>In 1-800 Contacts's lawsuit against adware provider WhenU.com, the appeals court likened WhenU's ads to retail stores that place generic competitors next to brand-name products.
I suppose it would also be legal if a conpetitor pasted their advertisements over mine in my own shop window? Stupid stupid stupid.
I should think coming up with a definition would be easy. Here's one:
Identity Theft: when one party successfully represents themselves as a second party during a transaction with a third party, using documents and information that belong to the second party, and that have been obtained without the second party's knowledge or permission.
There ya go, that one's free. Now either figure out a way to stop it, or stop feeding it with all these "convenient" opportunities for faceless transactions between strangers at the push of a button.
>What ever happened to personal responsibility? Is the legal system so distorted that responsibility isn't a factor? Plus, isn't real financial interest a requirement to bring a suit?
You have to remember how click fraud generally works to understand why "personal responsibility" doesn't represent a reasonable approach in this case. To visualize this, consider a very simplified and easy-to-detect type of click fraud: a non-technically-savvy competitor trying to cost you money just for the sake of doing so.
Let us say I own a bakery, and I purchase ads for my bakery from Google. Google says "You only pay when someone clicks an ad". In your first week, you get nine hundred clicks, at a cost of $0.02 per click. "Wow", you think, "My ad must be really effective! This is great marketing, even if it does cost me $18 a week!"
What you don't realize is that your competitor bakery down the street has found your ads, and since business over there is bad, they have a lot of idle time. So, the proprietor spends about twenty minutes a day clicking on your ads, specifically to cost you money.
Now, let's say your competitor is doing this from a single computer with the same IP during the twenty minute periods, and so Google's logs should show that the IPs for all those clicks are the same. You're not in a position to know that it's all the same person, even though Google is. To them, the fraud is obvious -- to you, impossible to determine. Are they negligent if they don't detect these fraudulent clicks and remove them from your bill?
Just for fun, take the same scenario as above, but your competitor pays five of his employees to go home and do the same thing from their personal accounts, and so at the end of the week, you get a bill for $500.
Mind you, I believe Google lets you set a limit to the dollar figure, so you could say "stop showing my ad when my total reaches $10". You might think that would help, but what it actually does is allow your competitor to DOS your ads by hitting them until they stop showing up -- you pay $10 a month, and nobody sees your ads.
So "personal responsibility" only enters into it if you realize that the only personal responsibility you can take is to not use Google ads at all. Sounds easy, but remember that you don't have access to the logs, so you have no way of knowing if the expense is due to fraudulent clicks or a highly effective marketing campaign. If it's the former, leaving Google makes sense, but if it's the latter, leaving Google would be a very foolish business decision. Only Google possesses the information you need to figure out which, and they're not telling.
What about senior citizens on a limited budget, with limited mobility? For those people who have few entertainment options open to them, television is often their only companion.
>...it's pretty friendly to non MS browsers. (Not perfect but not intentionally broken)
I've had the misfortune to work on two projects where the engineers were using ASP.NET (I'm a webdev); in the first case, I delivered efficient, standards-compliant (4.01 Transitional) code and got back something that didn't render right on all browsers other than IE, and in the second case I delivered code that took into account ASP.NET's terrible html generation, but it wasn't standards-compliant and it took longer.
The bottom line was this: you can write custom controls in.NET to generate any HTML you want to, but the default controls kick out HTML that's full of unnecessary and non-compliant tags that break things in other browsers. Since a significant reason for using.NET is to speed up development time with the default controls, writing custom controls just to support standards/other browsers becomes counterproductive.
One tag in particular, from datagrid I believe, didn't even impact the layout in IE when it was manually removed, but the presence of it broke other browsers.
Um, it's that person's SIG. You know, that thing that appears in all of their messages, that usually has nothing to do with the topic at hand? Like that one you have there about booth? Or are you new to this internet thing?
I have a DLink VPN router, cost around $80, highly configurable SPI firewall, works like a charm. I had a box dedicated to firewalling/NATing, but it's a lot more power and a lot more energy than a dedicated cheap piece of hardware.
>Sure it adds something to a game. The question is, how much? >For most games, the answer is not that much.
I would like to respectfully point out that good voice acting is one of several elements that a well-produced game has to have in order to succeed. You're correct in pointing out that a game with bugs and bad voice acting will benefit more from bug fixes than voice acting; however, a truly stellar game will have neither serious bugs or distracting voices.
