Ah yes, "My Computer." One of the best things MS ever did for support folk was to eliminate the "My" from that.
I remember I had a habit of saying things like "now go into my computer" -- which would be followed by "How in the hell am I suppose to get into YOUR computer?"
I learned very quickly to say "Double click on the icon labeled 'My Computer'" instead.
Because there's no better fantasy shared by the common public than to escape to than one of rainy weather, bland food, a stifling bureaucracy, and one of the largest surveillance networks concieved of.
It's obviously a made-up world, with their shillings and their stones - one where cars wear boots... I mean, that's just pure insanity.
This was an unofficial duty that I had while working third shift at a web hosts - Granted, it was more researching complaints of abuse as well as law enforcement requests, but there were many users who had forum software that would get "overrun" with rather graphical posts. The company basically contracted out moderation services to these customers, and passed it off to third shift - We were to patrol these forums, and deal with objectionable content. Now, we didn't get $1 an hour, we DID at least get something that barely beat unemployment, but it still wasn't enough given the effect that the job had.
There were funnier sides to this, though.
We didn't have any great spam controls at the time other than PCRE filters... So one job was going through the hostmaster/postmaster emailboxes, and looking for spam patterns, and creating rules around them. The problem became how to prevent spam without blocking legitimate email that may be mentioning viagra or fisting. Having your female boss walk into a conversation in which you are discussing the fact that someone could legitimately be sending an email with the subject line of "fisting sluts" is always a good time.
Also, they wanted to launch an international video dating website - this was pretty early on, when the tech was new. Pretty standard dating site stuff at the time, except you could record your own video to include with it, with some "cutting-edge" webcam app. These videos had to be approved before they went live. And that job went to? Yep, me. I handled most of the backend server work and some custom PHP code, and this was my reward - Moderation.
This drove home a fundamental difference in how the genders handled dating sites at the time... The womens ads were generally approved, as they were almost always very tasteful- Fully clothed full body views, or simply a talking head, while they talked a bit about themselves, their interests, and what they want in a partner. This was what we encouraged, and was in accordance with guidelines. This part wasn't so bad - You got to hear a lot of fun stories from different cultures at best, and at worst, it would be in a language you didn't understand.
Now, that was the women. The men? Sure, they talked about themselves the same way, and had the same distribution of stories, but the overwhelming majority of the video was unclothed lower torso at best, and feverishly masturbating at worst. This was not a small percentage, it was BY FAR the majority. There's something seriously bizzare about hearing someone talk about loving walks on the beach or whatever, while there's a camera focused on an erection.
So that was third shift - click, penis, reject. click, pantless sweaty guy, reject. click, tasteful ad, approve. click, fat hairy abdomen and rapid motion, reject, and now eye bleach. And so on.
It was that and the spam filtering for the majority of third shift - A good solid 9 hours of offensive imagery, spam headers and penii, which lead to a rather warped view of the world outside of work.
I would worry seriously about screwing it up - It's JJ Abrams. He was a writer for Armageddon. I do not see how that equates to anything beyond pure horror for Star Trek fans.
As a side note, it's always fun to call Star Trek "Star Track" when you are talking to the more hardcore fans.
I used to think like this as well - Until I was rear-ended. Twice. The second time took out my whisper-quiet exhaust, so I put in one a bit louder. Not hate-the-neighbors loud, but louder. I've noticed people being more aware of me - Not in the "glaring" aware, but generally people leave some more room now. And I haven't been rear-ended since (i know, i know, correlation is not causation)
And I don't think sound is quite that directional... It's not like loud bikes are completely silent followed by a huge sonic boom when they pass me. Coming straight towards me, I can hear them QUITE well. Also, remember the whole thing about a Prius being TOO quiet?
I'm not saying the bike has to be deafening loud to be noticed, but the near silent exhaust in many is potentially a killer. I'm a respectful rider, I'm not aggressive, I obey the rules of the road, I've done everything to make my bike visible short of installing a huge strobe light in the back - What other defense can I possibly have against being rear-ended other than making it a bit louder?
While not being familiar with all of this, I assure you it lives in the shadow of Grandmaster Ashida Kim, who has made his ninja training available for free:
I love those things - I bought three of them, some of the bets money I've ever spent. The first two were simple pranks - One in my fathers car right before a 12 hour journey (he nearly killed me when he found it) and another an a co-workers backpack before we went to evening classes.
The third, though, was a masterpiece of evil, lasting several months. I snuck it in a VP's office, but I'd only leave it on for a day at most - and then turn it off. A week passes, I turned it back on for another day or so, then off again - but making sure there wasn't really a consistent pattern. After a few months of this, I found him in his office, with a pen and a notepad, and almost everything turned off... He was writing down the time of each beep, and turning off a device in his office each time until he was finally sitting there in the dark, with nothing left to make noise, and a notepad full of timestamps.
