You give them your first name and they reply "Thank you. Thank you sir. Thank you for the information."
That's because a stupendous percentage of customers don't bother to provide such basic information. He is genuinely gratified by your sincere helpfulness.
Man, you've had exactly the opposite experience as I have had. I grew up in a mining town in rural British Columbia. An astounding number of people there were the sort of idjits that related a 24 hour break between swing shifts to a 24 pack. Crime was most commonly expressed as things like mischief, vandalism, arson, theft, breaking and entering, and assault, and that was just the weekends. The place was basically packed with a disproportionate number of violent assholes.
Yes, we've had tires slashed, windows broken, and paint jobs keyed. And that was just for being the unpopular kid in high school. I can't imagine what would have happened to me if I had come out as bisexual. Not that some people didn't think I was a faggot anyway. Hate crime? I'm the poster boy; I was just smart enough not to be seen in public enough to get really hurt. For the last few years I lived there, I feared for my safety every night I left the house.
As for drug problems, hell, there were no drug problems in that town. You could get anything you wanted. Drug addiction and alcoholism were a fact of life there. This is actually very typical of remote communities, especially in Canada's far north, so it's not restricted to my hometown.
The nearest place that could be classified as a city (pop 76,000, and 4 hours drive away) was where I moved to find a job after I got out of high school. The problem is, that it had the same mentality, just with more people and a slightly more dilute pool of assholes. At least my relative anonymity there protected me most of the time. "Most of the time" being the operative phrase there. There were still plenty of people who took great joy in being total assholes to perfect strangers.
Five years ago, I moved to Vancouver. The difference in culture is like night and day, and the crime rate is lower too. I can actually be myself for once in my life.
I'm not saying that every small town is like mine, but I *am* saying that every small town is *not* like yours. Seeing that you're only an hour from Cleveland though, I seriously doubt that you actually live in a truly rural part of the country. Ohio's pretty crowded though, relatively speaking, with about the same population density as Western Europe.
My wife is terribly interested in what the police and/or fire department think of you guys. They seem to be featured on the show on a semiregular basis, and we suspect that the fire inspector gets the willies every time he comes by.
They don't *always* do that. In fact, in many of the simpler myths, they test the myth several times before extrapolating into a generality. Take the toast-buttered-side-down myth for instance, where they tested their theory with some thousand slices of bread.
The fact of the matter is that budgets and time are limited in many of the experiments, and sometimes they just *can't* test something for days at a time (especially when they already have spent days, just coming up with ways to do the tests). Publishing deadlines are fixed and inviolable, after all.
it would set a very bad precedent for all products of all types.... think cars and driving,
Or maybe working? Man, that would be terrible if the government mandated that you *must* take a break at least every 3 or 4 hours. It would erode productivity and workers would expect things like *benefits* and *overtime* and a minimum wage! Hell, if we weren't allowed to force employees to stay awake for 48 hours at a stretch through the use of amphetamines, then the whole system would collapse!
This isn't about catching speeders. It's about tracking your each and every move, for ever and ever. I'd be nervous about this if they were keeping records for two *weeks*, nevermind two *years*. What they really want is to be able to say "Where is license plate #27D726" at any given moment in time, so that they can put "the bad guys" away. The definition of "the bad guys" can easily change with the wind, and they'll have the security net to find and catch all the homosexuals, johns, pot-smokers, poker players, or any other evil-criminal-du-jour. Stupid laws that have made criminals of everyone have been passed before, and will pass in the future. This is just stupid.
Because if they allowed a religion class, they would be hard pressed to only teach their version of religion and not also teach Islam, Judaism, Hinduism etc...etc...etc...
You've never lived out in the country, have you? Let alone Kansas.
There are no Muslims in Kansas. Nor Hindus. I can almost guarantee it. It's also very likely that there are at best very few Jews too. Most towns likely have all the religious diversity of Ireland, and god help you if you're Mormon or Jehovah's Witness, because you'll be an outcast for sure.