I make my case with a short list of games, featuring solid technical implementation and high-quality voice acting -- and all were successes:
- Interstate '76
This game's gameplay was mediocre, but it looked beautiful (for the time), had amazing voiceovers in the cutscenes, great music and was technically stable. It was also a huge success.
- Myth: The Fallen Lords
This game's gameplay was terrific, and it looked beautiful. It was also technically stable. However, the tutorial was brilliant, almost entirely due to the voiceover that guided you through it (the subtle sarcasm on "Well done!" was priceless), and the dwarf character's voices were legendary -- anyone who played the game remembers him saying "What now?" and "Oh, all right" when you made him do something. Also a huge success.
- Myst
I don't even need to explain for those who have played it, but for those who didn't, this game succeeded almost entirely through the subtle method it immersed you into the environment. Animations, sounds and voiceovers were all a part of this, and a bad voiceover would have destroyed the mood. Of course, you could also see the actor's faces (to an extent) in this one, so the actors had to look the part as well. Also a success.
- The 7th Guest
If you played it, you still want to kill the man behind the voice. Taunting and creepy, great for the time.
- The Simpsons: Road Rage
I think it was Road Rage that was based on the Grand Theft engine; if I have the wrong title, sorry about that. The gist, though, is that using the actual Simpsons voiceover talent delivering new story-specific dialog (instead of rehashing existing show dialogue) helped to make this an incredibly engaging and successful title.
Anyway, that's just a few -- so don't be too quick to discount voiceover talent.
Thanks! I actually find the stills more useful, inasmuch as we'll likely never watch the videos again (most of it is diagnostic, as mentioned earlier) but the stills tend to be shots you can recognize -- like just this morning we were able to see our daughter's face for the first time, and we already know she takes after her mom's family. Oh, and our son was caught mid-yawn, tongue sticking out and everything. It's adorable, and going right in the album for their mother and I to be obnoxious with when they're teenagers. (note: not a typo. we're having a boy and a girl).
1: My wife is pregnant with twins, and as much as I'd like to get a DVD of the ultrasounds, they spend their money on staying abreast with the latest childcare technologies, just like they should. So I need VHS to take those ultrasounds home with me (just did this today, in fact);
2: My grandparents (in their late 80s) were very reluctant to accept VCR technology; moving them to DVD will be impossible. And we want them to see the ultrasounds.;)
And it's always nice to be right about something, since they've only got one offer on the table, and that offer comes with the predicted we're-not-going-to-follow-your-bible clause. If they want principle photography to start this fall, they should hire a production team and just do it. Of course, if they want a good movie, then they'll wait and do it right.
I never noticed the whole doors-opening-inward thing front doors, until reading this article. And suddenly I thought to myself, hey, that's the way doors ARE, sure, but they should be the other way around. Consider: an outward-opening door is harder to kick down from the outside, and easier to get past in case of a fire. Doors SHOULD open that way.
Then I considered for a few more moments, and realized that outward-opening doors would also have hinges on the outside, so kicking down wouldn't be necessary; just pry up the hinges. Oh, and an outward-facing door wouldn't seal nearly as well against the elements.
So a case can be made for both ways -- which, moving back to the actual topic at hand, suggests that the problem lay with swapping an existing, agreed-upon compromise of an interface with another that may actually be better in some ways, but is likely worse in others.
I have to agree on the "I just want to be a programmer" part, but perhaps with a different spin.
See, computer programming is different from system administration, just like being the CEO of a company is different from being the CFO, or being an engine rebuilder is different from being a transmisison rebuilder. Trouble is, most non-techies don't realize that, because they have no idea what techie people do.
So I suspect this person's new boss used to have a guy that did -everything-, and possibly did it well. That guy (or girl) worked long hours, was underpaid, and eventually got burned out and bailed. So this new boss probably thinks that all techies can do -everything-, and just assumes the previous person's poor attitude was responsible for their burnout/departure. This is an opportunity to teach the new boss that not all techie jobs are created equal, and not all skillsets transfer over.
On the other hand, saying "I only want to be a programmer" will be interpreted by his boss as "I am comfortable where I am and don't want to grow". This may be unfair, but that's how it will be viewed, and that's a bad thing.
