Eh, the TI 99/4A was quite successful for a time, but it couldn't keep up with Commodore's price cuts and eventually failed like so many others.
I would consider a greater harm to be the TI Professional, an MS-Dos based x86 computer that was incompatible with the IBM PC (and thus its software library). It was meant for professional users, cost $5000 and chunk of TI's development, and went nowhere. Strangely, my parents bought one of those when it first came out. I remember thinking that some of the graphics I'd seen in a magazine were cool (it had rendered a 3d dodecahedron in wireframe mode! That was pretty cool compared to the 99/4a's or PCjr's graphics) but ultimately the machine wasn't much use and we got rid of it a few years later in favor of the IBM PCjr.
I thought Ultima VII part 2 was more like splitting an immense game into two smaller parts (if you're thinking about serpent isle..) rather than releasing an expansion to an existing game.
That's exactly GP's point. If you want to get home before sunset, then you should get up an hour earlier and head home from work an hour earlier.
At least in the US, that's just not how most businesses run. Unless you're in IT or some other rare "liberated" sector of the workforce, your hours are specifically set and there is something magical and sacred there about the work hours of 9-5 (or 8-5 if you like lunch breaks in most sectors). It's far easier to actually change the definition of the time of day that "5 pm" corresponds to than it is to change business hours, which Congress has little theoretical authority to mandate anyway (though I'm sure they could with the popular 'commerce clause' justification).
It seems to me that the institution of permanent DST was the major factor in the demise of the drive in theaters, just for starters.
Mmm, I often thought that it likely the really, really poor quality sound you'll find in drive-ins especially as movies got better (surround) sound, the idiots who find the need to start up their cars in the middle of the movie, and the low-density space requirements. When it comes to the drive-in, I think they mostly disappeared for many of the same reasons small theaters disappeared. And you can't really have a drive-in multiplex.
How does lunch work? Do you get a lunch? Is it part of the paid time?
For me, it's a working lunch. I quickly grab lunch at the cafe, continue working while eating at my desk. Sometimes I take off for lunch with coworkers, spending an extra hour afterwards, but for the most part I would rather skip the "break," head out early, and spend the extra time with my significant other.
1) A significant amount of manpower had to be expended in order to assure that the computer systems across the world supporting this change were ready for it.
Semi-significant. It really wasn't that bad unless you had systems that were difficult to upgrade (as a sysadmin in a heterogeneous environment it still wasn't too bad.
2) A number of home and business computer systems alike failed to change, sometimes resulting in mischeduled meetings and moderate confusion.
Possibly. Neither #1 and #2 however, outweigh the greatest benefits of the change -- actually having a few sunlit hours after work. I'd like the DST schedule year-round. I like being able to bike home from work, a dangerous idea around here when it gets dark.
3) Congress wasted time on this bill that could have been spent getting something important done, such as finally hammering out a definate government policy on Stem Cell research, abortions, or actually making a true impact on the energy issue we face.
I consider this a benefit, not a waste. Often when Congress tries to "hammer out an issue," I end up wishing they hadn't bothered, with the solution being worse than simply doing nothing. Whatever wastes Congress's time is fine by me.
GPP's Suggestion: convey schedule information to your customers. (something you do anyway) DST: convey information to everyone and patch a big pile of systems, many legacy, following obscure regional rules.
Which one's easier again?
Oh, very very easy question to answer. DST by a mile is the easier change.
The Scientific Method. And before you (or anyone else) shouts "aha," the Scientific Method is simply the best we have. If we find in the future some method of testing and verifying that can be shown to be better, then the Scientific Method says it should be replaced by the new one.
Americans are terrified that terrorists are out to get them, despite the fact that terrorism kills fewer Americans each year than the flu, fewer than cancer, fewer than suicide, fewer than murder, fewer than automobile accidents, fewer than natural disasters, etc. That pretty much makes Americans irrational cowards. So much for the "home of the brave".
It sounds like you are neither American, nor know many Americans. I don't personally know any fellow Americans who are "terrified that terrorists are out to get them."