Suffice to say that places like this don't have any trouble at all when they want prayer in schools, or to ban homosexuality, or to introduce intelligent design to the cirriculum. They have the full support of the populace. Kansas and many other states would elect firebreathing theocracies in a heartbeat if the federal government gave them half the chance, and they'd start burning the heathens at the stake the very next day. Just look at the things that they've done with the law but the supreme court rejected (albeit only once someone fought it. A good many psycho laws have been on the books for decades or generations before being ruled as unconstitutional).
It's worth noting that the Kansas board of education would probably find it ideologically expedient to go back to this theory, since after all, the universe was clearly created entirely for the benefit of the earth, which was clearly created entirely for the benefit of creating mankind. It says so in Genesis, you know.
Why isn't Outlook Express in here? Early versions basically changed unopened e-mail viruses from a hoax to reality, when Microsoft decided it was a *good* idea to automatically run any VB script that was recieved. That's cluelessness like trusting everyone to be good and decent human beings while you walk through a prison shower with "Please rape me" painted on your back.
Later versions tried to fix the problem while keeping the functionality, as if somehow the bad guys would intentionally include the Evil Bit in their code.
If you had read the article, it points out that he's a physicist as well as an inventor. Occasionally, they go together. Sometimes they call that Engineering. Or research.
He's also not proposing a radically different model of the universe, and even credits astrophysical research as the basis for his approach, citing parallels between neutron star research and plasma physics. Moreover, the article has many references if you like, including sources and contact information for Mr. Lerner.
Also, it's worth noting that very nearly all major scientific advances are announced in press releases. Every day, I see news items about new discoveries in medicine, astrophysics, climatology, and psychology. The practice is so frequent that CNN.com (and probably your local newspaper as well) has a section dedicated to science and technology.
I found the ideas presented in the slashdot article a little sketchy myself, but that's why I actually read the article. It's much more detailed and worth the read.
You overestimate the intelligence of the public if you think that anything requiring this much maintenance will be something that you'll have in your own home. It might be small enough as a prototype, but the point is to create great big ones that provide power to entire cities. For that matter, a small one looks likely to produce way more power than any household needs anyway.
"It's got to be a site that's meaningful from an astrological point of view, but we don't want it to be in place that's so hostile that scientists and people won't go there," Halliday said.
1. I sure hope you said astronomical, rather than astrological, or the astronomers will shoot you when they find out. 2. Places that are hostile to people are ideal for telescopes. Keck for instance, is at nearly 14,000 feet above sea level. If you want to breathe, generally you do it from a tank. The less air you have between you and the stars the better. As well, it's absolutely imperative that they operate well away from civilization because light pollution destroys the view. And finally, there's this little thing called automation. You don't really *have* to be there to take pictures anymore. The best visual telescope in the world is the one in the most hostile environment of all: in orbit. The only possible way to make it work is by automation.
Someone once worked out the size of telescope necessary to barely discern men on the moon.
It would have to be 100 meters in diameter, and in space. The Hubble is 2m in diameter. So yeah, we'll have to spend even *more* money to get what *you* want. Bah!
Yeah, but that's not the point. The point is that why not just use it until it breaks (or it's obsolete, whichever comes first), *then* replace it. It's not a cost-saving thing really either. It's a usability and productivity thing. At my work, we're super nervous every time we do an upgrade or add new servers because the new and untested hardware may not be entirely reliable and you will never know until it's been running under load for a while.
By that same token, we have a couple servers that date back to the mid-90s. Every time my boss tells me we should upgrade that clunky old P133 that lives as our secondary name server, I ask him "Why? It works just fine, and we have no idea how reliable the new hardware will be," and then he goes away. Some hardware just *refuses* to die.
Slashdot Mirror
You give them your first name and they reply "Thank you. Thank you sir. Thank you for the information."
That's because a stupendous percentage of customers don't bother to provide such basic information. He is genuinely gratified by your sincere helpfulness.
I know I am.
Man, you've had exactly the opposite experience as I have had. I grew up in a mining town in rural British Columbia. An astounding number of people there were the sort of idjits that related a 24 hour break between swing shifts to a 24 pack. Crime was most commonly expressed as things like mischief, vandalism, arson, theft, breaking and entering, and assault, and that was just the weekends. The place was basically packed with a disproportionate number of violent assholes.