Ideally, what this person might do is talk with the boss, and explain that programmers and system administrators have two very different skillsets, even though they have similar technical aptitudes, just like carpenters and electricians do. Explain that you'd love the opportunity to learn that new skillset, but it's going to take more than just leafing through a book, because keeping a network of 30 machines alive is a full-time job even for an experienced person.
Further, explain that it doesn't seem like a full-time job from the outside because the work comes in fits and spurts, where one day you might do very little, but the next you might have to work overnight to get things fixed, and most people outside of system administration have no idea those overnights are happening, because they're at home; all they see is an idle system admin sitting at a desk on the good days. Oh, and mention that you know all this from talking to a few system administrators that you know.
Finally, tell him that you will be happy to take it on, but it won't be practical unless the following conditions can be met:
1. You will have to take formal classes to learn how to do it right, at the company's expense and during paid work hours, so that you can do it efficiently and quickly when trouble arises;
2. When trouble arises, programming projects are going to be put on hold until the trouble is solved, and so programming deadlines will always need to slip by the number of hours or days it takes to solve the problem -- and those slipped deadlines are going to cost the company money;
3. Even when there is no obvious trouble, a certain amount of time must be put aside each day to do routine maintenance and take care of users' workstation issues, because jumping back and forth between administration and programming tasks will make any person in that role painfully inefficient;
4. There will be times that system administration tasks require late nights, overnights and weekend work, and it is only reasonable to be able to get comp time (or overtime, depending on if you're salaried or not) for those hours.
Will the boss like this? Probably not, but you're not saying "I won't do it" -- you're giving him/her an honest and intelligent assessment of the situation based on your own research into the problem, and you're giving him/her a plan under which you CAN take on the role. Of course, chances are the new boss will find the plan to be less than ideal, at which point you might suggest a part-time contractor system admin or whatnot.
And of course there's always the chance they will say "fine, go do it". If that happens, and they hold up their end of the bargain, then congratulations -- you've just gotten paid to learn a valuable and marketable new skill. On the other hand, if they don't hold up their end of the bargain (claiming you never talked about that, or "I misunderstood you -- well, just get it done for now and we'll worry about your hours later" and so forth), you have to acknowledge you're working for a sociopath, and you should leave.
Agreed! That's the most useful thing in the history of whenever. Or at least for me, right now, who is dealing with a bunch of new passwords at work.:)
There is no EDUCATIONAL advantage, but there is a TESTING advantage, and thus more $$$ for schools. I say this, because you stated you struggled with mental mathematics because you were allowed to use a calculator -- whereas I struggled with mental mathematics because I was terrible at it, and wasn't allowed to use a calculator, so my grades and test scores suffered.
Assuming you and I were both taught poorly and learned little, you can't do math mentally but had good test scores (benefits the school) while I can't do math mentally and had bad test scores (would have been good for me if I hadn't done so well in other areas that they let my math slide).
You and I would have been much better off if we'd just been taught properly, of course.:)
This is the funniest thing I've read in a long time. My wife works in the feature film industry, and I can tell you that showing up at a studio dressed as a character and carrying a script is -not- what gets a script sold; it's what makes studios put you on an instant rejection list. Neither is showing up with a bible and saying "you can't violate this history when making the film" -- that just tells the studio the contracts have to get creative control away from you, lest you bog the whole thing down over the "accuracy" of the fiction.
If Microsoft really wants to see this thing made, they have the cash, and cash or publicity are the two possible ways to get a movie made these days. Generate a lot of publicity by deciding to go it alone, sign up the best production company that money can buy, and go nuts.
Oh, and I doubt the people who would watch a Halo movie are going to give a rat's arse about the backstory, any more than the people who watched resident evil. And hey, guess what -- if they do, it'll be the backstory OF THE MOVIE, not the game.
Okay, rant over. But it was a rant with a smile on my face, I promise. Hilarious!
Indeed. My wife ran a not-for-profit for two years, supporting and encouraging local filmmakers, and the total amount of $ pouring through never came anywhere close to this amount -- yet she and her team loved running it, the local filmmakers got a surprising amount of support, and it was all good.
I suspect these folks perhaps started the fund with the best of intentions, but also with the assumption that they'd be able to make it their day jobs; if you go in with that kind of view, you're bound to be disappointed.
