I don't think the bean counters or shareholders read that study, nor do they give a rat's ass about your socialist crap. basically, it doesn't even really matter if the employees really are or aren't more productive, even in the short term. It's all in how the market perceives the company's health and efficiency, it's all in PR and spin. And if you can make the case for a 10% price increase in your stock by publicly sacrificing a chunk of your workforce - even if it's really a BAD thing for the company, the perception drives the stock prices, and the stock prices drive the board members.
I'm not FOR longer workweeks. I have a family with kids too. I'm just trying to point out why things happen the way they do, and who is running things in this country.
You may call it mismanagement. From your perspective, it was. But from the bean counters' perspective, it was trimming fat. If you aren't working 55 hours, you're not pulling your weight. What's so hard about that?
Yes, there are more subtle and elegant ways to improve employee productivity. But sometimes, cracking the whip is what gets the investors' jizz spurting.
you see, now I feel like an idiot, because I turned off Auto Preview in Outlook, disabled Windows Scripting Host, and I only click on TXT files.
Today I got blasted by the "Life Stages" virus. It has a TXT file icon, but the real extension is SHS. It's hidden. I opened it. The joke was kind of funny. I don't think it mailed itself out, (nothing in my Sent Items folder) but I'm infected by the motherfucker. I've been working with computers for 8+ years, and I'm not what you'd call very careful. But this is the first time I've ever been infected with a virus.
Thank you Microsoft, and thank you to the numbnuts IT guys at my company who standardized on MS, and do not support any other platform.
Really, I think a whole BUTTLOAD of Mac lovers out there (myself included) would just LOVE to see any supporting documentation that MS is working on Obj C. Even if it's from MacOSRumors.
Intel has seen that people can and will pay buttloads of money for computers. Look at the heyday of big $ computing, the late 80s, where your Intergraphs, SGIs, HPs, Suns, charged what people today would consider outrageous sums of money for machines, because they did things that the cheap PCs of the time could only dream of doing.
Then through market-wrangling, and some minor innovation, those cheap PCs got enough horsepower to be "good enough" for enough applications, and got enough marketshare for critical mass to draw away developers, and it looked like, the commodity hardware solution was a viable alternative to the overpriced proprietary platforms of the past.
Now it looks like Intel wants their machine to become an overpriced proprietary platform. It took them 20 years to get to this point, but they have a captive market, most competitors are dead or dying, and Intel through Microsoft has locked-down the software market, and through Rambus, and other moves (musical CPU slot-specs, AGP, laughably lame USB), is trying to transform the once cheap commodity hardware solution into an extremely expensive "good enough" proprietary platform. And Microsoft was really a disposable pawn in the game, because Intel has demonstrated that they can be replaced: BeOS, Linux, and 5 years ago, they could have done it through OS/2 if they had chosen a comfier relationship with IBM - but IBM was a competitor in the HW space, so no luck there.
I'm trying to work out how PPC didn't make much headway in terms of knocking Intel off the hill - and it gets very conspiracy-ish: Intel had Bill Gates use a mind-control-ray on Steve Jobs to kill cloning, and the CHiRP platform, back at the time of the MS-Office for Mac extortion, and also, got Bill Walker hired on at Motorola as a Mole to destroy PPC as a potential mainstream CPU. I'm not sure what Bill Walker's motivation was, perhaps it involved young boys?
Anyway, the PC-era is dying, servers are where it's at. In 5 years, we're all going to be typing on/. either from a $30,000 Itanium box, or from WebTV, or web-enabled cell-phone. (only through AOL/TW) The era of the affordable desktop computer on commodity hardware is at an end. It is the suckers who embraced the "compatability thru single-vendor solutions" philosophy who are to blame.
Perhaps this is the plan for eliminating online music piracy as well.
Titan AE was kind of refreshing, actually. I went into it expecting to see all the typical annoying Don Bluth-isms. Actually, most of them were still there, but in a less-annoying intensity. I'm thinking perhaps in 50 more years, Don Bluth will produce a movie that doesn't make me want to rech.