Yes, we've had tires slashed, windows broken, and paint jobs keyed. And that was just for being the unpopular kid in high school. I can't imagine what would have happened to me if I had come out as bisexual. Not that some people didn't think I was a faggot anyway. Hate crime? I'm the poster boy; I was just smart enough not to be seen in public enough to get really hurt. For the last few years I lived there, I feared for my safety every night I left the house.
As for drug problems, hell, there were no drug problems in that town. You could get anything you wanted. Drug addiction and alcoholism were a fact of life there. This is actually very typical of remote communities, especially in Canada's far north, so it's not restricted to my hometown.
The nearest place that could be classified as a city (pop 76,000, and 4 hours drive away) was where I moved to find a job after I got out of high school. The problem is, that it had the same mentality, just with more people and a slightly more dilute pool of assholes. At least my relative anonymity there protected me most of the time. "Most of the time" being the operative phrase there. There were still plenty of people who took great joy in being total assholes to perfect strangers.
Five years ago, I moved to Vancouver. The difference in culture is like night and day, and the crime rate is lower too. I can actually be myself for once in my life.
I'm not saying that every small town is like mine, but I *am* saying that every small town is *not* like yours. Seeing that you're only an hour from Cleveland though, I seriously doubt that you actually live in a truly rural part of the country. Ohio's pretty crowded though, relatively speaking, with about the same population density as Western Europe.
My wife is terribly interested in what the police and/or fire department think of you guys. They seem to be featured on the show on a semiregular basis, and we suspect that the fire inspector gets the willies every time he comes by.
Maybe you weren't paying attention during the part of the show that comes after all the commercials.
Do. Not. Try. This. At. Home.
They don't *always* do that. In fact, in many of the simpler myths, they test the myth several times before extrapolating into a generality. Take the toast-buttered-side-down myth for instance, where they tested their theory with some thousand slices of bread.
The fact of the matter is that budgets and time are limited in many of the experiments, and sometimes they just *can't* test something for days at a time (especially when they already have spent days, just coming up with ways to do the tests). Publishing deadlines are fixed and inviolable, after all.
That would be the myth about the frozen turkeys and testing British Rail's new high speed locomotive windshields.
They tested the myth no less than 3 times, before finally concluding that it was indeed plausible. Adam was at the end of his rope with that one.
Of course, you need to watch the show to know that...
Even if its only purpose is to light your fireplace.
Jack Thompson is *not* a personal injury lawyer!
it would set a very bad precedent for all products of all types.... think cars and driving,
Or maybe working? Man, that would be terrible if the government mandated that you *must* take a break at least every 3 or 4 hours. It would erode productivity and workers would expect things like *benefits* and *overtime* and a minimum wage! Hell, if we weren't allowed to force employees to stay awake for 48 hours at a stretch through the use of amphetamines, then the whole system would collapse!
This isn't about catching speeders. It's about tracking your each and every move, for ever and ever. I'd be nervous about this if they were keeping records for two *weeks*, nevermind two *years*. What they really want is to be able to say "Where is license plate #27D726" at any given moment in time, so that they can put "the bad guys" away. The definition of "the bad guys" can easily change with the wind, and they'll have the security net to find and catch all the homosexuals, johns, pot-smokers, poker players, or any other evil-criminal-du-jour. Stupid laws that have made criminals of everyone have been passed before, and will pass in the future. This is just stupid.
Friend: Can you use grep?
Me: Yeah kind of
Friend: Bam! Instant Unix admin!
Real sysadmins don't use grep. They *Use* grep.
This is just a test.
Lyttle subsequently signed over rights to the name to Microsoft and was "shocked"
Man signs pact with devil. See how shocked he is when he realizes he's lost his soul! Film at 11!
Or at the very least, rigorous enough. Most myths after all, are pretty dodgy to begin with and wouldn't require a lot of rigor to dispel them.
Because if they allowed a religion class, they would be hard pressed to only teach their version of religion and not also teach Islam, Judaism, Hinduism etc...etc...etc...
You've never lived out in the country, have you? Let alone Kansas.