Don't be so sure this is actually the once-thought-extinct flower they say it is, because fact-checking doesn't seem to be this article-writer's strong point: notice that the caption on the picture of what is clearly a bee sitting on the flower says that it is "a fly".
Of course, that may be the rare and once-thought-extinct beefly, who mimicks bees the same way a viceroy butterfly mimics monarch butterflies...
Thank goodness. One of my biggest computer problems is the slowness of web pages loading. I remember back when I had a modem, and pages loaded like lightning because the Internets were not very crowded yet. Now that everyone and their brother has the broadbands on their machines, it's too crowded. I hate waiting in line. Hooray for google!
Now, RMS's concept of Free Software is an ideal which *does* provide for itself quite well in the real world. Indeed the freedom translates into tangible economic advantages. I would submit that these economic advantages emenate from the ideal of Freedom and not the other way around.
Now you've done it. You've summed it up in a reasonable, accurate and agreeable way. You can't post here any more.;)
No car shop manual I've ever seen would give me enough information to build a car from scratch with no investment from myself other than time.
Let me see if I can clarify this for you, because I think it's an important point (although not one that I was making; I'm not the original poster of this tangent):
If you buy a car with a good manual, you have three things:
1. A car you can drive. 2. A manual that allows you to make certain changes to customize your car's performance to your liking. 3. An actual, physical car that you can take apart and study should you want to make one of your own.
Now, free software is like this, in that you get:
1. A piece of software you can use. 2. The ability to edit (usually) well-commented config files to customize your software's performance to your liking. 3. An actual, working set of source code that you can ferret through and study should you want to make one of your own.
So I think that's the complete analogy the original poster was going for.
Slashdot Mirror
>In 1-800 Contacts's lawsuit against adware provider WhenU.com, the appeals court likened WhenU's ads to retail stores that place generic competitors next to brand-name products.
I suppose it would also be legal if a conpetitor pasted their advertisements over mine in my own shop window? Stupid stupid stupid.
I should think coming up with a definition would be easy. Here's one:
Identity Theft: when one party successfully represents themselves as a second party during a transaction with a third party, using documents and information that belong to the second party, and that have been obtained without the second party's knowledge or permission.
There ya go, that one's free. Now either figure out a way to stop it, or stop feeding it with all these "convenient" opportunities for faceless transactions between strangers at the push of a button.
Bluh.
>What ever happened to personal responsibility? Is the legal system so distorted that responsibility isn't a factor? Plus, isn't real financial interest a requirement to bring a suit?
You have to remember how click fraud generally works to understand why "personal responsibility" doesn't represent a reasonable approach in this case. To visualize this, consider a very simplified and easy-to-detect type of click fraud: a non-technically-savvy competitor trying to cost you money just for the sake of doing so.
Let us say I own a bakery, and I purchase ads for my bakery from Google. Google says "You only pay when someone clicks an ad". In your first week, you get nine hundred clicks, at a cost of $0.02 per click. "Wow", you think, "My ad must be really effective! This is great marketing, even if it does cost me $18 a week!"
What you don't realize is that your competitor bakery down the street has found your ads, and since business over there is bad, they have a lot of idle time. So, the proprietor spends about twenty minutes a day clicking on your ads, specifically to cost you money.
Now, let's say your competitor is doing this from a single computer with the same IP during the twenty minute periods, and so Google's logs should show that the IPs for all those clicks are the same. You're not in a position to know that it's all the same person, even though Google is. To them, the fraud is obvious -- to you, impossible to determine. Are they negligent if they don't detect these fraudulent clicks and remove them from your bill?
Just for fun, take the same scenario as above, but your competitor pays five of his employees to go home and do the same thing from their personal accounts, and so at the end of the week, you get a bill for $500.
Mind you, I believe Google lets you set a limit to the dollar figure, so you could say "stop showing my ad when my total reaches $10". You might think that would help, but what it actually does is allow your competitor to DOS your ads by hitting them until they stop showing up -- you pay $10 a month, and nobody sees your ads.
So "personal responsibility" only enters into it if you realize that the only personal responsibility you can take is to not use Google ads at all. Sounds easy, but remember that you don't have access to the logs, so you have no way of knowing if the expense is due to fraudulent clicks or a highly effective marketing campaign. If it's the former, leaving Google makes sense, but if it's the latter, leaving Google would be a very foolish business decision. Only Google possesses the information you need to figure out which, and they're not telling.
