Yes... whatever happened to the time-honored tradition of learning the rules so you know when to break them? While I'll likely get flamed for this opinion but I don't see much writing (online, at least) that indicates an "over-reliance on teaching grammar". IMHO, it's not being emphasized enough. Running across an online article that's difficult to read due to the awful grammar is pretty much a daily occurrence. One wishes that many people writing today would have spent more time on the basics: proper grammar, correct spelling (hint: a lack of red squigglies does not mean you've nailed all the spelling), proofreading, defining abbreviations/acronyms on first use, etc. That so many fail to see that these are important makes me wonder if the writers really care at all about the ideas they're trying to present.
(Aside) I wonder about author's view on the current trend of online articles with one sentence paragraphs? I understand the need to fill up the screen with more whitespace so the dozen or more ads that litter the margins don't make it so obvious as to the real purpose of the web page ($$$, not conveying information/ideas) but no paragraph ought to be only a single sentence in length unless you're using it for emphasis. Single sentence paragraphs are right near the top of the list of popular-but-really-annoying writing devices---right next to the overuse of exclamation points and "here's three or four words of my own followed by a link to a real article that says what I wish I could figure out how to say without plagiarizing the source".
The problem is that companies have gotten greedy and want fresh graduates to be able to fill their open positions and "hit the ground running" so that the company doesn't have to spend money bringing them up to speed on the way the company does business. That time new graduates are spending on learning new things sure isn't going to be available at the vast, vast majority of companies nowadays---not during the work day, that's for sure. What I find rather amusing (or maddening, depending on the day) is that companies all tout how different they are in their promotional materials -- otherwise how would they be better than their competition -- yet they seem to think that there's an unlimited supply of job candidates that will be productive on Day 1 without any ramp-up time. And colleges/universities aren't doing their job if they aren't producing plenty of new employees that meet their unique specifications.
`` `There is no way for people to opt out of using location for ads entirely,' said a Facebook spokesperson by email.' ''
Come on, people. The solution doesn't involve rocket science or new laws. If their ads bother you, just stop using Facebook on your phone. You can use FB Purity to avoid seeing the ads but you'll still be tracked. So just remove the damned application from your phone.
Too many years ahead of its time. Given the number of government documents that are issued nowadays with huge swaths of text hidden behind black boxes, Redactron should have been raking in the cash selling their machines to government offices.
... it put the dain bread recruiters who emphasize job titles out of work.
``The idea is not to focus on job titles, but `what skills they have,' ''
Not that I ever did but I would have long ago stopped counting the number of recruiters who ask the question: ``What job title are you looking for?'' I'm sure they become completely confused when you tell them that titles are meaningless. I worked in the IT group of a bank's treasury group years ago where anyone and everyone was a vice president. I was once a "member of the technical staff" along with 80% of the engineers at an aerospace firm. At another job "technical specialist" (and the "senior" variant) could mean everything from batch job scheduler to DBA to software developer to sysadmin. Does anyone aspire to be a "Manager I"? Really?
In the age of the ATS that can scan your background for the skills you have, I'm astonished that some recruiters still think a job title has any meaning whatsoever.
Actually, if you're moving from an area where there are fewer jobs, you can expect the value of the home you're trying to sell to be decreasing. Why the heck would anyone want to buy a home where there aren't many jobs? Those houses are going to be on the market for a longer time and the pressure to be lowering the price to get it sold will be the only thing that's increasing. Only people who love really long commutes or the independently wealthy are going to be interested in moving to an area with few jobs.
American households are mostly two-income households now. If I pursue and take a job in distant city or state, that means our household could see a 50% drop in income. How many have the ability to weather a cash flow decrease like that?
Seriously... this has been the case with American households since at least the '80s.
Seriously... The smartphone purchase process is: 1.) Buy smartphone, 2.) Immediately go to the Settings -> Apps screen and uninstall the damned Facebook application.
If by, "being productive" you mean spending more and more time trying to master all the different so-called "distraction^Wproductivity tools" that different teams--both internal to the organization and the external ones--have decided to use.
