the cool part.
If you're away from home, any record store can look it up for you. This has saved me from having to hack into my own systems many times. And when you call a record store at 11:00 in the morning and say "I have a strange request", the lone person managing an empty store in off business hours is generally eager to help, too.
I don't care if they know the password - they don't know who i am or what i'm unlocking.
Sure, you could come to my house and take down a list of my entire cd collection, but it would take you a while. I have a lot of music, and i also mix upper and lower case on the letters.
Of course, if you have a small music collection, or predictable tastes, maybe it's not such a good idea. Personally, 70% of my cds were special-order.
Regular cell phone usage? Who exactly does a lab mouse call? And how often do they have to chat before they consider it a "regular" call?
I don't have any problem with the subjet matter.
Frankly, I would have given him a D for the spelling errors alone.
Aside from that, the grammar is all but nonexistant.
Even if I was being extremely kind, I would feel that was being remiss in my duty as a teacher if i scored it higher than a B-.
I'm not shocked that they locked him up. I'm cynical enough that I've come to expect that sort of thing. There are two things that shock me.
The first thing, obviously, is how easy it is to get an A these days. I would have flunked out of english writing drivel like that 10 years ago.
The second thing is the discrepency between the school's description of the student to the press and their description they put on his report card.
His report card says that he is an "Outstanding" student, while the school told the press that he is a "consistent discipline problem"
I used to work for a software company that sold their wares exclusively to the primary education industry. I dealt with public school educators day in and day out. Dozens of them every day, hundreds of them in a month. In my unqualified opinion, our education system should be burnt to the ground and rebuilt from scratch.
Disclaimers: I am not a teacher, but both of my parents are.
All in all it's prolly worth the $30. I played the heck out of SimCity Classic on my kickass PC-XT with 640k of ram and a totally pimp EGA graphics setup. 8Mhz, dude!
*cough* anyway, yeah, it's pretty slick. Takes a few seconds to render a map when you start a new city. Eats up about 300k of memory.
Game play is very similar to the real thing, though i haven't figured out the heuristic for how it places zones (industrial, commercial, etc). So far i have most of them landing way off their mark. This is confusing, because i have no problem bullseyeing things like roads and power lines.
All in all recommended. Great time waster.
I have several friends who work in various parts of IBM, where Notes collaboration is a part of every day business.
I've heard nothing good about the Notes v.5 Win32 client. Mostly I hear reports about crashes, an irrational need for reboots, etc.
Step carefully.
What's unfortunate tho, is that a lot of engineering types really /do/ go for June Lockheart rather than any other type of girl.
Personally, I'd probably get bored married to the female version of myself. One of the reasons to have someone else around is to share a complementary perspective on life.
On the other hand, if i was married to someone who was completely apathetic to all aspects of technology, I would probably go completely nuts obsessing over the fear that my wife is smiling and nodding entirely for my own benefit, and dying of boredom on the inside.
The vast majority of people in the world don't work in highly technical fields. An auto assembly line worker marrying another auto assembly line worker isn't so much an issue as it would be if the profession was more involved. There really isn't that much to the job, so the major interests are more than likely well outside of their field of employment.
But in studied careers, be they technology related, literary, artistic, legal, whathaveyou, there is the possibility of a feeling of competition between two people who are otherwise partners. I've seen this in action, and it's not a pretty sight.
I would by no means rule out girls who are just as big a geek as i am. Nor would i rule out girls who's interests are elsewhere. And i say "girl" meaning "female who is significantly younger than my mother".
So, yeah, I'd have to agree that it's bad advice, but "Uncle Robin" is just trying to chop up a larger personality issue into smaller pieces so that it's easier to handle.
Or maybe he just sees that there are millions of geek guys longing after the hundreds of thousands of geek girls when their ideal mate may or may not be one of them.
Sometimes you can exclude entire groups. I don't think I'll be marrying any racists or smokers. I've kissed a girl who smokes camels, and man, tho i love the girl and liked her a whole lot at the time, sheesh, yuck. Kissing my dirty socks would taste better. We parted for unrelated reasons, but when you start talking about "forever", issues that don't make a big difference when you're dating start to be a bigger deal.
