Isn't it awfully risky to go out when you don't really know where you're going and need a piece of paper to tell you? What if it blows away or gets stolen?
You can also accidentally leave them at home. True story: I once took a 5-hour road trip from northern Illinois to visit friends in southern Indiana and only realized as I was pulling into their town (made it that far with the trusty Rand McNally) that I'd left the piece of paper with their home address and phone number sitting on my table at home. I scratched my head for a bit, ruled out the phone book because they'd only just moved to the town, tried and failed to find their house based on what I remembered of the directions I'd written down the week before. Eventually I stopped at a pay phone, and somehow on the third try managed to guess/remember their new phone number, which I'd also only seen and used once, the week before.
If I hadn't somehow managed to remember that number, I don't know what I would have done.
Also true: I used to memorize all my phone numbers, before I got a cell phone that let me store them. Now that I have a cell I almost never memorize numbers, and I know it's going to bite me someday when I break my phone and suddenly don't know how to contact a person I'm trying to coordinate with. Weirdly, all the numbers I memorized pre-cell-phone are still memorized, including useless numbers such as one for an old friend who I haven't called this millennium.
I've had my GPS try to tell me, while I'm driving on the interstate past a city, that I should exit said interstate, travel 20 blocks through the heart of downtown, and then get back on the interstate. Presumably because it's 10% shorter than the wide looping curve of highway, even though anyone with sense knows staying on the interstate and avoiding 20 stoplights in heavy afternoon traffic is considerably faster.
Mostly, yes. I do like the convenience of something like the Google maps feature on my smartphone, which will overlay the basic map (which I use to make my own decisions) with useful facts like store names and locations, to help me remember where things are, or see what my options are if I'm trying to, say, pick out a restaurant in a strange city.
On the other hand Google maps also just failed me badly two weeks ago when it sent me to two nonexistent liquor stores and was in the process of sending me to a third nonexistent one when I noticed I was passing a real one that wasn't even on the map. That's certainly a case of real knowledge outperforming less reliable electronic data.
Depends, do you do the act to feel good about yourself? Or do you do the act as altruism, and then just happen to feel good about the altruism? What if you give the gift but then feel bad about it rather than good, is that altruism?
Besides, I don't think it's useful to squish the definition of altruism into a corner where it can't possibly exist, and then leave a gap for things like "doing things for other people where the only benefit to oneself is a bit of satisfaction" with no word left to describe it. I'd rather let the existing word apply to stuff that actually happens, because that's a more useful way to be able to discuss the topic.
"how many times do we pay for our house at 7% PA over 25 years?"
Depends on the loan amount, but about twice. For a 30 year fixed mortgage of a reasonable rate you generally pay a little more than double the principle total.
I may misunderstand the math, but if you have an interest rate and a time period, isn't the multiplier basically a fixed number? It doesn't matter what the principle is, if you're doing a percent over a duration you'll get x times some factor every time.
Well, I for one will be happy to get Netflix streaming back. That's been offline since PSN went down. I'm not so much "hallelujah Sony" as "about frakking time," though.
I bought a set of Bose computer speakers for less than $100. So unless someone out there is paying me to take their computer speakers, that statement isn't entirely true.
I accept that I probably overpaid for the speakers, but I've been pretty happy with them (not a real audiophile, just a guy who likes to listen to music while messing around on the computer) -- they've sounded fine to me and they've lasted 10 years
Did I miss his point or did you? One of us is misreading him, but I'm not entirely sure which. I agree 100% that your answer to your version of the question is correct, and that's basically what I said in the second half of my own post. I still think "can Klenex sue anyone for using their name" means my interpretation of the question is what the OP intended, but we may never know, and since we're agreeing with each other about the answer, whatever the question, it's probably not worth worrying about.
I'm gonna make a place where it's great to buy things. It's so great, it'll be the best. Then I'll proudly tell everyone to come to my store for the Best Buy.
I never really thought about it before, but that's a pretty weird name for a store.
I believe so, yes. Though they wouldn't sue "anyone," just competitors trying to infringe on their trademark. Perhaps they'd also discourage journalists and other big media outlets from using Kleenex as a common term.
Thing is, "Kleenex" is a completely made-up word, and even then they were so popular it was a close call (and took a lawsuit, if I recall) for them to defend the term as a proper noun rather than a generic term. If it had gone the other way, it might just be "kleenex" today, and anybody could use it, because the brand was nearly that ubiquitous.
So take something like "app store" which millions of people might string together of their own devices when trying to describe a place where you buy things (i.e., a store), that sells software (i.e., apps), and you've got a situation where it's at least reasonable to argue about whether it's generic or has the ability to be trademarked.
Huh. I always just got emailed nastygrams, told my code was using up too much processor, and given 30 days to find a new host. I think I would have preferred just getting shifted to a server with more resource contention rather than having the contract terminated, or at least having the choice.
customers who were resource hogs but to cheap to go with a VPS/dedicated server/colo solution
On the other hand, this wasn't exactly me. I was developing a site, didn't have that much activity, but also didn't have any real concept of how much of the total server resources I was consuming. The host was more interested in kicking me out than helping me understand.