What about senior citizens on a limited budget, with limited mobility? For those people who have few entertainment options open to them, television is often their only companion.
Just something to think about.
>...it's pretty friendly to non MS browsers. (Not perfect but not intentionally broken)
.NET to generate any HTML you want to, but the default controls kick out HTML that's full of unnecessary and non-compliant tags that break things in other browsers. Since a significant reason for using .NET is to speed up development time with the default controls, writing custom controls just to support standards/other browsers becomes counterproductive.
I've had the misfortune to work on two projects where the engineers were using ASP.NET (I'm a webdev); in the first case, I delivered efficient, standards-compliant (4.01 Transitional) code and got back something that didn't render right on all browsers other than IE, and in the second case I delivered code that took into account ASP.NET's terrible html generation, but it wasn't standards-compliant and it took longer.
The bottom line was this: you can write custom controls in
One tag in particular, from datagrid I believe, didn't even impact the layout in IE when it was manually removed, but the presence of it broke other browsers.
>Had to throw in a 'bush bash' didnt ya.
Um, it's that person's SIG. You know, that thing that appears in all of their messages, that usually has nothing to do with the topic at hand? Like that one you have there about booth? Or are you new to this internet thing?
I have a DLink VPN router, cost around $80, highly configurable SPI firewall, works like a charm. I had a box dedicated to firewalling/NATing, but it's a lot more power and a lot more energy than a dedicated cheap piece of hardware.
>Sure it adds something to a game. The question is, how much?
>For most games, the answer is not that much.
I would like to respectfully point out that good voice acting is one of several elements that a well-produced game has to have in order to succeed. You're correct in pointing out that a game with bugs and bad voice acting will benefit more from bug fixes than voice acting; however, a truly stellar game will have neither serious bugs or distracting voices.
I make my case with a short list of games, featuring solid technical implementation and high-quality voice acting -- and all were successes:
- Interstate '76
This game's gameplay was mediocre, but it looked beautiful (for the time), had amazing voiceovers in the cutscenes, great music and was technically stable. It was also a huge success.
- Myth: The Fallen Lords
This game's gameplay was terrific, and it looked beautiful. It was also technically stable. However, the tutorial was brilliant, almost entirely due to the voiceover that guided you through it (the subtle sarcasm on "Well done!" was priceless), and the dwarf character's voices were legendary -- anyone who played the game remembers him saying "What now?" and "Oh, all right" when you made him do something. Also a huge success.
- Myst
I don't even need to explain for those who have played it, but for those who didn't, this game succeeded almost entirely through the subtle method it immersed you into the environment. Animations, sounds and voiceovers were all a part of this, and a bad voiceover would have destroyed the mood. Of course, you could also see the actor's faces (to an extent) in this one, so the actors had to look the part as well. Also a success.
- The 7th Guest
If you played it, you still want to kill the man behind the voice. Taunting and creepy, great for the time.
- The Simpsons: Road Rage
I think it was Road Rage that was based on the Grand Theft engine; if I have the wrong title, sorry about that. The gist, though, is that using the actual Simpsons voiceover talent delivering new story-specific dialog (instead of rehashing existing show dialogue) helped to make this an incredibly engaging and successful title.
Anyway, that's just a few -- so don't be too quick to discount voiceover talent.
Thanks! I actually find the stills more useful, inasmuch as we'll likely never watch the videos again (most of it is diagnostic, as mentioned earlier) but the stills tend to be shots you can recognize -- like just this morning we were able to see our daughter's face for the first time, and we already know she takes after her mom's family. Oh, and our son was caught mid-yawn, tongue sticking out and everything. It's adorable, and going right in the album for their mother and I to be obnoxious with when they're teenagers. (note: not a typo. we're having a boy and a girl).
Oh, and congrats to you as well!
For what it's worth, I was thinking the same thing myself. However, for me personally, the issue is twofold:
;)
1: It's really nice to be able to send diagnostic ultrasounds to distant family members, so they have something to coo over;
2: I couldn't be present for one ultrasound due to a work committment, so being able to see the video later that day was very reassuring;
3: All things being equal, and even with a wife and kids, I'm still a geek, and having a higher-quality DVD beats a VHS any day of the week.
But you can go on hating all you want. I've got a wife and kids, and I couldn't be happier. Nyah, nyah.