``you seem to be the only one using LaTex how far have we fallen''
Emacs/make/LaTeX is my goto toolset for creating documents that are supposed to last (i.e., technical documentation for systems, software, and procedures, etc.) and LibreOffice for crap that I have to share with others (via ".doc" format). I tried--really, really tried--to do large bits of documentation using Word back when using master documents was supposed to be the way to deal with large documents but after a week of wasted time I said "Eff this!" and I relegated Word to interoffice memos. Oddly, by using Word, I was out of step with a lot of coworkers who lived in spreadsheets all day. They sent out memos written as Excel spreadsheets if they needed to convey anything in a tabular format---many times when there was no tabular information to send out.
Homes currently valued at $250K could go up to $400K? Sounds great if you're a seller but the number of potential buyers has been reduced drastically. Damned drastically.
Just what I needed: another reason to avoid gmail like the plague. It's the email account I use when I fear that I might receive spam from a new contact or a vendor (that wants me to set up an account to receive "special offers"--which are almost certainly not that special). I wonder if Samsung or Comcast will be impressed with replies to their special offers littered with snazzy "Cool!!!" exclamations?
If this is what being a near-monopoly thinks is innovation, bring on the anti-trust legal eagles.
``The biometric data was stored on servers located off-site, in space leased from a third party. Lee argued the business had never sought its workers' consent to use fingerprint scanning, and feared his biometric data would be accessed by unknown groups and individuals.''
Management may unaware of it but that information will be accessed by unknown groups and individuals. It's just a matter of time.
Yes. Biodiversity is, apparently, only important if human beings aren't taken into account. Otherwise, it's open season on any species that dares to have a negative impact on humans.
Has Google given any thought to what eliminating mosquitoes does to the food chain? Bats eat them. Some birds eat them. I'd guess that spiders eat them. What happens to the creatures who have a (potentially) major source of their food just disappear?
... from accessing a host of internal applications at the company I was contracting with last Spring. And the internally-written authentication application was being slowly phased out and more internal applications were being migrated over to use the Microsoft application. By now, I expect that most, if not all, of those employee services were nicely locked down by Microsoft. One of these days, managers (and bean counters) will learn what is meant by "single point of failure".
... I think this can be generalized to say that you'll be a worse <fill-in-the-blank> for a time when you switch jobs, for the same reasons described in the intro.
Some executive needs to be taken 'round back and beaten. Severely.
``Target, the US-based retail giant, reports that gamifying its in-store checkout process has resulted in lower customer wait times and shorter lines. During checkout, a cashier's screen flashes green if items are scanned at an "optimum rate." If the cashier goes too slowly, the screen flashes red. Scores are logged and cashiers are expected to maintain an 88% green rating. In online communities for Target employees, cashiers compare scores, share techniques, and bemoan the game's most challenging obstacles.''
How nice that Target's goal is to make the shopping experience as impersonal as possible. ``Don't engage the customer in idle chit chat, talk about the weather, etc... And definitely, don't make eye-contact... that'll slow down your scanning. You'll be penalized.'' Is this how you planned on winning back customers after releasing all that customer data a few years ago? Did you hire the asshat that developed the plan to limit poultry inspectors to only a second or so to inspect a chicken for signs of disease?
``And yes, that's worse than it was on cable. On cable, you knew that at 6:30pm your show starts.''
We haven't subscribed to cable since the early '90s. The model back then was: Cable->No Commercials. None. Nada. Oh HBO might have had the occasional promo for this month's ``Elton John -- In Concert'' (which was aired pretty much every month at the time) but there were no commercials at all back then.
The closest thing we have to cable now is the free internet programming that we can receive on our semi-smart TV. Of course, Netflix is always available if we want to pay for that. (We don't.) Yeah, there are annoying commercials on the ``free'' content. Pretty sad that one needs to see commercials while watching Will Wheaton play role-playing games, other folks playing Minecraft, or videos of people falling down but `monetization' rules. (Just kidding. We skip past those channels as soon as we realize what's on. Some evening I'll sit down and delete those from the channel list.)
I rescued a half-dozen Model Ms from the recycling cart at work when a bunch of old IBM desktop systems were being trashed in the late '90s. I have enough of these to last--due to the Model M's virtual indestructability--forever.
I also have a Logitech wireless that I use to do initial setup on my Raspberry Pis but I'm not a huge fan due to the relative mushiness of the keys.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes... whatever happened to the time-honored tradition of learning the rules so you know when to break them? While I'll likely get flamed for this opinion but I don't see much writing (online, at least) that indicates an "over-reliance on teaching grammar". IMHO, it's not being emphasized enough. Running across an online article that's difficult to read due to the awful grammar is pretty much a daily occurrence. One wishes that many people writing today would have spent more time on the basics: proper grammar, correct spelling (hint: a lack of red squigglies does not mean you've nailed all the spelling), proofreading, defining abbreviations/acronyms on first use, etc. That so many fail to see that these are important makes me wonder if the writers really care at all about the ideas they're trying to present.
(Aside) I wonder about author's view on the current trend of online articles with one sentence paragraphs? I understand the need to fill up the screen with more whitespace so the dozen or more ads that litter the margins don't make it so obvious as to the real purpose of the web page ($$$, not conveying information/ideas) but no paragraph ought to be only a single sentence in length unless you're using it for emphasis. Single sentence paragraphs are right near the top of the list of popular-but-really-annoying writing devices---right next to the overuse of exclamation points and "here's three or four words of my own followed by a link to a real article that says what I wish I could figure out how to say without plagiarizing the source".
Exactly: College/University != Vocational School.
The problem is that companies have gotten greedy and want fresh graduates to be able to fill their open positions and "hit the ground running" so that the company doesn't have to spend money bringing them up to speed on the way the company does business. That time new graduates are spending on learning new things sure isn't going to be available at the vast, vast majority of companies nowadays---not during the work day, that's for sure. What I find rather amusing (or maddening, depending on the day) is that companies all tout how different they are in their promotional materials -- otherwise how would they be better than their competition -- yet they seem to think that there's an unlimited supply of job candidates that will be productive on Day 1 without any ramp-up time. And colleges/universities aren't doing their job if they aren't producing plenty of new employees that meet their unique specifications.
Come on, people. The solution doesn't involve rocket science or new laws. If their ads bother you, just stop using Facebook on your phone. You can use FB Purity to avoid seeing the ads but you'll still be tracked. So just remove the damned application from your phone.
Too many years ahead of its time. Given the number of government documents that are issued nowadays with huge swaths of text hidden behind black boxes, Redactron should have been raking in the cash selling their machines to government offices.
Yep. Biding their time and laying low until we wipe ourselves out.
... and prices of used high-end video cards crash.
... it put the dain bread recruiters who emphasize job titles out of work.
Not that I ever did but I would have long ago stopped counting the number of recruiters who ask the question: ``What job title are you looking for?'' I'm sure they become completely confused when you tell them that titles are meaningless. I worked in the IT group of a bank's treasury group years ago where anyone and everyone was a vice president. I was once a "member of the technical staff" along with 80% of the engineers at an aerospace firm. At another job "technical specialist" (and the "senior" variant) could mean everything from batch job scheduler to DBA to software developer to sysadmin. Does anyone aspire to be a "Manager I"? Really?
In the age of the ATS that can scan your background for the skills you have, I'm astonished that some recruiters still think a job title has any meaning whatsoever.
Actually, if you're moving from an area where there are fewer jobs, you can expect the value of the home you're trying to sell to be decreasing. Why the heck would anyone want to buy a home where there aren't many jobs? Those houses are going to be on the market for a longer time and the pressure to be lowering the price to get it sold will be the only thing that's increasing. Only people who love really long commutes or the independently wealthy are going to be interested in moving to an area with few jobs.
American households are mostly two-income households now. If I pursue and take a job in distant city or state, that means our household could see a 50% drop in income. How many have the ability to weather a cash flow decrease like that?
Seriously... this has been the case with American households since at least the '80s.
Seriously... The smartphone purchase process is: 1.) Buy smartphone, 2.) Immediately go to the Settings -> Apps screen and uninstall the damned Facebook application.
Kudos for future-proofing your post by using a monospaced typeface. But points off for not limiting the text length to either 72 or 80 characters.
I like that quote about apps and data. That's going into my `quotes.txt' file.
If by, "being productive" you mean spending more and more time trying to master all the different so-called "distraction^Wproductivity tools" that different teams--both internal to the organization and the external ones--have decided to use.
Emacs/make/LaTeX is my goto toolset for creating documents that are supposed to last (i.e., technical documentation for systems, software, and procedures, etc.) and LibreOffice for crap that I have to share with others (via ".doc" format). I tried--really, really tried--to do large bits of documentation using Word back when using master documents was supposed to be the way to deal with large documents but after a week of wasted time I said "Eff this!" and I relegated Word to interoffice memos. Oddly, by using Word, I was out of step with a lot of coworkers who lived in spreadsheets all day. They sent out memos written as Excel spreadsheets if they needed to convey anything in a tabular format---many times when there was no tabular information to send out.
Homes currently valued at $250K could go up to $400K? Sounds great if you're a seller but the number of potential buyers has been reduced drastically. Damned drastically.
Just what I needed: another reason to avoid gmail like the plague. It's the email account I use when I fear that I might receive spam from a new contact or a vendor (that wants me to set up an account to receive "special offers"--which are almost certainly not that special). I wonder if Samsung or Comcast will be impressed with replies to their special offers littered with snazzy "Cool!!!" exclamations?
If this is what being a near-monopoly thinks is innovation, bring on the anti-trust legal eagles.
Management may unaware of it but that information will be accessed by unknown groups and individuals. It's just a matter of time.
Yes. Biodiversity is, apparently, only important if human beings aren't taken into account. Otherwise, it's open season on any species that dares to have a negative impact on humans.
Has Google given any thought to what eliminating mosquitoes does to the food chain? Bats eat them. Some birds eat them. I'd guess that spiders eat them. What happens to the creatures who have a (potentially) major source of their food just disappear?
... from accessing a host of internal applications at the company I was contracting with last Spring. And the internally-written authentication application was being slowly phased out and more internal applications were being migrated over to use the Microsoft application. By now, I expect that most, if not all, of those employee services were nicely locked down by Microsoft. One of these days, managers (and bean counters) will learn what is meant by "single point of failure".
... I think this can be generalized to say that you'll be a worse <fill-in-the-blank> for a time when you switch jobs, for the same reasons described in the intro.
Hum...
... our pinhead politicians fail to understand the difference between climate and this afternoon's weather.
If only they have someone on staff who passed high school science instead of another hack whose specialty is oppo research.
Some executive needs to be taken 'round back and beaten. Severely.
How nice that Target's goal is to make the shopping experience as impersonal as possible. ``Don't engage the customer in idle chit chat, talk about the weather, etc... And definitely, don't make eye-contact... that'll slow down your scanning. You'll be penalized.'' Is this how you planned on winning back customers after releasing all that customer data a few years ago? Did you hire the asshat that developed the plan to limit poultry inspectors to only a second or so to inspect a chicken for signs of disease?
We haven't subscribed to cable since the early '90s. The model back then was: Cable->No Commercials. None. Nada. Oh HBO might have had the occasional promo for this month's ``Elton John -- In Concert'' (which was aired pretty much every month at the time) but there were no commercials at all back then.
The closest thing we have to cable now is the free internet programming that we can receive on our semi-smart TV. Of course, Netflix is always available if we want to pay for that. (We don't.) Yeah, there are annoying commercials on the ``free'' content. Pretty sad that one needs to see commercials while watching Will Wheaton play role-playing games, other folks playing Minecraft, or videos of people falling down but `monetization' rules. (Just kidding. We skip past those channels as soon as we realize what's on. Some evening I'll sit down and delete those from the channel list.)
I rescued a half-dozen Model Ms from the recycling cart at work when a bunch of old IBM desktop systems were being trashed in the late '90s. I have enough of these to last--due to the Model M's virtual indestructability--forever.
I also have a Logitech wireless that I use to do initial setup on my Raspberry Pis but I'm not a huge fan due to the relative mushiness of the keys.