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User: Com2Kid

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  1. Re:Please do the same on Managing a Global Programming Team? · · Score: 1

    And investors always seek to maximize profits and minimize costs.

    Problem is that they far to often think short term and what is good for them 'now' and don't give a fuck about the employee who has to retire in 50 some odd years.

    Notice I said _BIG_ investors, major investors, as in those people who have board level positions. The snot nosed rich ass dip shits who do not know polycarbs from their own asscrack.

    They annoy me, they sit around and bitch if life doesn't always look cheery and bright ("oh no we only grew 2.3% this year, better fire an ASSLOAD of workers so as to make up the difference!" . . . . Ignoring basic math which show that there is a LIMIT to how far into any one field a company may grow, and that companies are even more so limited by this little thing called competition, which divides any one companies market share even further. Oh no don't bother telling them that though! They just want more more more growth! Bleh. And they are willing to screw over anybody who gets in their way.)

    Nothing is wrong with wanting to make money;

    something IS wrong with wanting to make money at the extent of other people's lives.

  2. Re:I know you're trolling, but. . . on StarOffice 6.0 · · Score: 1

    Not trolling, just don't like commies.

  3. Re:what's wrong with non-textbooks? on Linux Textbooks? · · Score: 2

    able to pull together disparate sources of information -- FAQs, man pages, example code on someone's hobby site -- and synthesize a full learning experience from them. And while this can be a very productive way of working, it's also a somewhat non-traditional one.

    Now if I could just learn in the 'normal' way. . . .

    I have no problem reading through an n-page FAQ, but damnit if I can sit down and read straight through a texbook. :)

    (the fact that most textbooks are written in such a style as that they are not meant to be read straight through does not help any either. . . .)

    I have encountered websites that contained ALL of the information imparted to students in (insert college course here) and from which I was able to pull the information from in a matter of mere hours instead of the multitudes of weeks that many classes require.

    Ick. I want Asimov please. :) (His non-fiction stuff was wonderful, even people who do not like his fiction often times like his non-fiction. He was able to write on almost any topic and make it highly interesting and easily memorizable. :) )

  4. Re:Think it through on Managing a Global Programming Team? · · Score: 2

    Who matters more? They're both Americans.

    No, the high level investors are suits/beancounters and therefore except from all rights privileges and sympathies that are given to humans / lower forms of life.

    I have more care for a stray dog then I do for some damn rich investor who doesn't give a f*ck about science or technology and instead just worships the almighty buck.

    Fuck'em, quality is what counts, not just the bottom line.

    ---- is having a very bad experience with tech-support that was outsourced to India.

  5. Anybody mind tleling me. . . . on StarOffice 6.0 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Why the f*ck we are still dealing with the commies?

    Seriously, bad enough that we allow companies to import shit from commie countries, but why in the hell are we GIVING CRUD to them?

    Figure the government would have passed a law looong ago forbidding it.

    Betcha China would have had a much harder time doing any sort of research if they had to had have built all of their own tools just as we initially did. . . .

  6. Been on since I was 9 on How Dangerous is Online Chat for Kids? · · Score: 2

    I called up my first BBS (for you young'ins out there, before the net was massively popular us poor folk went on things called BBSs, one microcomputer's modem called up another microcomputer's modem and chit-chatted) when I was 9.

    Figured out how to set up AT strings, use the interface, and blend into the crowd without yelling out "hey I am a 9yr old boy!"

    The computer is indeed a great equalizer, nobody knows who you are until you make a big enough ass of yourself to make it apparent.

    Unfortunately SOME idiots GIVE OUT their age online (uh WTF?) right along with their real name and house address.

    I learned my lesson after the drunken stoned co-sysop on a board I called posted all of my information up. Luckily it was a pretty tight nit group so no pedos came over to abduct me, suffice to say though that since that time I have been ultra-paranoid with my personal information and you can find my name listed on exactly ONE publicly accessible web site, and the listing is from WAAAAY back.

    You see, the REAL solution here is:

    a. Minors (or anybody else for that matter)should not give out their (real?) age.

    b. Minors should not give out their real names.

    c. Minors should NEVER EVER EVER FRIGGIN EVER give out their DAMN HOUSE ADDRESS.

    d. Anybody who does an ASL check should be shot dead on sight .

    Hell anybody else here remember when ASL checks were considered the height of rudeness online and would get a person flamed to hell?

    My standard line response to when somebody asks my age (even now days) is to say;

    "Old enough to know better then to give it out to weirdos on the web."

    Tends to work, a few people are too stupid to get the message though. . . .

    ::does best to keep eyes from rolling::

    Then there are the cases of children who steal their parents credit cards, buy airplane tickets with them, fly halfway across the damn continent (or world, or whatever) with those tickets, just to meet up with some stranger who then kidnap and rapes them.