Only a handful of Islamic Theocracies have people that are in less acceptance of evolution than America; not to mention the way Americans disbelieve scientists about every other subject as well. The universe is 13.2 billion years old? Of course not! The grand canyon proves the Genesis story! So much for advanced.
Oh, I'll certainly admit that the US has its share of stupid people. Especially in certain.. *cough*cough* sections of the country.
America rather consistently loses wars against third-world countries. Very impressive, and definitely great. Then they criticize the rest of the world for not being stupid enough to get on board for the big defeat. So America is simultaneously weak (for losing), stupid (for going to war in the first place), and petty (for getting mad at nations run by rational, literate people).
I hope you're not proposing that the Korean and Vietnam wars were fought against the Koreans and Vietnamese. They were proxies at best, especially in Korea.
It's not called being sneaky or dishonest. It's called "berocracy". Just keep sending them the wrong data by "accident" while wanting to know what judge signed the order as of the date it was submitted.
Of course, unless they're complete and utter morons, they'll know you're stalling which will open you up to a world of pain. Don't think you can just be 'sneaky and clever' to mess with them unless you're willing to deal with those consequences.
From a business perspective, yes, the only thing that matters in the end is money. In the business world, Gates isn't given respect for his technical prowess, he's given respect based on how fantastically successful Microsoft has been. Quality of the product is a non-issue, all that matters is how well the company has done.
Meh. MST3K had been doing a fairly good job killing itself. The writing had slipped, many of the actors/writers had left.. it was time to end it.
Re:It's not just Sci-Fi channel; it's the market,
on
The Sci-Fi Movie Stigma
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
This is something I could never get about network executives... They treat humans like a homogeneous blob which can be attracted, and never like the subgroups with diverse interests that humans actually are. SpikeTV has the SpikeTV market because it's aiming for that subgroup. If the Sci-Fi channel desires it, it can have an almost exclusive stranglehold on the sci-fi market by making more good shows like Battlestar Galactica or the Stargate franchise.
Here's the thing though -- crappy "reality" programs like Scare Tactics using random people or C-list actors are -dirt cheap-. Plus, you don't need any actual plot, so instead of hiring writers and actors, all you need is Joe Rogan. Science fiction can be expensive not only to shoot, but the special effects budget can be pretty hefty too. For the cost of one Battlestar Galactica, you could make five Scare Tactics or wrestling shows, and the TV executives want the largest return on their investment.
Don't forget Star Trek: The Motion Picture. One of the knocks against it was it was too cerebral. Too thinky. I found it had other problems that sunk it, such as the extra slow lingering pacing and the joylessness of the characters. But it could have been called a cerebral film.
Starship Troopers has one of the best director commentaries I've heard. Nick Meyer gives an excellent commentary on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, touching on the processes of developing the movie, how to direct actors, insights into moviemaking, sci-fi and non. Conan the Barbarian has a great commentary track too, though more for comedy/camp value (Director: "Look at her! She's like.. a valkyrie!" Arnold: "I got laid a lot in this film.")
You can make a good case that an aspiring techie would be better off, at 18, taking a solid tech job and supplementing his/her knowledge with, say, O'Reilly books. This scenario wouldn't be realistic for other jobs. To put it another way, degrees aren't as necessary in our industry as they are in others. People realize that, too.
That's a pretty hard case to make, and requires a good amount of luck, both personal and with the job market, in addition to the usual hard work.
You liked Norton Commander?! I don't know about your time, but when I started messing with PCs, Norton was absolutely the most bloated file manager available -- with tens of shiny screensavers, a useless pseudo-graphical text mode interface, and a text editor that took half a second to open.
Those were later versions. I tried one from 89-90 and was... a bit underwhelmed. By that time the bloat had already crept in.
There was a sweet spot, but it didn't last very long.
Norton used to be awesome as well. Norton Commander on my PC XT (the 86-88 version of nc)? It used up only a tiny portion of memory, it was fast, extremely useful. Norton Utilities (disk doctor specifically) from the same time saved my ass several times. Now? I had my mom uninstall all Symantec software from her Windows XP machine. She used a competing anti-virus problem, relied on her hardware firewall's protection (came with the ISP!), and the speed gains from the computer.. it was like night and day. Before, it took 5 minutes after bootup for the machine to become usable as Norton Internet Security did all sorts of things that you can't turn off, and it slowed the computer down during normal use as well. What a difference two decades makes!