But it's foolish to try and focus in on a particular group. What you can do, if you get serious about getting hitched, is try to weed out the individuals who have traits that are obviously going to cause friction down the road. And that's where the greater personality issues come into play.
Too many people these days get married foolishly, why else would we have such a high divorce rate? Try to save the world a little heartache, find someone who is as happy being with you as you are being with them.
You're missing some key points of the reality of this thing.
An actual psychiatrist or an experienced therapist will know if you're fudging answers by a lot of cues that have nothing to do with the answer itself.
However, this is software. It's not even sophisticated software.
I saw this on the news a few weeks ago. Essentially they showed an old Zenith laptop running a text DOS program that asked questions like "Do you often think agressive thoughts?"
I suppose they could have a carefully laid out tree of questions to be asked based on previous answers, but i really doubt it. Frankly, I wish i'd thought of it, so that i could laugh all the way to the bank just like the goon who did.
But at least the mac evangelists are eating a heaping portion of humble pie over not being able to get anything over 450Mhz.
Maybe what he's refering to there is that stock Linux kernels aren't capable of allocating large (like, 4-16 megs) contiguous physical chunks of memory.
X doesn't need this, the gui doesn't need it generally speaking.
It is however pretty helpful for some sorts of video streaming setups.
Currently there's a BigPhysArea patch that allows you to remove a large physical area from the pool that the kernel draws from, which you can then use in a userland driver.
It's certianly possible to advance the kernel to make this sort of thing possible, Linux isn't heavily video-oriented at the moment, But if you want bragging rights, compare X to the windowing system used in BeOS.
The only reason NT's gui gets everything it wants is because it's inserted into the kernel. That's a gargantuan trade-off in terms of robustness, and certianly nothing to brag about.
Yeah, but the Starship Bistromath kicked it's butt later in the series . . . .
Well, go back and read what you said there. You said it yourself. Let me reiterate.
"This usually requires experience to develop, and experience takes time."
When you deny reasonable choice, you deny experience, and prevent wisdom.
No, I'm actually pretty certian they'll make the same mistake over and over.
We're a pretty small demographic, all things considered. And as long as the general public thinks we're people of godlike capabilities, we'll all have job security.
While everybody else in the industry is working overtime to discover new ways of doing things in order to make their video processors as fast as possible . . . .
. . . ATi has aparantly thrown in the towel on technology and is just gonna put two of their second rate chip on the same card?
Sheesh.
Stuff like this isn't new. Way back when, Radius put out a card for PC's tht used three S3 864's. True, they weren't handling things exactly like this - they were assiging one to each primary color - but hell, even Intel had the good taste to put two pipelines on the same die when they came out with the Pentium Pro, instead of just telling people they ought to build SMP systems instead.
- Eric
Yes, meta-moderation system aside, I'm going to have to speak up here.
This comment shouldn't have been tagged "off topic" - Yes, it was assinine, yes, it had nothing to do with TransMeta.
Just because it doesn't fit under the icon at the top of the page doesn't mean it's irrelevant to the discussion.
If this came up for me to meta-moderate, this is exactly the kind of thing i would tag unfair. But I don't care to be anonymous on that point.
I mean, Are Ye a Real Person and not a Cabbage or Something?
Yeah, and I got moderated down too. Serves me right for being interested in more than the technical aspects of the sculpture.
Hey now, I'm not a dirty hippy, and I have a job, I probably make more money than you do. And frankly, people pay top dollar for ugly ass arty crap.
Heck, a mexican guy canned his, dated it, and sold it at auction. Made millions.
From a marketing perspective, this is just the kind of arty crap people gobble up with a spoon. At least if you put the right spin on it.
Success in art has a lot more to do with conspiracy than it does with talent. Take for instance Vincent VanGogh - So talented it made him smell bad, but he never got to be part of the whole art media game during his own life span, so he sold his paintings mostly to relatives and siblings, and died dirt poor.
Yeah, talent's great, I'm all for it, but orangutans have made things with rotten fruit that sold for more money than I've made in my life. And that guy who stands behind jet engines and tosses paint in the air, sheesh . . .
Better yet, make sure the sculpture is /really dumb/, and then you can run it on a dialup line without problems!