    ::sigh::

    Now for cases of children who are seriously disturbed (by which I mean suicidal or worse) then yah sure I can understand them having 'problems' and that it may very well not be the parents fault (too much at least. . . .)

    But in SOOO many other cases it is just a case of the child being a stupid sh*t and thinking that BigDickedBob on the net cares more about them then their parents do. While I cannot speak for the child's parents;

    FOR CRYING OUT LOUD THE DAMN GUY IS A PEDOPHILE YOU DO *NOT* WANT TO MEET UP WITH HIM!

    In other words children just need to be taught common sense. :)

  7. I demand my Nerdity points! on Matrox Parhelia 512 Preview · · Score: 2

    I demand Nerdity points for counting down last night the hours (minutes) until the NDA ran out.

    And sending all of my friends half-hourly updates. :)

    Unfortunatly I did have to go to bed and was thus unable to be the first non-NDA'd person to read the previews.

    Product name too hard to spell, help!

    I will just keep on refering to it as the G1000, SOOO much easier, heh.

  8. Re:Also here on Matrox's New Three-Head Video Card · · Score: 2

    This begs the question, if 3D isn't important to the people who will buy this card, then why is there such powerful 3D in this card?

    Matrox has stated on numerious occasions that for them 3D is just an interesting side market that they do not really need to enter but that it is something that they would 'like to' do. Keeps the engineers on their toes or some such like that. ^_^

    Notice how many 2d improvements this card incorporates as well? Sure it may sell to the 3d crowd for awhile, but remember, as others have stated Matrox has traditionaly had a 2-3 year production pipeline.

    Their G450 is STILL selling. Why? Well it is a few bucks cheaper then the G550 (heh) and it is a kick ass solution for 2d users.

  9. Re:Most people don't need 3D on Matrox's New Three-Head Video Card · · Score: 1

    RTCW MultiPlayer was the straw that broke my G400Max's back. (Single player was OK.)

    Mine does that as well.

    :)

    Did not see much of a problem with it, ran at around 40FPS (guesstimating here).

    Of course I just got used to 3D gaming above 320x240 in around 1998 or 1999 (headshots are SOOO easy at that res, but Valve took out support for those insanly low resolution in Half-Life quite some time ago, heh. When it first came out though ya pretty much had to run it at a resolution that low. ^_^ )

  10. Re:Most people don't need 3D on Matrox's New Three-Head Video Card · · Score: 2

    You are smoking crack if you think Black & White will run at all well on a G400, playing a game @ 800x600@stuttering speed or crappy graphics does not count. All the other games I agree with.

    I will object;

    Matrox G400 Dual Head MAX;

    B&W run just fine Thank You Oh So Very Much.

    And so does Max Paine and other such games.

    (of course my gaming monitor tops out of 800x600@60hz so. . . . ^_^ )

    Still though, I didn't buy a Matrox for the 3d gaming aspects of it, hell;

    I bought a Matrox to MAKE 3d.

    Huh?

    Proffesional 3d apps up to a point don't give a f*ck about your video card. Either you have a REALLY expensive ass one (high end proffesional 3d card, in the thousands) or you mine as well just not bother and go for the best damn 2d you can get cuz the program isn't going to use it.

    So I went with the best damn 2d card I could get at the itme. :)

    (and I am quite happy with it! :) )

    Works like a charm, and I have done some REALLY funky things with this card that would give any of those 'other' multi-out cards HORRIBLE headaches. (I know, I have tried some of the same things with those 'other' cards, they tend to do everything from locking up hard to futzing the video signal up to hell.)

    Of course I abuse the living shit out of all of my hardware and I perfer to buy my products appropriatly. :)

    (needless to say, I don't own any plastic PC cases. :) )

  11. Re:Stop bragging already!!!!!! on Bootleg Star Wars AotC Debuts on Internet · · Score: 2

    Have you considered buying you own ticket? It's not like there's mile long lines like the last movie. :)

    Line started outside the major theater here about a month ago. . . .

  12. Talking to the schools on Microsoft vs. Northwest Schools Part II · · Score: 1

    I have talked to some of the individule school technology department heads and what they have generaly said is that they plan on dealing with it "when the time comes".

    Either that or that they don't give a care and it is the district's problem. . . .

    Actualy my city's school district started an inventory of all of their software last year, so this shouldn't be too much of an issue for them, though it would be nice if it got even a few departments to go over to Linux, as some have already been leaning in that direction. :)

  13. Re:Why change that which makes a profit? on David Packard Writes HP Epitaph · · Score: 1

    Because it's no longer about making a profit - it's about growth.

    Of which I might add that CLOSING DOWN profitable sectors only reverses.

    If you are making X profit and you close down a Sector you are now making (X-S) profit (S being whatever amount of money the Sector was bringing into your company.)

    Which means you have just shrunk. . . .