Not really funny. We're a species that's basically newborn to technology and not even really spacefaring in any significant fashion. We're not looking for aliens like us, but for aliens a bit further along that path. Or rather, we're looking for any aliens, but most of the ones we'd expect to find would be technologically more advanced, because it'd be darn near impossible to be less advanced and still be detectable.
I don't know what adults you hang around with but in my experience they are still more or less as motivated as they were as kids.
I can only speak for myself, but I've discovered a motivation and enthusiasm in my 30's that I never had previously. Exposure to the normal working world and discovering something I truly love doing (programming a computer game) have given me great drive to work on the game as a side business.
True story: had a user once call to tell me they couldn't get "Greg's" computer to turn on. I listened to the results and told them it sounded like they were pushing the power button on the monitor, and they should try to find the "box" (laptop in a dock) that was the computer and push the power button on it to turn the machine on.
Their reply: "Oh, Greg took his laptop with him. Does that mean I can't use his computer?"
You lose all credibility with that one. If all it took was a phone call and 5 minutes later, software would be installed, few people would mind. You know as well as everyone else that waiting months is not uncommon, and that is if the software EVER gets installed. In fact you make it clear that you wouldn't do the installs in 5 minutes with this:
Months? Where the hell does everyone work that this keeps being said? I DON'T know as well as everyone else that "waiting months is not uncommon," because it's never been true at any place I worked. If I regularly couldn't get around to an install within the week without really good reason, I'd be fired. Most installs happen the day they're requested, and if they don't the main reason is the user requests the delay to fit a quiet spot in their schedule.
Not many years later, a cow-orker of mine bought a "DVD player" off a truck under nearly identical circumstances. Except in his case he decided it was such a good deal, he bought two! And thus received two bricks.
What in the world are you talking about? Your strawman mischaracterizations of my objection are ridiculous, and nobody's slinging names here but you (hypothetically, by putting those words in my mouth). The absurd discussion of bludgeoning someone with a computer and downloading illegal material onto a gun only serves to illustrate my point that the layman won't ever lump those two things together in their mind.
Try playing an all-night session of Doom. Every time I closed my eyes I was running through hallways shooting stuff.
Then I told the buddy I was hanging out with, "Whenever I close my eyes all I see is Doom," and he thought I was having a mental breakdown until I could explain it properly.
I generally know what time it is to within five minutes, and thus neither need phone nor watch unless real precision is required. Does that mean I win?
I'm only 36, and I've tried 3 different career paths (and another 3 or 4 unrelated jobs), none of them related. to my college major. I'm (now) in IT, though, where that seems common. Almost none of my co-workers studied computers in college.
My degree is in physics, by the way, and the reason I'm not working in that field is entirely due to how miserable I knew I'd be pursuing a degree higher than a bachelor's. That was miserable enough, thanks.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't it awfully risky to go out when you don't really know where you're going and need a piece of paper to tell you? What if it blows away or gets stolen?
You can also accidentally leave them at home. True story: I once took a 5-hour road trip from northern Illinois to visit friends in southern Indiana and only realized as I was pulling into their town (made it that far with the trusty Rand McNally) that I'd left the piece of paper with their home address and phone number sitting on my table at home. I scratched my head for a bit, ruled out the phone book because they'd only just moved to the town, tried and failed to find their house based on what I remembered of the directions I'd written down the week before. Eventually I stopped at a pay phone, and somehow on the third try managed to guess/remember their new phone number, which I'd also only seen and used once, the week before.
If I hadn't somehow managed to remember that number, I don't know what I would have done.
Also true: I used to memorize all my phone numbers, before I got a cell phone that let me store them. Now that I have a cell I almost never memorize numbers, and I know it's going to bite me someday when I break my phone and suddenly don't know how to contact a person I'm trying to coordinate with. Weirdly, all the numbers I memorized pre-cell-phone are still memorized, including useless numbers such as one for an old friend who I haven't called this millennium.
I've had my GPS try to tell me, while I'm driving on the interstate past a city, that I should exit said interstate, travel 20 blocks through the heart of downtown, and then get back on the interstate. Presumably because it's 10% shorter than the wide looping curve of highway, even though anyone with sense knows staying on the interstate and avoiding 20 stoplights in heavy afternoon traffic is considerably faster.
On the other hand Google maps also just failed me badly two weeks ago when it sent me to two nonexistent liquor stores and was in the process of sending me to a third nonexistent one when I noticed I was passing a real one that wasn't even on the map. That's certainly a case of real knowledge outperforming less reliable electronic data.
Besides, I don't think it's useful to squish the definition of altruism into a corner where it can't possibly exist, and then leave a gap for things like "doing things for other people where the only benefit to oneself is a bit of satisfaction" with no word left to describe it. I'd rather let the existing word apply to stuff that actually happens, because that's a more useful way to be able to discuss the topic.