1: My wife is pregnant with twins, and as much as I'd like to get a DVD of the ultrasounds, they spend their money on staying abreast with the latest childcare technologies, just like they should. So I need VHS to take those ultrasounds home with me (just did this today, in fact);
;)
2: My grandparents (in their late 80s) were very reluctant to accept VCR technology; moving them to DVD will be impossible. And we want them to see the ultrasounds.
I posted this in the last thread about the Halo movie:
7 53829
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=151990&cid=12
And it's always nice to be right about something, since they've only got one offer on the table, and that offer comes with the predicted we're-not-going-to-follow-your-bible clause. If they want principle photography to start this fall, they should hire a production team and just do it. Of course, if they want a good movie, then they'll wait and do it right.
I never noticed the whole doors-opening-inward thing front doors, until reading this article. And suddenly I thought to myself, hey, that's the way doors ARE, sure, but they should be the other way around. Consider: an outward-opening door is harder to kick down from the outside, and easier to get past in case of a fire. Doors SHOULD open that way.
Then I considered for a few more moments, and realized that outward-opening doors would also have hinges on the outside, so kicking down wouldn't be necessary; just pry up the hinges. Oh, and an outward-facing door wouldn't seal nearly as well against the elements.
So a case can be made for both ways -- which, moving back to the actual topic at hand, suggests that the problem lay with swapping an existing, agreed-upon compromise of an interface with another that may actually be better in some ways, but is likely worse in others.
I have to agree on the "I just want to be a programmer" part, but perhaps with a different spin.
See, computer programming is different from system administration, just like being the CEO of a company is different from being the CFO, or being an engine rebuilder is different from being a transmisison rebuilder. Trouble is, most non-techies don't realize that, because they have no idea what techie people do.
So I suspect this person's new boss used to have a guy that did -everything-, and possibly did it well. That guy (or girl) worked long hours, was underpaid, and eventually got burned out and bailed. So this new boss probably thinks that all techies can do -everything-, and just assumes the previous person's poor attitude was responsible for their burnout/departure. This is an opportunity to teach the new boss that not all techie jobs are created equal, and not all skillsets transfer over.
On the other hand, saying "I only want to be a programmer" will be interpreted by his boss as "I am comfortable where I am and don't want to grow". This may be unfair, but that's how it will be viewed, and that's a bad thing.
Ideally, what this person might do is talk with the boss, and explain that programmers and system administrators have two very different skillsets, even though they have similar technical aptitudes, just like carpenters and electricians do. Explain that you'd love the opportunity to learn that new skillset, but it's going to take more than just leafing through a book, because keeping a network of 30 machines alive is a full-time job even for an experienced person.
Further, explain that it doesn't seem like a full-time job from the outside because the work comes in fits and spurts, where one day you might do very little, but the next you might have to work overnight to get things fixed, and most people outside of system administration have no idea those overnights are happening, because they're at home; all they see is an idle system admin sitting at a desk on the good days. Oh, and mention that you know all this from talking to a few system administrators that you know.
Finally, tell him that you will be happy to take it on, but it won't be practical unless the following conditions can be met:
1. You will have to take formal classes to learn how to do it right, at the company's expense and during paid work hours, so that you can do it efficiently and quickly when trouble arises;
2. When trouble arises, programming projects are going to be put on hold until the trouble is solved, and so programming deadlines will always need to slip by the number of hours or days it takes to solve the problem -- and those slipped deadlines are going to cost the company money;
3. Even when there is no obvious trouble, a certain amount of time must be put aside each day to do routine maintenance and take care of users' workstation issues, because jumping back and forth between administration and programming tasks will make any person in that role painfully inefficient;
4. There will be times that system administration tasks require late nights, overnights and weekend work, and it is only reasonable to be able to get comp time (or overtime, depending on if you're salaried or not) for those hours.
Will the boss like this? Probably not, but you're not saying "I won't do it" -- you're giving him/her an honest and intelligent assessment of the situation based on your own research into the problem, and you're giving him/her a plan under which you CAN take on the role. Of course, chances are the new boss will find the plan to be less than ideal, at which point you might suggest a part-time contractor system admin or whatnot.