Sounds to me that a moderator thought "oh, she posted stuff from Ted Stevens in an attempt to bait him into filing takedown notices as well? That's informative!" without actually checking the link to see if the claim was true or not.
Slashdot Mirror
I would consider a greater harm to be the TI Professional, an MS-Dos based x86 computer that was incompatible with the IBM PC (and thus its software library). It was meant for professional users, cost $5000 and chunk of TI's development, and went nowhere. Strangely, my parents bought one of those when it first came out. I remember thinking that some of the graphics I'd seen in a magazine were cool (it had rendered a 3d dodecahedron in wireframe mode! That was pretty cool compared to the 99/4a's or PCjr's graphics) but ultimately the machine wasn't much use and we got rid of it a few years later in favor of the IBM PCjr.
I thought Ultima VII part 2 was more like splitting an immense game into two smaller parts (if you're thinking about serpent isle..) rather than releasing an expansion to an existing game.
It's Slashdot, I'm sure he's well ahead of you.
At least in the US, that's just not how most businesses run. Unless you're in IT or some other rare "liberated" sector of the workforce, your hours are specifically set and there is something magical and sacred there about the work hours of 9-5 (or 8-5 if you like lunch breaks in most sectors). It's far easier to actually change the definition of the time of day that "5 pm" corresponds to than it is to change business hours, which Congress has little theoretical authority to mandate anyway (though I'm sure they could with the popular 'commerce clause' justification).
Vitamin supplements are safe and quite often ineffective.
Mmm, I often thought that it likely the really, really poor quality sound you'll find in drive-ins especially as movies got better (surround) sound, the idiots who find the need to start up their cars in the middle of the movie, and the low-density space requirements. When it comes to the drive-in, I think they mostly disappeared for many of the same reasons small theaters disappeared. And you can't really have a drive-in multiplex.
For me, it's a working lunch. I quickly grab lunch at the cafe, continue working while eating at my desk. Sometimes I take off for lunch with coworkers, spending an extra hour afterwards, but for the most part I would rather skip the "break," head out early, and spend the extra time with my significant other.
It takes very little time to throw money at a project/issue. It takes a lot more time trying to figure out how to spend money wisely on it.
Semi-significant. It really wasn't that bad unless you had systems that were difficult to upgrade (as a sysadmin in a heterogeneous environment it still wasn't too bad.
2) A number of home and business computer systems alike failed to change, sometimes resulting in mischeduled meetings and moderate confusion.
Possibly. Neither #1 and #2 however, outweigh the greatest benefits of the change -- actually having a few sunlit hours after work. I'd like the DST schedule year-round. I like being able to bike home from work, a dangerous idea around here when it gets dark.
3) Congress wasted time on this bill that could have been spent getting something important done, such as finally hammering out a definate government policy on Stem Cell research, abortions, or actually making a true impact on the energy issue we face.
I consider this a benefit, not a waste. Often when Congress tries to "hammer out an issue," I end up wishing they hadn't bothered, with the solution being worse than simply doing nothing. Whatever wastes Congress's time is fine by me.
GPP's Suggestion: convey schedule information to your customers. (something you do anyway)
DST: convey information to everyone and patch a big pile of systems, many legacy, following obscure regional rules.
Which one's easier again?
Oh, very very easy question to answer. DST by a mile is the easier change.
Hahahaha! Oh, I love these April Fools stories. My favorite day of the year on Slashdot. ...
... :-(
This is an April Fools Day story, right?
The Scientific Method. And before you (or anyone else) shouts "aha," the Scientific Method is simply the best we have. If we find in the future some method of testing and verifying that can be shown to be better, then the Scientific Method says it should be replaced by the new one.
It sounds like you are neither American, nor know many Americans. I don't personally know any fellow Americans who are "terrified that terrorists are out to get them."