I'm sitting here trying to think of a sculpture medium that wouldn't be particularly harsh towards functioning electronics that you wish to stay functioning throughout the process.
You certianly can't use a torch for anything, and an arc welder would fry every component in the computer in about 1/13th of a second. With paper mache you'd have to be very careful you didn't drip any goo inside the vents. Clay would similarly be bad juju.
Epoxy based putties would work alright, as long as you got it right the first time. Flying debris from griding or chizzling it down could be very bad for the machine, not to mention the vibration problems.
For the same reasons, if you wanted to use wood you'd have to cut it well away from the computer and finish it before attaching it.
As an artist i'm intregued. Conceptual stuff isn't my bag, so I'd never consider putting a live computer inside something i was working on (More likely a dead one, or I'd save the live system as the last piece of the puzzle), but I'm finally getting around to having a studio to do stuff in, and I wonder how well a computer fits into the game.
You know, I mean, stuff tends to get pretty messy. And live computers aren't the sort of thing that mix well with fits of inspiration that involve picking something up and slamming it back down in a different position. Even excepting a spinning harddrive and fans, cables and cards tend to get knocked loose, sparks fly, etc.
If the computer survives the sculpture, that's art in itself. Go for it. Lemme know how it works out.
The US Government can place an import tarrif on german goods. But no, they're not responsible for charging sales tax.
Can your state require them to collect tax when you purchase from them? No more than they can require another state to do that.
Can your state require you to pay a "Use Tax" on items which were purchased across the state line on which you paid no other state's taxes? Chances are they already do, and you're already breaking the law.
The issue of the internet tax moritorium has been interesting. I don't know of a state that doesn't have a "use tax" that doesn't bear striking resemblance to sales tax. In almost all states, when you make any kind of interstate or international purchase that isn't taxed by another state, you are required to pay a "use tax" for no other reason than that they can argue you maybe oughta be taxed.
So, for all these years when people loved buying from a catalog since there was no sales tax, technicly they were breaking the law when they didn't declare those purchases on their state tax form for the year and poney up the use tax.
So it's pretty odd that the internet would be treated different.
I sure thought i wrote that as "they may feel uncomfortable getting involved". I even previewed that one. Sheesh . . . .
There's a lot of good info in here, a lot of good advice, and very little that could possibly need to be moderated down, so, I almost feel odd skipping over page after page of commentary that probably contains the same sentiments I'm about to espouse.
I've seen contracting done well and contracting done poorly. I've worked in situations where i felt it was done poorly.
Yes, by and large, there is at least the myth that all contractors make more money. This isn't always true. I'd venture to say it's more often than not a myth these days.
I can't say i enjoyed my experience as a contractor. I love the company that i worked for, I just got tired of being citizen 2nd class.
Businesses can't survive without teamwork, and a team oriented perspective is aided by actually, well, being made a member of the team.
Loyalty is a two way street. If you see a long term need for your contractors, offer them a full time position. Offer them an equitable salary and job security. Let them know that they can take their pick, that you don't wish to force them to change the way they work for you, but you'd like to offer them job security because you value their work. See how many of them will bite. I suspect a fair number of them will, and a fair number won't. To each his own.
I think it's absurd to think you need to hire contractors to get the best people. You may find excellent people working as contractors, and better than what you'll drag in off the street generally, but by no means the best.
At some point in their life, most people find themselves in a situation where they realize their stress level, or the stress level of the people they love, would be greatly relieved if they were to aquire a position of security in a good company, and feel assured that they have no reason to believe they'll be looking for work in a few months or years.
That being said, I'm afraid there are too many companies hiring contractors on a "when we feel like it" basis. It's incredibly unfortunate that the lines between "technical contractor" and "temp" have become so blurred.
If you know you're only going to be using someone for a limited time, let them know how long that is. If you're filling for a 3 month project, give them a contract for three months with the option for you as the employer to extend the contract, and give them the option to negotiate to leave early if the project completes before the deadline and they are nolonger needed.
Give them a definate date, guarantee them work for an agreed-upon length of time, so they know when they will be available, and when they should start looking for other work. Leave yourself the option to forewarn them of possible contract extension if the project is going longer than expected. Leave them the option to negotiate to leave early if the project is ahead of schedule.