And of course there's always the chance they will say "fine, go do it". If that happens, and they hold up their end of the bargain, then congratulations -- you've just gotten paid to learn a valuable and marketable new skill. On the other hand, if they don't hold up their end of the bargain (claiming you never talked about that, or "I misunderstood you -- well, just get it done for now and we'll worry about your hours later" and so forth), you have to acknowledge you're working for a sociopath, and you should leave.
Good luck to ya, buddy.
Agreed! That's the most useful thing in the history of whenever. Or at least for me, right now, who is dealing with a bunch of new passwords at work. :)
There is no EDUCATIONAL advantage, but there is a TESTING advantage, and thus more $$$ for schools. I say this, because you stated you struggled with mental mathematics because you were allowed to use a calculator -- whereas I struggled with mental mathematics because I was terrible at it, and wasn't allowed to use a calculator, so my grades and test scores suffered.
:)
Assuming you and I were both taught poorly and learned little, you can't do math mentally but had good test scores (benefits the school) while I can't do math mentally and had bad test scores (would have been good for me if I hadn't done so well in other areas that they let my math slide).
You and I would have been much better off if we'd just been taught properly, of course.
In soviet russia, all of the above things are done in the reverse order.
This is the funniest thing I've read in a long time. My wife works in the feature film industry, and I can tell you that showing up at a studio dressed as a character and carrying a script is -not- what gets a script sold; it's what makes studios put you on an instant rejection list. Neither is showing up with a bible and saying "you can't violate this history when making the film" -- that just tells the studio the contracts have to get creative control away from you, lest you bog the whole thing down over the "accuracy" of the fiction.
If Microsoft really wants to see this thing made, they have the cash, and cash or publicity are the two possible ways to get a movie made these days. Generate a lot of publicity by deciding to go it alone, sign up the best production company that money can buy, and go nuts.
Oh, and I doubt the people who would watch a Halo movie are going to give a rat's arse about the backstory, any more than the people who watched resident evil. And hey, guess what -- if they do, it'll be the backstory OF THE MOVIE, not the game.
Okay, rant over. But it was a rant with a smile on my face, I promise. Hilarious!
>Have you ever administered/troubleshooted 20+ PCs remotely >using 2k.
>Right, you cant.
Yes you can. It's called VNC.
Indeed. My wife ran a not-for-profit for two years, supporting and encouraging local filmmakers, and the total amount of $ pouring through never came anywhere close to this amount -- yet she and her team loved running it, the local filmmakers got a surprising amount of support, and it was all good.
I suspect these folks perhaps started the fund with the best of intentions, but also with the assumption that they'd be able to make it their day jobs; if you go in with that kind of view, you're bound to be disappointed.
Don't be so sure this is actually the once-thought-extinct flower they say it is, because fact-checking doesn't seem to be this article-writer's strong point: notice that the caption on the picture of what is clearly a bee sitting on the flower says that it is "a fly".
Of course, that may be the rare and once-thought-extinct beefly, who mimicks bees the same way a viceroy butterfly mimics monarch butterflies...
I have rediscovered the beefly! Hooray for me!
I just wanted to point out that Yahoo! has the exact same thing going on, except for the zip code box on the search results page.
Thank goodness. One of my biggest computer problems is the slowness of web pages loading. I remember back when I had a modem, and pages loaded like lightning because the Internets were not very crowded yet. Now that everyone and their brother has the broadbands on their machines, it's too crowded. I hate waiting in line. Hooray for google!
Now, RMS's concept of Free Software is an ideal which *does* provide for itself quite well in the real world. Indeed the freedom translates into tangible economic advantages. I would submit that these economic advantages emenate from the ideal of Freedom and not the other way around.
;)
Now you've done it. You've summed it up in a reasonable, accurate and agreeable way. You can't post here any more.
No car shop manual I've ever seen would give me enough information to build a car from scratch with no investment from myself other than time.
Let me see if I can clarify this for you, because I think it's an important point (although not one that I was making; I'm not the original poster of this tangent):
If you buy a car with a good manual, you have three things:
1. A car you can drive.
2. A manual that allows you to make certain changes to customize your car's performance to your liking.
3. An actual, physical car that you can take apart and study should you want to make one of your own.
Now, free software is like this, in that you get:
1. A piece of software you can use.
2. The ability to edit (usually) well-commented config files to customize your software's performance to your liking.
3. An actual, working set of source code that you can ferret through and study should you want to make one of your own.
So I think that's the complete analogy the original poster was going for.