Now- one thing that really is starting to piss me off, is ever since Star Wars, the laws of physics have really been tossed out the window -with regard to how fast ships travel in space, how they maneuver, how much sound they make in a vacuum when they wizz by. Now, presumably, a lot of Sci Fi movies don't want to spend the kind of money Ron Howard spent on Apollo 13 to get realistic zero gravity effects. That's understandable. But why in God's name can't animators make some effort to be at least a little bit technically accurate?
Damn I miss B5. But even B5 sinned in ways that have long since become cliche in Science Fiction. Bad aliens. Aliens which are really people in lots of makup, with funny hair, or the typical Star Trec cliche, something funny on their forehead. oops! new alien race, gotta come up with a new shape for the latex thingie we stick on their forehead! Some imagination people! Please!
Personally I just rented Run, Lola, Run (Lola Rannt), on DVD, and I would have been VERY disappointed had I watched in on VHS, in the dubbed-english version. I watched 5 minutes, and the voice actors so bad, it was MORE painful than watching the english-dubbed version of Akira. I switched it to German and turned on subtitles.
THAT is why DVD rocks. And it especially rocks on my Apex. ..
I think it should not be members of some "academy" group who vote on and determine winners.
It should be done by independent (ie. not working for a newspaper also owned by the parent company of the studio) film critics, and perhaps professors of film and literature at major universities.
Having an award judged by a member of the industry is an obvious conflict of interest. Same with the so-called "People's choice" awards, which really equates to "best promoted".
Who gives a shit? The Academy awards aren't even relevant anyway. They just provide nice blurbs for the box in the video store.
This latest move just proves that fact: You're either a "good 'ol boy" or your not. Has nothing to do with any quality of the film or talent of it's cast and crew. It's almost getting to be an insult be nominated for this crap, because it just proves that there's no real merit backing it up, just that you've won the "popularity contest". Like High School student goverment elections.
Well, it depends; "Christian" is an awful broad term.
There are those very strict interpretations of the Bible which have been debunked hundreds of years ago - for instance, there is a passage that states that the value of PI is 3 (some dude's grain-storage bin was so many cubits across, and so many cubits around - why those details were necessary in the context of that story, I have no idea, but they're there, and plainly, mathematically impossible for a round grain-bin, it must have been hexagonal?). I'm not sure how strict-interpreters deal with that issue.
but the issue of the Earth being flat is dealt with by the Flat-Earthers with flat-out denial.
Other sects of Christians inteperate the Bible in a more liberal fasion, and state that the Bible is possibly flawed in some places. Some sects are very liberal in their interpretation, or reject most of the Bible altogether.
I must point out that in NO PLACE in the Bible, does it clearly state that God did *not* create life in places other than Earth. Those topics are omitted from the story of Humanity, potentially for the sake of relevancy? Now, the Bible does state that God put the lights in the sky (including the stars and planets) for the purpose of being signs to us. To communicate to us. Now, the first thing you think of is; gee, that means astrology, right? Well, why can we actually go to these lights and touch them and walk upon them then? Are we not meant to GO there? Of course not. We can go anywhere and do anything we please. Until God smacks us down, humanity can and will do these things ("not because they are easy but because they are hard" -Kennedy).
It is MY belief that God intended us to use our brains, to do these things, visit these worlds, and see what He created there, as well as here. Maybe the same rules do not apply with regard to useage (in Genesis, we're pretty much given the Earth and everything on it to do with what we please, but the lights in the sky weren't included in that - nor were they excluded, however). It is also MY belief that God probably created life on other worlds, maybe on other worlds around stars. The real test of MY liberal faith is, when we contact an alien civilization which does not worship or recognize God. Will we be forced by them to adopt their religion? Or will we force them to adopt OUR religion? That's where things will get hairy. I suspect some new elements will have to arise from the current mythology to cover these issues - whether they're fabricated by religious leaders, or handed down by prophets. The current guidance is pretty vague.
On the other hand, I think most strict Christians expect the world to end before we find life on other planets. I suppose the flat-earthers were the same way.
I suggest that you take a vacation to Las Vegas. About 3 hours drive WEST of Las Vegas, after you're done gambling and stuff, there's this neat place called Death Valley. In Death Valley, there's the lowest point in the US, Badwater Basin.
Granted, the conditions here are MUCH more pleasant than the surface of Mars (currently 111 degrees and Sunny), miles of salt-flats from the previous dried-up lakebed, but at the very lowest point, is a small pond, about ten feet across. Sometimes it's totally dry, sometimes, it's soft and moist salty mud, sometimes it's maybe fifteen feet or so. Depends on whether it's a dry year or wet year. Saltiest water you've ever tasted (I don't think you can get that close to it anymore). Look into this pond. There is algae, grass, bugs, a host of tiny microorganisms, I think there's even brine shrimp. You stand there, and look out at the salt flats, and look down at the water, and sweat in the heat, and wonder how anything at all can live there, that isolated, in that heat, for thousands of years. Yet it lives.
The soviets also launched probes to Mars (IIRC, none of them soft-landed), how can we be sure THEY sterilized everything properly. Probably jus doused everything in Stoli. Great, we'll find a bunch of hung-over russian microbes with the DTs.
Food and Shelter are a bit higher priority than Self-Actualization.
- Also, when space exploration is done by greedy government contractors who don't really give a rat's ass about the science, and are more interested in bilking taxpayers with behind-schedule and overbudget projects - it kind of takes the wind out of the sails of the propaganda that it was all about exploration and advancement of humanity, when really it was a pissing contest between the Soviets and the US, as in, we can lob more and bigger nukes than you can.
Personally, I'm all for humanity exploring space, and expanding to the stars, but I really think that as a race, we have a whole buttload of growing up to do first.
Since no human has ever gone to Mars, and examined Martian rocks personally, and since no probe has gone to Mars, picked up a rock, and brought it back, I deny the "scientific fact" that the rock they're talking about was from Mars. Their shining very powereful flashlights up eachother's asses to find that one and pull it out.
If they said that they believe that the rock COULD possibly be from Mars, they wouldn't have stomped on their own credibility, but by saying they're certain it definately came from Mars, they're in the Fox Mulder camp. That rock could have come from anywhere.
When there's REAL proof, I'll believe it, but in the case of the mysterious Martian meteorite, it seems so unlikely too me, and based on such thin speculation, that I will not accept it as fact. Just a bunch of geologists looking for funding, and sick of kissing up to oil companies for cash.
It would be nice to say that that meteor represented proof of life on Mars - but it just isn't enough hard evidence.
Well, the southern baptists in the US think that switching to Metrics is part of the world conspiracy to unite all nations under a single government, which, of course, is part of the prophesy of the end-times portrayed in the book of Revelations (and some stuff from Ezekiel too, I think). So this metric trend MUST be resisted at all costs. We MUST be different from the rest of the world, or the UN will swallow us and unite the world under the leadership of the antichrist, then all the "saved" will vanish and all go to heaven - no wait, isn't that a *good* thing? Isn't that delaying the inevitable?
Or maybe it's just jingoistic nationalistic pride which prevents the superior Americans (of which I am one) from adopting other people's standards, and thus becoming subservient to them. (which is why Microsoft had to pervert JavaScript, once it became an ECMA standard. ..)
It's just so awkward though, when you're using acronyms, especially that end in S, and having to use it in a plural or posessive sense (by the way, 3 s's in posessive).
For instance, when talking about illegal action that was MS's. Or the multiple companies that will be MS's.
sold drugs! George Bush sold drugs, then instituted the "war on drugs", so he'd have a monopoly. Yes, there was some association with the CIA there, who created crack. ..
This was because MS bought Bungie. They finally realized that if they don't act soon to stop the monster, they'll buy something else pivotal, like Cisco, and make routers that only work with NetBEUI. (- this is a joke, moron! Everyone knows that NetBEUI is not routeable!)
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think the bean counters or shareholders read that study, nor do they give a rat's ass about your socialist crap. basically, it doesn't even really matter if the employees really are or aren't more productive, even in the short term. It's all in how the market perceives the company's health and efficiency, it's all in PR and spin. And if you can make the case for a 10% price increase in your stock by publicly sacrificing a chunk of your workforce - even if it's really a BAD thing for the company, the perception drives the stock prices, and the stock prices drive the board members.
I'm not FOR longer workweeks. I have a family with kids too. I'm just trying to point out why things happen the way they do, and who is running things in this country.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
sure, give them 56k modems, but make them use crappy lines that only support 33k connections, and disconnect at random.
Punk-ass bitches.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
You may call it mismanagement. From your perspective, it was. But from the bean counters' perspective, it was trimming fat. If you aren't working 55 hours, you're not pulling your weight. What's so hard about that?
Yes, there are more subtle and elegant ways to improve employee productivity. But sometimes, cracking the whip is what gets the investors' jizz spurting.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
you see, now I feel like an idiot, because I turned off Auto Preview in Outlook, disabled Windows Scripting Host, and I only click on TXT files.
Today I got blasted by the "Life Stages" virus. It has a TXT file icon, but the real extension is SHS. It's hidden. I opened it. The joke was kind of funny. I don't think it mailed itself out, (nothing in my Sent Items folder) but I'm infected by the motherfucker. I've been working with computers for 8+ years, and I'm not what you'd call very careful. But this is the first time I've ever been infected with a virus.
Thank you Microsoft, and thank you to the numbnuts IT guys at my company who standardized on MS, and do not support any other platform.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
it's called an "intentional leak".
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
no, not really. I can't back that up.
-------------
Really, I think a whole BUTTLOAD of Mac lovers out there (myself included) would just LOVE to see any supporting documentation that MS is working on Obj C. Even if it's from MacOSRumors.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
Intel has seen that people can and will pay buttloads of money for computers. Look at the heyday of big $ computing, the late 80s, where your Intergraphs, SGIs, HPs, Suns, charged what people today would consider outrageous sums of money for machines, because they did things that the cheap PCs of the time could only dream of doing.
/. either from a $30,000 Itanium box, or from WebTV, or web-enabled cell-phone. (only through AOL/TW) The era of the affordable desktop computer on commodity hardware is at an end. It is the suckers who embraced the "compatability thru single-vendor solutions" philosophy who are to blame.
Then through market-wrangling, and some minor innovation, those cheap PCs got enough horsepower to be "good enough" for enough applications, and got enough marketshare for critical mass to draw away developers, and it looked like, the commodity hardware solution was a viable alternative to the overpriced proprietary platforms of the past.
Now it looks like Intel wants their machine to become an overpriced proprietary platform. It took them 20 years to get to this point, but they have a captive market, most competitors are dead or dying, and Intel through Microsoft has locked-down the software market, and through Rambus, and other moves (musical CPU slot-specs, AGP, laughably lame USB), is trying to transform the once cheap commodity hardware solution into an extremely expensive "good enough" proprietary platform. And Microsoft was really a disposable pawn in the game, because Intel has demonstrated that they can be replaced: BeOS, Linux, and 5 years ago, they could have done it through OS/2 if they had chosen a comfier relationship with IBM - but IBM was a competitor in the HW space, so no luck there.
I'm trying to work out how PPC didn't make much headway in terms of knocking Intel off the hill - and it gets very conspiracy-ish: Intel had Bill Gates use a mind-control-ray on Steve Jobs to kill cloning, and the CHiRP platform, back at the time of the MS-Office for Mac extortion, and also, got Bill Walker hired on at Motorola as a Mole to destroy PPC as a potential mainstream CPU. I'm not sure what Bill Walker's motivation was, perhaps it involved young boys?
Anyway, the PC-era is dying, servers are where it's at. In 5 years, we're all going to be typing on
Perhaps this is the plan for eliminating online music piracy as well.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
Titan AE was kind of refreshing, actually. I went into it expecting to see all the typical annoying Don Bluth-isms. Actually, most of them were still there, but in a less-annoying intensity. I'm thinking perhaps in 50 more years, Don Bluth will produce a movie that doesn't make me want to rech.
Now- one thing that really is starting to piss me off, is ever since Star Wars, the laws of physics have really been tossed out the window -with regard to how fast ships travel in space, how they maneuver, how much sound they make in a vacuum when they wizz by. Now, presumably, a lot of Sci Fi movies don't want to spend the kind of money Ron Howard spent on Apollo 13 to get realistic zero gravity effects. That's understandable. But why in God's name can't animators make some effort to be at least a little bit technically accurate?
Damn I miss B5.
But even B5 sinned in ways that have long since become cliche in Science Fiction. Bad aliens. Aliens which are really people in lots of makup, with funny hair, or the typical Star Trec cliche, something funny on their forehead. oops! new alien race, gotta come up with a new shape for the latex thingie we stick on their forehead!
Some imagination people!
Please!
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
Not true. The porsche 995 is only $111,000. Stock options ROCK!
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
Personally I just rented Run, Lola, Run (Lola Rannt), on DVD, and I would have been VERY disappointed had I watched in on VHS, in the dubbed-english version. I watched 5 minutes, and the voice actors so bad, it was MORE painful than watching the english-dubbed version of Akira. I switched it to German and turned on subtitles.
.
THAT is why DVD rocks.
And it especially rocks on my Apex. .
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
I think it should not be members of some "academy" group who vote on and determine winners.
It should be done by independent (ie. not working for a newspaper also owned by the parent company of the studio) film critics, and perhaps professors of film and literature at major universities.
Having an award judged by a member of the industry is an obvious conflict of interest. Same with the so-called "People's choice" awards, which really equates to "best promoted".
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
Grandfather clause?
Who gives a shit? The Academy awards aren't even relevant anyway. They just provide nice blurbs for the box in the video store.
This latest move just proves that fact: You're either a "good 'ol boy" or your not. Has nothing to do with any quality of the film or talent of it's cast and crew. It's almost getting to be an insult be nominated for this crap, because it just proves that there's no real merit backing it up, just that you've won the "popularity contest". Like High School student goverment elections.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
see subject
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
have they called you with a job offer yet?
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
Well, it depends;
"Christian" is an awful broad term.
There are those very strict interpretations of the Bible which have been debunked hundreds of years ago - for instance, there is a passage that states that the value of PI is 3 (some dude's grain-storage bin was so many cubits across, and so many cubits around - why those details were necessary in the context of that story, I have no idea, but they're there, and plainly, mathematically impossible for a round grain-bin, it must have been hexagonal?).
I'm not sure how strict-interpreters deal with that issue.
but the issue of the Earth being flat is dealt with by the Flat-Earthers with flat-out denial.
Other sects of Christians inteperate the Bible in a more liberal fasion, and state that the Bible is possibly flawed in some places. Some sects are very liberal in their interpretation, or reject most of the Bible altogether.
I must point out that in NO PLACE in the Bible, does it clearly state that God did *not* create life in places other than Earth. Those topics are omitted from the story of Humanity, potentially for the sake of relevancy? Now, the Bible does state that God put the lights in the sky (including the stars and planets) for the purpose of being signs to us. To communicate to us. Now, the first thing you think of is; gee, that means astrology, right? Well, why can we actually go to these lights and touch them and walk upon them then? Are we not meant to GO there? Of course not. We can go anywhere and do anything we please. Until God smacks us down, humanity can and will do these things ("not because they are easy but because they are hard" -Kennedy).
It is MY belief that God intended us to use our brains, to do these things, visit these worlds, and see what He created there, as well as here. Maybe the same rules do not apply with regard to useage (in Genesis, we're pretty much given the Earth and everything on it to do with what we please, but the lights in the sky weren't included in that - nor were they excluded, however). It is also MY belief that God probably created life on other worlds, maybe on other worlds around stars. The real test of MY liberal faith is, when we contact an alien civilization which does not worship or recognize God. Will we be forced by them to adopt their religion? Or will we force them to adopt OUR religion? That's where things will get hairy. I suspect some new elements will have to arise from the current mythology to cover these issues - whether they're fabricated by religious leaders, or handed down by prophets. The current guidance is pretty vague.
On the other hand, I think most strict Christians expect the world to end before we find life on other planets. I suppose the flat-earthers were the same way.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
I suggest that you take a vacation to Las Vegas. About 3 hours drive WEST of Las Vegas, after you're done gambling and stuff, there's this neat place called Death Valley. In Death Valley, there's the lowest point in the US, Badwater Basin.
Granted, the conditions here are MUCH more pleasant than the surface of Mars (currently 111 degrees and Sunny), miles of salt-flats from the previous dried-up lakebed, but at the very lowest point, is a small pond, about ten feet across. Sometimes it's totally dry, sometimes, it's soft and moist salty mud, sometimes it's maybe fifteen feet or so. Depends on whether it's a dry year or wet year. Saltiest water you've ever tasted (I don't think you can get that close to it anymore).
Look into this pond. There is algae, grass, bugs, a host of tiny microorganisms, I think there's even brine shrimp. You stand there, and look out at the salt flats, and look down at the water, and sweat in the heat, and wonder how anything at all can live there, that isolated, in that heat, for thousands of years. Yet it lives.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
The soviets also launched probes to Mars (IIRC, none of them soft-landed), how can we be sure THEY sterilized everything properly. Probably jus doused everything in Stoli. Great, we'll find a bunch of hung-over russian microbes with the DTs.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
Maslow's Hierarchy.
Food and Shelter are a bit higher priority than Self-Actualization.
-
Also, when space exploration is done by greedy government contractors who don't really give a rat's ass about the science, and are more interested in bilking taxpayers with behind-schedule and overbudget projects - it kind of takes the wind out of the sails of the propaganda that it was all about exploration and advancement of humanity, when really it was a pissing contest between the Soviets and the US, as in, we can lob more and bigger nukes than you can.
Personally, I'm all for humanity exploring space, and expanding to the stars, but I really think that as a race, we have a whole buttload of growing up to do first.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
Since no human has ever gone to Mars, and examined Martian rocks personally, and since no probe has gone to Mars, picked up a rock, and brought it back, I deny the "scientific fact" that the rock they're talking about was from Mars. Their shining very powereful flashlights up eachother's asses to find that one and pull it out.
If they said that they believe that the rock COULD possibly be from Mars, they wouldn't have stomped on their own credibility, but by saying they're certain it definately came from Mars, they're in the Fox Mulder camp. That rock could have come from anywhere.
When there's REAL proof, I'll believe it, but in the case of the mysterious Martian meteorite, it seems so unlikely too me, and based on such thin speculation, that I will not accept it as fact. Just a bunch of geologists looking for funding, and sick of kissing up to oil companies for cash.
It would be nice to say that that meteor represented proof of life on Mars - but it just isn't enough hard evidence.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
Well, the southern baptists in the US think that switching to Metrics is part of the world conspiracy to unite all nations under a single government, which, of course, is part of the prophesy of the end-times portrayed in the book of Revelations (and some stuff from Ezekiel too, I think). So this metric trend MUST be resisted at all costs. We MUST be different from the rest of the world, or the UN will swallow us and unite the world under the leadership of the antichrist, then all the "saved" will vanish and all go to heaven - no wait, isn't that a *good* thing? Isn't that delaying the inevitable?
.)
Or maybe it's just jingoistic nationalistic pride which prevents the superior Americans (of which I am one) from adopting other people's standards, and thus becoming subservient to them. (which is why Microsoft had to pervert JavaScript, once it became an ECMA standard. .
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
oops. My bad. 4 s-es in possessive.
But you ARE busted on the "alot" thing.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
It's just so awkward though, when you're using acronyms, especially that end in S, and having to use it in a plural or posessive sense (by the way, 3 s's in posessive).
For instance, when talking about illegal action that was MS's.
Or the multiple companies that will be MS's.
Not correct, but seemingly less awkward than MSs.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
sold drugs! George Bush sold drugs, then instituted the "war on drugs", so he'd have a monopoly. Yes, there was some association with the CIA there, who created crack. . .
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
no, more likely, Signal 11 is waiting for the day he can sell his account on eBay. Higher karma=higher bids.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
This was because MS bought Bungie. They finally realized that if they don't act soon to stop the monster, they'll buy something else pivotal, like Cisco, and make routers that only work with NetBEUI.
(- this is a joke, moron! Everyone knows that NetBEUI is not routeable!)
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!