In short, give them a clear cut, sane, and equitable package.
And lastly, by all means, even if they are a pinch hitter, let them join the team. They've signed the nondisclosure agreement, so you can let them come to meetings that pertain to their work. Let them come to the company picnic, have them bring their family or a friend of they like. They feel uncomfortable getting involved, and may decline, but it's only polite to invite them. Let them know that for the duration of their contract, granted some obvious security risks that need to be looked out for, they are indeed one of the gang.
Otherwise, if you've shown them no great consideration for their person, you can expect them to show you a smiliar ammount of consideration for your project.
It's just food for thought. There were days when i was between "real" jobs when i felt like i wasn't doing all i could do for the company i was with, but couldn't totally convince myself that I wasn't more of a water boy than a pinch hitter.
I feel bad about that, but what i wanted was a secure position with like-minded, team oriented people, and i couldn't help feeling disappointed with the situation i was in.
Some people like contracting. Treat them well, they'll treat you well. When you need them again, they'll come back to you.
Some people are just looking for the right company, or are waiting for the right company but haven't fully visualized the need for it. If you need them, offer to take them into the fold, it's a better relationship for both of you. If you don't, give them as much stability as you can. They will appriciate it, and will do you the same favor in retun.
Well, yaknow, I'd pretty much consider myself a "true geek", and honestly most of my cases don't have screws in them. Actually, half of them are partially disassembled.
But, you know what, last time i went to build a computer from scratch, I looked around the lab, and i realized i had 4 full tower cases that were uniformly big, uniformly unweildy when i needed to carry them around, and generally louder than i needed them to be.
More research needs to be done on what models of muffin fans make acceptable low-noise replacements for different heating loads. I'm not the least bit convinced that PC Power & Cooling deserves any of my hard earned money for putting what's probably a $10 fan in a $30 power supply and charging $90.
But looks i can do something about.
I wouldn't say the case i settled on would win any awards. it's merely short, chubby, and has pleasing curves. the first reaction i got was "That's not a computer, that's a pet"
That's more or less what I wanted. I embedded a temperature readout in the front, stuck one of those penguin stickers in the badge area, and was done with it. I really like it.
The case cost me all of $28. I'd provide a url but i can't find the thing online. The side panels slide off, the motherboard plate is removable, the drive cage and power supply snap in and out. the metal is pretty thin, but the edges are rolled so there's no cuts on my hands from messing with it.
There's a lot to be said for brute force technology. I'll leave that at work, in the rack, where it belongs. Some times you just want to have something that works and stays put.
I'm currently looking for what i might be able to put together to be good looking, durable, and portable. A computer that doesn't look like a computer, that i can carry under my arm comfortably.
For that matter, I'd also kill for a 2-unit-high rack mount case for under $300 that doesn't look like crap. NLX formfactor would be perfect. I've found a supplier, but the cases are one-offs and cost $700+ each. No way I'm going there. And don't send me links to penguin computing either, their markup on that 2ru system is amazing, and i think they get the cases from the same guy.
Unfortunately, our government is opposed to letting the unwashed masses see in brilliant detail everything they did. They say that mirroring all congressional action to a web server would be "too expensive", among other things.
As much as i dispise journalists for the slime-sucking worms so many of them are, I would not be the least bit opposed to the idea of appointing state funded journalists to cover each and every thing a single representative does. What does a communications major cost these days, $35k/yr? In the grand scheme of things, a little muckrake is pretty easy to come by.
Unfortunately, you'd need to pass a law to get away with that, and the people who pass laws aren't about to open themselves up to public scrutiny. they're "above" that.
As i vaguely recall from AP US History, oh so many years ago, Yes, at least once the electoral college prefered a different candidate than the election itself. If you really desperately need to know exactly which election, I'm sure someone can dig it up, but i sold that text book like 5 years ago.
Interestingly, the actions of the republican party against making registration and voting easier and thus more appealing to the lower class, obviously cause the lower class to disagree with them more completely.
"Why would i want a republican in office? they don't even want me to *vote*"
Personally, I vote libertarian on the off chance that we might get a few in office, 'cause that would cause quite a ruckus and make a lot of party liners very angry.