You were in chicago AS A STUDENT. And you are saying that you got 12k a year in SURPLUS. Which means that you were living off of debt, but also aren't including the cost of board, and possibly student meals in this. SURPLUS. This is a huge difference from taxed salary- You were bringing in $1000 tax free dollars a month, AFTER ROOM AND BOARD, UTILITY FREE. OF COURSE you could afford suits, cds, and international trips, just as could anyone else who makes 12k a year beyond what they need for housing, utilities, food, etc.
Your words would hold much more weight if you were actually paying your own way, as opposed to running up massive amounts of debt. If I ran up 12K in credit card debt a year, I'm sure I'd have some nice stuff as well and some great experiences. And then I'd basically be in indentured servitude for many many years paying that off.
"OK, sir, can you please put on your night vision goggles and tell me what you see?"
Somehow, I don't think the idea of a powered peripheral to see what peripherals are powered is that great of an idea. What if those glasses, in turn, have a power LED?
I hate to retread a previous comment, but according to the movie "Jurassic Park," it was replaced by UNIX systems.
The concept of VR has amused me for a very long time. It's what makes watching movies like "Lawnmower Man" so amazingly funny in this day and age.
I've been taking a 3D modeling class, and it has about three paragraphs dedicated to VR. The content is pretty worthless - but the picture of a dolphin leaping out of a monitor towards a man who is leaning back to avoid it is completely priceless.
In all seriousness, there was a short blurb about full-room "holodeck" like simulations being used for engineering work - but it didn't go into any details. Anyone know anything more about that?
I was checking out the Metroid demo on the DS at my local Best Buy, and I overheard an employee say "The battery lasts like 40 hours. but never play it while it's charging, or else the battery will explode."
I don't think my laughter helped his credibility any.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah yes, "My Computer." One of the best things MS ever did for support folk was to eliminate the "My" from that.
I remember I had a habit of saying things like "now go into my computer" -- which would be followed by "How in the hell am I suppose to get into YOUR computer?"
I learned very quickly to say "Double click on the icon labeled 'My Computer'" instead.
Because there's no better fantasy shared by the common public than to escape to than one of rainy weather, bland food, a stifling bureaucracy, and one of the largest surveillance networks concieved of.
It's obviously a made-up world, with their shillings and their stones - one where cars wear boots... I mean, that's just pure insanity.
This was an unofficial duty that I had while working third shift at a web hosts - Granted, it was more researching complaints of abuse as well as law enforcement requests, but there were many users who had forum software that would get "overrun" with rather graphical posts. The company basically contracted out moderation services to these customers, and passed it off to third shift - We were to patrol these forums, and deal with objectionable content. Now, we didn't get $1 an hour, we DID at least get something that barely beat unemployment, but it still wasn't enough given the effect that the job had.
There were funnier sides to this, though.
We didn't have any great spam controls at the time other than PCRE filters... So one job was going through the hostmaster/postmaster emailboxes, and looking for spam patterns, and creating rules around them. The problem became how to prevent spam without blocking legitimate email that may be mentioning viagra or fisting. Having your female boss walk into a conversation in which you are discussing the fact that someone could legitimately be sending an email with the subject line of "fisting sluts" is always a good time.
Also, they wanted to launch an international video dating website - this was pretty early on, when the tech was new. Pretty standard dating site stuff at the time, except you could record your own video to include with it, with some "cutting-edge" webcam app. These videos had to be approved before they went live. And that job went to? Yep, me. I handled most of the backend server work and some custom PHP code, and this was my reward - Moderation.
This drove home a fundamental difference in how the genders handled dating sites at the time... The womens ads were generally approved, as they were almost always very tasteful- Fully clothed full body views, or simply a talking head, while they talked a bit about themselves, their interests, and what they want in a partner. This was what we encouraged, and was in accordance with guidelines. This part wasn't so bad - You got to hear a lot of fun stories from different cultures at best, and at worst, it would be in a language you didn't understand.
Now, that was the women. The men? Sure, they talked about themselves the same way, and had the same distribution of stories, but the overwhelming majority of the video was unclothed lower torso at best, and feverishly masturbating at worst. This was not a small percentage, it was BY FAR the majority. There's something seriously bizzare about hearing someone talk about loving walks on the beach or whatever, while there's a camera focused on an erection.
So that was third shift - click, penis, reject. click, pantless sweaty guy, reject. click, tasteful ad, approve. click, fat hairy abdomen and rapid motion, reject, and now eye bleach. And so on.
It was that and the spam filtering for the majority of third shift - A good solid 9 hours of offensive imagery, spam headers and penii, which lead to a rather warped view of the world outside of work.
I would worry seriously about screwing it up - It's JJ Abrams. He was a writer for Armageddon. I do not see how that equates to anything beyond pure horror for Star Trek fans.
As a side note, it's always fun to call Star Trek "Star Track" when you are talking to the more hardcore fans.
I used to think like this as well - Until I was rear-ended. Twice. The second time took out my whisper-quiet exhaust, so I put in one a bit louder. Not hate-the-neighbors loud, but louder. I've noticed people being more aware of me - Not in the "glaring" aware, but generally people leave some more room now. And I haven't been rear-ended since (i know, i know, correlation is not causation)
And I don't think sound is quite that directional... It's not like loud bikes are completely silent followed by a huge sonic boom when they pass me. Coming straight towards me, I can hear them QUITE well. Also, remember the whole thing about a Prius being TOO quiet?