"how many times do we pay for our house at 7% PA over 25 years?"
Depends on the loan amount, but about twice. For a 30 year fixed mortgage of a reasonable rate you generally pay a little more than double the principle total.
I may misunderstand the math, but if you have an interest rate and a time period, isn't the multiplier basically a fixed number? It doesn't matter what the principle is, if you're doing a percent over a duration you'll get x times some factor every time.
Well, I for one will be happy to get Netflix streaming back. That's been offline since PSN went down. I'm not so much "hallelujah Sony" as "about frakking time," though.
I accept that I probably overpaid for the speakers, but I've been pretty happy with them (not a real audiophile, just a guy who likes to listen to music while messing around on the computer) -- they've sounded fine to me and they've lasted 10 years
What about the whatever-dot-com sock puppet that made it into the ads for that other thing?
Did I miss his point or did you? One of us is misreading him, but I'm not entirely sure which. I agree 100% that your answer to your version of the question is correct, and that's basically what I said in the second half of my own post. I still think "can Klenex sue anyone for using their name" means my interpretation of the question is what the OP intended, but we may never know, and since we're agreeing with each other about the answer, whatever the question, it's probably not worth worrying about.
PEBCAC = Problem Exists Between Chair and Chair?
I never really thought about it before, but that's a pretty weird name for a store.
Thing is, "Kleenex" is a completely made-up word, and even then they were so popular it was a close call (and took a lawsuit, if I recall) for them to defend the term as a proper noun rather than a generic term. If it had gone the other way, it might just be "kleenex" today, and anybody could use it, because the brand was nearly that ubiquitous.
So take something like "app store" which millions of people might string together of their own devices when trying to describe a place where you buy things (i.e., a store), that sells software (i.e., apps), and you've got a situation where it's at least reasonable to argue about whether it's generic or has the ability to be trademarked.
customers who were resource hogs but to cheap to go with a VPS/dedicated server/colo solution
On the other hand, this wasn't exactly me. I was developing a site, didn't have that much activity, but also didn't have any real concept of how much of the total server resources I was consuming. The host was more interested in kicking me out than helping me understand.
Yew beet me two it?
Now I imagine a world where alien yeast produces CFCs to carbonate alien beer.
Not really funny. We're a species that's basically newborn to technology and not even really spacefaring in any significant fashion. We're not looking for aliens like us, but for aliens a bit further along that path. Or rather, we're looking for any aliens, but most of the ones we'd expect to find would be technologically more advanced, because it'd be darn near impossible to be less advanced and still be detectable.
I don't know what adults you hang around with but in my experience they are still more or less as motivated as they were as kids.
I can only speak for myself, but I've discovered a motivation and enthusiasm in my 30's that I never had previously. Exposure to the normal working world and discovering something I truly love doing (programming a computer game) have given me great drive to work on the game as a side business.
What if you go to Google and immediately after every "this game is buggy" post was another post saying "yeah, that's only for the pirated version."?
True story: had a user once call to tell me they couldn't get "Greg's" computer to turn on. I listened to the results and told them it sounded like they were pushing the power button on the monitor, and they should try to find the "box" (laptop in a dock) that was the computer and push the power button on it to turn the machine on.
Their reply: "Oh, Greg took his laptop with him. Does that mean I can't use his computer?"
You lose all credibility with that one. If all it took was a phone call and 5 minutes later, software would be installed, few people would mind. You know as well as everyone else that waiting months is not uncommon, and that is if the software EVER gets installed. In fact you make it clear that you wouldn't do the installs in 5 minutes with this:
Months? Where the hell does everyone work that this keeps being said? I DON'T know as well as everyone else that "waiting months is not uncommon," because it's never been true at any place I worked. If I regularly couldn't get around to an install within the week without really good reason, I'd be fired. Most installs happen the day they're requested, and if they don't the main reason is the user requests the delay to fit a quiet spot in their schedule.
Not many years later, a cow-orker of mine bought a "DVD player" off a truck under nearly identical circumstances. Except in his case he decided it was such a good deal, he bought two! And thus received two bricks.
What in the world are you talking about? Your strawman mischaracterizations of my objection are ridiculous, and nobody's slinging names here but you (hypothetically, by putting those words in my mouth). The absurd discussion of bludgeoning someone with a computer and downloading illegal material onto a gun only serves to illustrate my point that the layman won't ever lump those two things together in their mind.
Try playing an all-night session of Doom. Every time I closed my eyes I was running through hallways shooting stuff.
Then I told the buddy I was hanging out with, "Whenever I close my eyes all I see is Doom," and he thought I was having a mental breakdown until I could explain it properly.
I generally know what time it is to within five minutes, and thus neither need phone nor watch unless real precision is required. Does that mean I win?
My degree is in physics, by the way, and the reason I'm not working in that field is entirely due to how miserable I knew I'd be pursuing a degree higher than a bachelor's. That was miserable enough, thanks.