There are no Muslims in Kansas. Nor Hindus. I can almost guarantee it. It's also very likely that there are at best very few Jews too. Most towns likely have all the religious diversity of Ireland, and god help you if you're Mormon or Jehovah's Witness, because you'll be an outcast for sure.
Suffice to say that places like this don't have any trouble at all when they want prayer in schools, or to ban homosexuality, or to introduce intelligent design to the cirriculum. They have the full support of the populace. Kansas and many other states would elect firebreathing theocracies in a heartbeat if the federal government gave them half the chance, and they'd start burning the heathens at the stake the very next day. Just look at the things that they've done with the law but the supreme court rejected (albeit only once someone fought it. A good many psycho laws have been on the books for decades or generations before being ruled as unconstitutional).
The sun orbits the earth
It's worth noting that the Kansas board of education would probably find it ideologically expedient to go back to this theory, since after all, the universe was clearly created entirely for the benefit of the earth, which was clearly created entirely for the benefit of creating mankind. It says so in Genesis, you know.
So don't tempt fate by mentioning this to them.
Why isn't Outlook Express in here? Early versions basically changed unopened e-mail viruses from a hoax to reality, when Microsoft decided it was a *good* idea to automatically run any VB script that was recieved. That's cluelessness like trusting everyone to be good and decent human beings while you walk through a prison shower with "Please rape me" painted on your back.
Later versions tried to fix the problem while keeping the functionality, as if somehow the bad guys would intentionally include the Evil Bit in their code.
If you had read the article, it points out that he's a physicist as well as an inventor. Occasionally, they go together. Sometimes they call that Engineering. Or research.
He's also not proposing a radically different model of the universe, and even credits astrophysical research as the basis for his approach, citing parallels between neutron star research and plasma physics. Moreover, the article has many references if you like, including sources and contact information for Mr. Lerner.
Also, it's worth noting that very nearly all major scientific advances are announced in press releases. Every day, I see news items about new discoveries in medicine, astrophysics, climatology, and psychology. The practice is so frequent that CNN.com (and probably your local newspaper as well) has a section dedicated to science and technology.
I found the ideas presented in the slashdot article a little sketchy myself, but that's why I actually read the article. It's much more detailed and worth the read.
You overestimate the intelligence of the public if you think that anything requiring this much maintenance will be something that you'll have in your own home. It might be small enough as a prototype, but the point is to create great big ones that provide power to entire cities. For that matter, a small one looks likely to produce way more power than any household needs anyway.
Yeah! And so am I!
"It's got to be a site that's meaningful from an astrological point of view, but we don't want it to be in place that's so hostile that scientists and people won't go there," Halliday said.
1. I sure hope you said astronomical, rather than astrological, or the astronomers will shoot you when they find out.
2. Places that are hostile to people are ideal for telescopes. Keck for instance, is at nearly 14,000 feet above sea level. If you want to breathe, generally you do it from a tank. The less air you have between you and the stars the better. As well, it's absolutely imperative that they operate well away from civilization because light pollution destroys the view. And finally, there's this little thing called automation. You don't really *have* to be there to take pictures anymore. The best visual telescope in the world is the one in the most hostile environment of all: in orbit. The only possible way to make it work is by automation.
Well, yes, but for hockey rinks to be feasible, you have to lower the value of "inhabitable" to Canadian standards. :)
Someone once worked out the size of telescope necessary to barely discern men on the moon.
It would have to be 100 meters in diameter, and in space. The Hubble is 2m in diameter. So yeah, we'll have to spend even *more* money to get what *you* want. Bah!
I vote for "BFT". :)
Yeah, but that's not the point. The point is that why not just use it until it breaks (or it's obsolete, whichever comes first), *then* replace it. It's not a cost-saving thing really either. It's a usability and productivity thing. At my work, we're super nervous every time we do an upgrade or add new servers because the new and untested hardware may not be entirely reliable and you will never know until it's been running under load for a while.
By that same token, we have a couple servers that date back to the mid-90s. Every time my boss tells me we should upgrade that clunky old P133 that lives as our secondary name server, I ask him "Why? It works just fine, and we have no idea how reliable the new hardware will be," and then he goes away. Some hardware just *refuses* to die.