I'm not saying the bike has to be deafening loud to be noticed, but the near silent exhaust in many is potentially a killer. I'm a respectful rider, I'm not aggressive, I obey the rules of the road, I've done everything to make my bike visible short of installing a huge strobe light in the back - What other defense can I possibly have against being rear-ended other than making it a bit louder?
While not being familiar with all of this, I assure you it lives in the shadow of Grandmaster Ashida Kim, who has made his ninja training available for free:
http://ashidakim.com/stb.html
Just in the off chance that you take that book seriously, I suggest you ruin it with his Sentry Removal Techniques video series:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCNRh9M9OAI
Worth a watch just for the many degrees of awesome - the music, the editing - Everything.
So the solution to overheating is to fly the probe in backwards.
I love thinking along these lines - it means that somewhere out there, a copy of you spontaneously combusted after posting that.
I love those things - I bought three of them, some of the bets money I've ever spent. The first two were simple pranks - One in my fathers car right before a 12 hour journey (he nearly killed me when he found it) and another an a co-workers backpack before we went to evening classes.
The third, though, was a masterpiece of evil, lasting several months. I snuck it in a VP's office, but I'd only leave it on for a day at most - and then turn it off. A week passes, I turned it back on for another day or so, then off again - but making sure there wasn't really a consistent pattern. After a few months of this, I found him in his office, with a pen and a notepad, and almost everything turned off... He was writing down the time of each beep, and turning off a device in his office each time until he was finally sitting there in the dark, with nothing left to make noise, and a notepad full of timestamps.
so let me get this straight.
You were in chicago AS A STUDENT. And you are saying that you got 12k a year in SURPLUS. Which means that you were living off of debt, but also aren't including the cost of board, and possibly student meals in this. SURPLUS. This is a huge difference from taxed salary- You were bringing in $1000 tax free dollars a month, AFTER ROOM AND BOARD, UTILITY FREE. OF COURSE you could afford suits, cds, and international trips, just as could anyone else who makes 12k a year beyond what they need for housing, utilities, food, etc.
Your words would hold much more weight if you were actually paying your own way, as opposed to running up massive amounts of debt. If I ran up 12K in credit card debt a year, I'm sure I'd have some nice stuff as well and some great experiences. And then I'd basically be in indentured servitude for many many years paying that off.
If it's really YOURS, then why do you have to activate it via AT&T before it can be used, eh?
"OK, sir, can you please put on your night vision goggles and tell me what you see?"
Somehow, I don't think the idea of a powered peripheral to see what peripherals are powered is that great of an idea. What if those glasses, in turn, have a power LED?
Yeah, those guys totally sold hout when they hit MTV.
What does this even have to do with downloading movies off of the intarweb?
Making a bit of a stretch there, perhaps?
I hate to retread a previous comment, but according to the movie "Jurassic Park," it was replaced by UNIX systems.
The concept of VR has amused me for a very long time. It's what makes watching movies like "Lawnmower Man" so amazingly funny in this day and age.
I've been taking a 3D modeling class, and it has about three paragraphs dedicated to VR. The content is pretty worthless - but the picture of a dolphin leaping out of a monitor towards a man who is leaning back to avoid it is completely priceless.
In all seriousness, there was a short blurb about full-room "holodeck" like simulations being used for engineering work - but it didn't go into any details. Anyone know anything more about that?
When the book arrived, I quickly scanned it
Torrent?
That'd be the new "Monster MP3-DSL" phone cable
The article was from yesterday...
The posts are from yesterday....
I'm expecting to start waking up to "I've got you babe" at 6:00 every morning.
The upside is that I'll apparently become very adept at piano, ice scuplture, and getting into peoples pants.
Thanks, slashdot!
I was checking out the Metroid demo on the DS at my local Best Buy, and I overheard an employee say "The battery lasts like 40 hours. but never play it while it's charging, or else the battery will explode."
I don't think my laughter helped his credibility any.
It's all Jurassic Park's fault.
"It's a UNIX system!" (followed by what was apparently some sort of VRML-based power management tool)
"The Day After Romorrow?"
Is that the version with Scooby and the gang?
Or you could just walk into range, but stand out of the direct line of fire, and watch the discs harmlessly fly past you.
This isn't impressive.
If it said anything about actually TRACKING the target, I'd be impressed.
As it is, it appears to be little more than a light sensor attatched to a rapid-fire nerf gun. i.e. Dumb-fire, no aiming.
If it says otherwise, I'd love to know... but I saw nothing to indicate that.
And you know, I really need to hit preview next time...
"traeaty the"
Wow. I should either turn in my official slashdot membership card, or be getting it in the mail any day now, depending on your perspective
We'll have to get rid of the traeaty the...
How can we have a meteor defense program if we can't transport the nuke to drop in the big hole we drill?