  14. Re:Why change that which makes a profit? on David Packard Writes HP Epitaph · · Score: 1

    B) You should know that printers are sometimes called to be the "razor blades" of the hardware business. The profit is made on the ink, not the printer.

    This is only a recent thing, they used to cost armloads of money, heh.

    (In fact the higher end Laser printers still do. ^_^ )

    A) Just because you make a physical product doesn't mean that you will be able to sell it, or that you will make a profit.

    Yah, but I figured that most people would realize that this _IS_ HP we are talking about here, they do not exactly have troubles offloading stock. . ..

    Secondly - "Internet companies suck, period." Where does this come from? It's kind of a throw away comment that you don't bother to backup or even explain. Are you saying that companies that label themselves as "dot-com" suck? Or that companies that sell intangibles (such as software) suck? Or something completely different?


    Ok how about this one;

    Companies that label themselves as "restructuring to become a global player in the internet based marketplace" without having any real idea as to WTF they are going to be doing;

    suck.

    ^_^


    What's that got to do with HP exactly???


    Oh, their new president/ceo/whatever position the recently aquired high level female PHB is occupying (not trying to be sexist, but hell it did make the news so when I say 'that female PHB who is now leading up HP' many people will know who I am talking about), was hired with 'that' job goal.

    Whatever that goal is exactly. . . .

    Well, besides a bunch of buzzwords thrown together. :)

  15. Why change that which makes a profit? on David Packard Writes HP Epitaph · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why do people bother trying to 'reinvent' themselves when they are already making a profit and will likely continue to do so in that fashion for as long as the eye can see?

    HP closed their Calculator Research lab, yet it was making them a profit with each new model of calculator released. Yah really smart that one, closing a PROFITABLE part of your business.

    The lady who is now in charge of HP, it says her mission goal is to "Make HP into a innovative internet company."

    Uh WTF??

    Internet companies suck, period. You make a printer you sell a printer and you have yourself a profit. Guarn-friggin-teed.

    Hell I think that this is one case where some CONSERVATIVE management could actually have came in handy.

    Imagine the PHB's conversation for awhile if you will;

    PHB-1: Are we making any money?

    PHB-2: Yah tons of it.

    PHB-1: Ok, lets keep on doing what we are doing and make even more money!

    Compared to what seems to have actually happened;

    PHB-1: Are we making money?

    PHB-2: Yah tons of it.

    PHB-1: Ok then lets completely restructure the company go through a big merger close down our operations assloads of profitable sectors and go with something completely new and untested!

    And people wonder why I have such disdain for business majors. . . . .

  16. Re:PG vs. 12 certificate on Attack of the Clones Cut in UK · · Score: 2

    It was setup (in 1912 ) by the Film Industry to bring some consistency to film censorship.

    That line right there is in and of itself quite scary.

    Here in the states a film can (I believe) just go UNRATED and say fuck it to the entire system.

    It may very well get shown in fewer theaters (likely a tenth as many as otherwise, or even less) but it CAN be shown and there is no law that can stop it. (unless it contains grossly large amounts of pornography, that is about the ONLY thing that can get'ya in trouble over here in the States. And it has to be a tron of porn for even that to happen).

    England scares me. . . . Your government spies on your every last move, it controls what you can and cannot see, and a good percentage of you live in fear of a black van that supposedly drives around neighborhoods making sure people have paid their TV tax. . . .

    Beh, we have to keep on fighting hard to keep those awful ideologies out of the U.S. . . . .

    (why the f*ck do you people elect pro-CensorTheWorld politicians any ways? Yeesh, and I thought you sent all of the puritans over to us!)

  17. Re:Best Sellers on Why Doesn't Sci-Fi Hit the Bestseller Lists? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Considering that new paper backs cost around $10 now, no wonder price is such an issue.

    I do not even bother to look at the price of Hardbacks any more, they were ~$17 last time I checked (around ten years ago) so I can only imagine what they have gone up to since.

    I have not bought a new (fiction) book in quite a few years, hell I can no longer AFFORD to buy new books. Especialy considering that it takes me all of two or three hours to finish a standard length novel. . . .

    I used to be able to tell people that buying a book was more bang for your buck then going to the movies, but now I am getting to be rather unsure about it. (of course I only go to $5 movie theaters so. . . . heh. I understand that some people go to expensive ones. ^_^ )

    Books are getting to cost WAAAY to much, and the damnest thing is that every time they raise their prices their number of sales go down.

    Hell last time I was buying new books I was going to buy 3 books but was instead only able to buy 2 because the books were $7 a piece.

    So strange too, when buying the older classic science fiction books (which are a pain in the arse to get ahold of mind you. ^_^ ) paying $5 for a book that has a 25 cent price tag on its label, LOL!!!

