> I can't understand why they would expect you to write perfect, or close to perfect code, on paper
Because they are school administrators. They don't care about teaching anything, they just care about numbers & basic requirements. Okay, that's a bit cynical, but teachers usually only teach by the method that they were taught. Therefore, unless you learn like your teacher's teacher did (grandteacher?), you are being held back.
Another way to look at it is this: Every person learns in a different way. American schools refuse to accept this possibility (I cannot comment either way on foreign schools), so they just find one way that works for a few, then they push it until it fits. School sucks unless you are a perfectly "average" person. I still think so, and I haven't been to one in years.
Square peg, round peg... They all fit in the octagonal hole.
> if you would have read what I wrote > > > I've never had to replace a starter on my car(or anything else that isn't a consumeable for example hoses)
If you would have said what you meant...
The translation: You never replaced a starter on your car, or anything else that isn't a consumable -- for example, hoses. This implies that hoses are not consumables, which is true. "Consumables" would be gasoline. And oil, if your engine is leaking. Replacing a hose means that it has (or will) become worn out -- broken, if you will. Yeah, it's suggested that you change them periodically, as it's almost guaranteed to spring a leak if left in too long, but it still went bad. Hell, you can find people who suggest you replace your alternator every 3-5 years, but does that make it a consumable?
No, if you have a car that runs for 12 years without anything breaking, you almost certainly took very good care of it, but it also means you are extremely lucky. Or, as I said before, you don't drive it much.
> it's a Honda Accord.
Okay, not exactly a Lamborghini, but it's still a better-quality, more expensive car to begin with.
> imagine a world where windows are animated and icons move
Imagine all the free PCs to be found on the streets after secretaries get pissed off that they aren't fast enough to click on the icons flying around the screen & throw them out the window.
> what the heck is the use of running 6 video streams and playing a video game?
Well, not necessarily displaying them, but recording 6 streams would be good for electronic surveillance. Or maybe they are being extremely long-sighted and envisioning the day where every house will have one PC like a server that manages music, movies, cable television, etc, and there are just dumb terminals all over the house acting as monitors, TVs, radios, etc. to display the streams.
Granted, this seems unlikely, but it would be a valid use.
Ah, my brother, I have the same processor and I hardly feel inadequate because of it. There are plenty of other valid reasons for me to feel inadequate. The only thing that aggravates me is that the most recent game I can play is StarCraft, but other than that the 450 is more than enough. It plays the movies and music I download illegally, can encrypt all my bomb making instructions in quick order, and is fast enough to delete all the kiddie porn before the cops can get the front door busted in. Plus I know there's no DRM in it! That DRM stuff is dangerous and should be illegal!
> if you're only willing to spend $300 on a new workstation for my desk, I don't think I want to work for your company
That's rather arrogant (which is not to say that I am not, it's simply an observation). You automatically deserve the latest & greatest hardware you don't need? Why is a product at $1500 automatically better than one at $300? (Perhaps $800 is more reasonable, but still a huge savings) Maybe if that company saved all that money they would be able to pay you better. Or, if you are the one that came up with the idea, you'd get a healthy bonus for saving them a million dollars in computer upgrades.
> Gaming is the only thing driving CPU speeds these days.
I think you might want to broaden that slightly and say multimedia. Or at least real-time video. As another poster pointed out, working with DVDs efficiently can require a pretty beefy PC.
> Longhorn will be a fighting game, maybe even a flight simulator!
Man, just like MS, touting features that have already been around for years. I have to break out the "big guns" and bombs just to install certain hardware in current versions of Windows...
But OSX will be obsolete by then as well! And you'll have to buy another copy of your OS, but there are enough Windows users that "misappropriating" a copy of it is trivial! Muwahaha. Wait, which side was I arguing for again?
I'm not trying to be an ass (it just comes naturally), but isn't that the whole point? We can do more things with one device, so it almost HAS to become more complex.
> Gasoline (unlike diesel fuel) is quite flammable in liquid form
Try again again... The vapors are what makes gasoline flammable. Otherwise you could not extinguish a lit match in a bucket of gasoline (you can, although I don't suggest trying it inside the house). It may be a technicality, as in most cases there will be vapor coming off the gasoline, but it is still not the liquid that is flammable.
> But in REALITY, you need to do whatever you have to to get basic information
Absolutely. There's a time & place to be polite and compassionate. That time is NOT while someone is dieing on the floor but the idiot on the phone can't stop screaming incoherently.
It doesn't help your argument that that makes no sense at all. Sure, the other guy is an ass, but it's either a "comprehensive course" or "reading comprehension course." Or a "comprehensive reading comprehension course."
Why is it that old people think they are smarter than you just because they are old?
> If your inferrence were true, offices would all use Macs; the home market was cornered by Apple first > people chose to use M$ PCs because that was what the cubicles had been filled with
Except that when buying 100 computers, a $1000 price difference on each one adds up. No, I think a major reason was that Apples are just too expensive for the limited work an average secretary would do on it.
Would I buy an SGI to design letterhead logos? Hell no, it's overkill, unnecessary, and way too damned expensive for the use. Most people don't need the power of an Apple for their work -- of course, most of them wouldn't really even need a 500Mhz processor if the size & bloat of Windows didn't grow exponentially with each release.
Apples are beautiful, powerful, amazingly stable machines that, for business use, I wouldn't wish upon our worst competitor (If we were in a competitive field). It just doesn't have the variety, availability, and price.
> reviewers would abandon the "AMD's 3GH chip vs iNTEL's 3GH chip" comparisons and adopt "AMD's $900 chip vs iNTEL's $900 chip" matchup.
Because the noticeable performance gap would grow even larger & Intel would sue them for misrepresentation. Not really, but if I don't practice being cynical all the time I might lose the ability -- that would be a shame.
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> what the fuck is "skipt"?
I guess Hukt Awn Fonix doesn't work for you.
> I can't understand why they would expect you to write perfect, or close to perfect code, on paper
Because they are school administrators. They don't care about teaching anything, they just care about numbers & basic requirements. Okay, that's a bit cynical, but teachers usually only teach by the method that they were taught. Therefore, unless you learn like your teacher's teacher did (grandteacher?), you are being held back.
Another way to look at it is this: Every person learns in a different way. American schools refuse to accept this possibility (I cannot comment either way on foreign schools), so they just find one way that works for a few, then they push it until it fits. School sucks unless you are a perfectly "average" person. I still think so, and I haven't been to one in years.
Square peg, round peg... They all fit in the octagonal hole.
> if you would have read what I wrote
> > > I've never had to replace a starter on my car(or anything else that isn't a consumeable for example hoses)
If you would have said what you meant...
The translation: You never replaced a starter on your car, or anything else that isn't a consumable -- for example, hoses. This implies that hoses are not consumables, which is true. "Consumables" would be gasoline. And oil, if your engine is leaking. Replacing a hose means that it has (or will) become worn out -- broken, if you will. Yeah, it's suggested that you change them periodically, as it's almost guaranteed to spring a leak if left in too long, but it still went bad. Hell, you can find people who suggest you replace your alternator every 3-5 years, but does that make it a consumable?
No, if you have a car that runs for 12 years without anything breaking, you almost certainly took very good care of it, but it also means you are extremely lucky. Or, as I said before, you don't drive it much.
> it's a Honda Accord.
Okay, not exactly a Lamborghini, but it's still a better-quality, more expensive car to begin with.
> imagine a world where windows are animated and icons move
Imagine all the free PCs to be found on the streets after secretaries get pissed off that they aren't fast enough to click on the icons flying around the screen & throw them out the window.
> what the heck is the use of running 6 video streams and playing a video game?
Well, not necessarily displaying them, but recording 6 streams would be good for electronic surveillance. Or maybe they are being extremely long-sighted and envisioning the day where every house will have one PC like a server that manages music, movies, cable television, etc, and there are just dumb terminals all over the house acting as monitors, TVs, radios, etc. to display the streams.
Granted, this seems unlikely, but it would be a valid use.
> my K6-III 450 really feels inadequate now.
Ah, my brother, I have the same processor and I hardly feel inadequate because of it. There are plenty of other valid reasons for me to feel inadequate. The only thing that aggravates me is that the most recent game I can play is StarCraft, but other than that the 450 is more than enough. It plays the movies and music I download illegally, can encrypt all my bomb making instructions in quick order, and is fast enough to delete all the kiddie porn before the cops can get the front door busted in. Plus I know there's no DRM in it! That DRM stuff is dangerous and should be illegal!
> if you're only willing to spend $300 on a new workstation for my desk, I don't think I want to work for your company
That's rather arrogant (which is not to say that I am not, it's simply an observation). You automatically deserve the latest & greatest hardware you don't need? Why is a product at $1500 automatically better than one at $300? (Perhaps $800 is more reasonable, but still a huge savings) Maybe if that company saved all that money they would be able to pay you better. Or, if you are the one that came up with the idea, you'd get a healthy bonus for saving them a million dollars in computer upgrades.
> Why do you think Windows 95 is still floating around out there... let alone Windows 98...
Wonderful product quality and compatibility with the newest consumer devices?
> Are you aware that flight sim is the least popular genre in all of computer gaming?
I call bullshit. The Toll-Booth-Worker & Graveyard-Shift-Janitor Sims are less popular by far...
> Gaming is the only thing driving CPU speeds these days.
I think you might want to broaden that slightly and say multimedia. Or at least real-time video. As another poster pointed out, working with DVDs efficiently can require a pretty beefy PC.
> Longhorn will be a fighting game, maybe even a flight simulator!
Man, just like MS, touting features that have already been around for years. I have to break out the "big guns" and bombs just to install certain hardware in current versions of Windows...
> I'm not even running 3.0 HT and I'm not average
What the hell is H.T.?
On average, the average person off the street isn't average.
> no skin of my OSX loving back.
But OSX will be obsolete by then as well! And you'll have to buy another copy of your OS, but there are enough Windows users that "misappropriating" a copy of it is trivial! Muwahaha. Wait, which side was I arguing for again?
> Clearly Bill Gates stole that statement, bastardized it like everything else he steals, and pretended he was responsible for it.
Then, when called on it, he claimed he never said that, or that it was what the consumer wanted at the time. Evil conspiracy, indeed.
> technology just makes things more complicated
I'm not trying to be an ass (it just comes naturally), but isn't that the whole point? We can do more things with one device, so it almost HAS to become more complex.
> They are so tiny it would only take 2 teenagers.
I think you mean the Insight. The Prius (inside) is a beast of a midsized car. The Insight, however, could be rolled back over from a strong breeze.
> Gasoline (unlike diesel fuel) is quite flammable in liquid form
Try again again... The vapors are what makes gasoline flammable. Otherwise you could not extinguish a lit match in a bucket of gasoline (you can, although I don't suggest trying it inside the house). It may be a technicality, as in most cases there will be vapor coming off the gasoline, but it is still not the liquid that is flammable.
> How in the hell are rescue crews going to be able to tell at first glance if a car is at 500V potential or not?
Put grounding wires & volt meters on the jaws of life. Oh, and thick rubber handles.
> "now would you please hold still and shut up!"
> Somehow, that doesn't work well on first dates.
In a way it does. It can be very successful on a first date, but likely, the second "date" is a court appearance.
> I don't think a T-Rex would have much use for a bow and arrow.
Toothpicks?
> the fact that it modded down once again proves that religious zealots abound this place.
So what does it say now that it's at +5?
> But in REALITY, you need to do whatever you have to to get basic information
Absolutely. There's a time & place to be polite and compassionate. That time is NOT while someone is dieing on the floor but the idiot on the phone can't stop screaming incoherently.
> Consider taking a reading comprehensive course.
It doesn't help your argument that that makes no sense at all. Sure, the other guy is an ass, but it's either a "comprehensive course" or "reading comprehension course." Or a "comprehensive reading comprehension course."
Why is it that old people think they are smarter than you just because they are old?
> If your inferrence were true, offices would all use Macs; the home market was cornered by Apple first
> people chose to use M$ PCs because that was what the cubicles had been filled with
Except that when buying 100 computers, a $1000 price difference on each one adds up. No, I think a major reason was that Apples are just too expensive for the limited work an average secretary would do on it.
Would I buy an SGI to design letterhead logos? Hell no, it's overkill, unnecessary, and way too damned expensive for the use. Most people don't need the power of an Apple for their work -- of course, most of them wouldn't really even need a 500Mhz processor if the size & bloat of Windows didn't grow exponentially with each release.
Apples are beautiful, powerful, amazingly stable machines that, for business use, I wouldn't wish upon our worst competitor (If we were in a competitive field). It just doesn't have the variety, availability, and price.
> reviewers would abandon the "AMD's 3GH chip vs iNTEL's 3GH chip" comparisons and adopt "AMD's $900 chip vs iNTEL's $900 chip" matchup.
Because the noticeable performance gap would grow even larger & Intel would sue them for misrepresentation. Not really, but if I don't practice being cynical all the time I might lose the ability -- that would be a shame.