Only a handful of Islamic Theocracies have people that are in less acceptance of evolution than America; not to mention the way Americans disbelieve scientists about every other subject as well. The universe is 13.2 billion years old? Of course not! The grand canyon proves the Genesis story! So much for advanced.
Oh, I'll certainly admit that the US has its share of stupid people. Especially in certain.. *cough*cough* sections of the country.
America rather consistently loses wars against third-world countries. Very impressive, and definitely great. Then they criticize the rest of the world for not being stupid enough to get on board for the big defeat. So America is simultaneously weak (for losing), stupid (for going to war in the first place), and petty (for getting mad at nations run by rational, literate people).
I hope you're not proposing that the Korean and Vietnam wars were fought against the Koreans and Vietnamese. They were proxies at best, especially in Korea.
Of course, unless they're complete and utter morons, they'll know you're stalling which will open you up to a world of pain. Don't think you can just be 'sneaky and clever' to mess with them unless you're willing to deal with those consequences.
From a business perspective, yes, the only thing that matters in the end is money. In the business world, Gates isn't given respect for his technical prowess, he's given respect based on how fantastically successful Microsoft has been. Quality of the product is a non-issue, all that matters is how well the company has done.
Meh. MST3K had been doing a fairly good job killing itself. The writing had slipped, many of the actors/writers had left.. it was time to end it.
This is something I could never get about network executives... They treat humans like a homogeneous blob which can be attracted, and never like the subgroups with diverse interests that humans actually are. SpikeTV has the SpikeTV market because it's aiming for that subgroup. If the Sci-Fi channel desires it, it can have an almost exclusive stranglehold on the sci-fi market by making more good shows like Battlestar Galactica or the Stargate franchise.
Here's the thing though -- crappy "reality" programs like Scare Tactics using random people or C-list actors are -dirt cheap-. Plus, you don't need any actual plot, so instead of hiring writers and actors, all you need is Joe Rogan. Science fiction can be expensive not only to shoot, but the special effects budget can be pretty hefty too. For the cost of one Battlestar Galactica, you could make five Scare Tactics or wrestling shows, and the TV executives want the largest return on their investment.
Don't forget Star Trek: The Motion Picture. One of the knocks against it was it was too cerebral. Too thinky. I found it had other problems that sunk it, such as the extra slow lingering pacing and the joylessness of the characters. But it could have been called a cerebral film.
Starship Troopers has one of the best director commentaries I've heard.
Nick Meyer gives an excellent commentary on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, touching on the processes of developing the movie, how to direct actors, insights into moviemaking, sci-fi and non.
Conan the Barbarian has a great commentary track too, though more for comedy/camp value (Director: "Look at her! She's like.. a valkyrie!" Arnold: "I got laid a lot in this film.")
That's a pretty hard case to make, and requires a good amount of luck, both personal and with the job market, in addition to the usual hard work.
It's business school, and everyone there dreams of being the next Bill Gates and founding a company as ruthless and successful as Microsoft has been.
Those were later versions. I tried one from 89-90 and was... a bit underwhelmed. By that time the bloat had already crept in.
There was a sweet spot, but it didn't last very long.
Norton used to be awesome as well. Norton Commander on my PC XT (the 86-88 version of nc)? It used up only a tiny portion of memory, it was fast, extremely useful. Norton Utilities (disk doctor specifically) from the same time saved my ass several times. Now? I had my mom uninstall all Symantec software from her Windows XP machine. She used a competing anti-virus problem, relied on her hardware firewall's protection (came with the ISP!), and the speed gains from the computer.. it was like night and day. Before, it took 5 minutes after bootup for the machine to become usable as Norton Internet Security did all sorts of things that you can't turn off, and it slowed the computer down during normal use as well. What a difference two decades makes!
Sounds to me that a moderator thought "oh, she posted stuff from Ted Stevens in an attempt to bait him into filing takedown notices as well? That's informative!" without actually checking the link to see if the claim was true or not.
Satellite is not a good replacement. The latency is so bad it shouldn't be considered broadband.