    Oh well, well worth it though! The Goldern Era Rocked, we so need to clone John Campell. :) (err, but keep him away from the co$ wackos)

  18. Re:This lighting system pre-dates 'wi-fi' on New Lighting Technology To Wipe Out Wi-Fi Access? · · Score: 1

    On the other hand I can also imagine companies placing these on the outside of their premises with some sort of RF shielding back on them with the bulbs pointed straight out towards the streets. :)

    A poor mans anti-wardriving measure? ^_^

  19. Re:This is the way it should be on EU Plans to Tax Internet Sales · · Score: 1

    And before all you anti-state libertarians jump in, remind me - how many millions of Americans have no health insurance because you won't pay for one?

    Which in no way what so ever relates to software sales taxs. . . . Except that maybe some SMALL percentage of them MAY get to the governments and be used to help others out.

    In the US there are actualy quite a few programs to help impovershed families with health needs, the only issue is getting the word about them out to the people who need the help. Because the programs are not universal and do not cover everybody, not very much is said about them on the middle class news services.

    (oops did I just say that? Oh well too bad. >:| )

  20. Re:Oh Geez, It's 1969 all over again on Affective Computing: Teaching Machines About Emotion · · Score: 2

    Does this mean that Gainax would no longer have to draw their own Anime as their tripped out computer would be able to do it for them?

    That would rock.

    or at least be insanly scary.

    Ooooh SHIIIIT!!!!!!!

    The world CANNOT HANDLE that much Gainax-esque anime!

    Hmm, how about Fractal generators? The new Lava Lamps?

  21. Re:Bad comparison on First, Do No Harm - A Hippocratic Oath for Coders? · · Score: 2

    Some of us DO plan on going the full 8 years for a PhD in a computer field though.

    Yah some of the self made genius's tend not to need this, but other people like having a wide range of knowledge and not having to reinvent the wheel all over again.

    Besides, sure a book can teach you how to PROGRAM, but it cannot teach you WHAT to program. Learning the various gazzilion ways to make AIs, or do computerized visual recognition, or hell just the latest theory on how to design networks (no not neccisarily LAN/WAN networks, but just network theory in general).

    Then there is the mathmatics aspect of it. . . .

    Yah sure SOME people can teach themselves the mathmatics of quanterns, but for the REST of us it is helpful to have somebody who knows WTF they are talking about explain it all to ya. :)

  22. Re:Does this mean... on First, Do No Harm - A Hippocratic Oath for Coders? · · Score: 2

    Yes, why would someone design something with the explicit purpose to kill someone?

    Because Somebody(sub1) does not like Somebody(sub2)

    Duh.

    If I want to kill your ass but not endanger MY ass and I just happen to have some rockets, a workable propellent, and some high explosives laying around, not to mention a suitable PCB and some nice componets that can be integrated easily enough. . ..

    Your fucked. :) (well actualy not since I couldn't make a rocket fly PCB or not, but the general idea still holds, heh.)

    I think that embedded systems designed to HELP IMPROVE CONTROL OF physical manifestations should be exempt from these (hypothetical) rules, but that for instance any weapon that could NOT be controlled to the point of any sort of usability without a computer WOULD fall under these rulings.

    Thus no uber death lasers, but ICBMs are OK. :)

  23. Re:Never been in to Wal-Mart on Slashback: Wal-Modem, Culpability, Misquotes · · Score: 1

    4. America Int. Group

    Who the hell are they, even google turns up jack.

  24. Re:Who or what is Microsoft??? on Slashback: Wal-Modem, Culpability, Misquotes · · Score: 1

    Who or what is Microsoft???
    Never heard of 'em.

    Don't laugh, I do tech support and occasionally get that. . . . .

    Mostly from people who refuse to watch TV (too industry biased) refuse to read the newspapers (too industry biased) and do not like computers (heard of the internet, never been on it).

    No these are not some Neanderthals, but rather your average every day folks who just don't turn on the tube or pay out of their ass for a newspaper that they would likely throw in the trash any ways. They hold regular jobs and are perfectly ordinary folks, they just don't know, or give much of a fuck, a to what is going on in the high tech sector.

    I have also met people who during the height of the Clinton scandals hadn't heard of it (John Stewart made some jokes about people like that, I have actually dealt with them, heh. Not like they are hard to deal with, just a bit odd not being able to talk about recent events or such)

    Hell we occasionally manage to fight in a war, err, oops I mean "conflict" that I manage to not hear about (though granted those are mostly the 2 or 3 week targeting sessions that most people do not even find worthy of dining room conversation)

  25. Re:300 episodes? on Slashback: Wal-Modem, Culpability, Misquotes · · Score: 1

    How come when I watch it's always a rerun?

    Because everything but the latest show is by definition a rerun. :)

    Thus unless you watch the one thirty minute slot on TV that contains the new Simpsons show, you will by definition ALWAYS be stuck watching a rerun, MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAA!