So, wait, wait, let me get this straight. You came out of a third-world hellhole, you know how bad things are there, and you still want cheap consumer goods at the expense of people still in a third world hellhole?
Wow. Just wow. I should have about twelve thousand snarky comments to make about you at this point, but you pretty much just made it so that I don't have to say a single one. Anything I say on the matter of your avarice, arrogance and lack of empathy is going to seem redundant.
The arbitrage thing is a good point, tho. Or it would be if, you know, shipping and price of business costs wouldn't make the margins on the arbitrage you described so infintessimally small that it would be a complete waste of time for anyone that wanted to try it, particularly selling back to a first world nation where a better used laptop is available for $200.
Wah! I live in a developed country and I don't want to pay more than someone in a developing country for something I want! Why should I subsidize something for poor people!
Tell you what. Why don't you move to Africa with no money or resources, try to find work or an education, with little food, little to no medical care, the constant threat of violence, an unstable government, while relying on the kindness of strangers to even have a stab at making a decent life for yourself?
Then we'll let you pay $100 for a laptop. Hey, maybe someone will even pay $300 to buy one for themself, and you can get one for free!
Until then, STFU and pay $300 for the privilege of owning a toy you'll probably barely use.
I highly recommend that you make an alliance with the martial arts or weightlifting club. Do their homework, buy yourself some bodyguards. Cross train with them. Teach them how to use a mouse, let them teach you how to snap a man's neck or bench 200 pounds. A sound mind in a sound body and all that.
Besides, as a poster above put it, you are not going to meet girls doing this. Best to pick up an activity that might help there, too.
In all seriousness, don't make the mistake that a lot of us made. Don't concentrate on computer skills and academia at the expense of things that will improve your health. Cultivate an interest in athletic activities, even if you hate gym class and team sports. It can do nothing but help you. Good luck on the computer club, too.
Fucking US troops are always cheating!
on
Synthetic Vision
·
· Score: 2, Funny
I know that the reason that we have to use electron microscopes to take "images" of anything smaller than a cell is because that's the point at which the wavelength of visible light becomes larger than the item that we're attempting to focus on, and therefore not enough of the visible light waves bounce off of, say, an atom for an image to be created. Altho I doubt that it would be the case, is it possible that these lenses will allow us to overcome this restriction? Anyone with a better grounding in the physics of microscopy and better understanding of metamaterials want to take a swing at this one?
In all of those cases (and all of the cases mentioned in other replies to my post), with the exception of antibiotics, there were years, and even decades of research leading up to those points. "Too good to be true" still stands as an excellenmt rule of thumb. And, looking at all of the rules that Dr. Park laid out, most of them would have ruled out antibiotics, too, until five or ten years after they appeared.
Is it too good to be true? That is pretty much the only thing you need to check. Simple antigravity? Too good to be true. Car that runs on water? Too good to be true. Honest politician? Too good to be true.
The big problem is that people are greedy, lazy, and generally lacking in common sense. Another set of rules isn't going to change that.
Heh. Yeah, I've thought about this possibility. That's part of why I'm also getting my basic paramedic certs. I don't know if it's the same everywhere, but in Texas, to get them you ahve to do ridealongs on an ambulance, full eight hour shifts, three times a semester minimum. This was recommended to me by a friend who is a nurse and seen several doctors drop out just like you described when they realized they couldn't stand dealing with sick people.
I'm not particularly worried about it, tho. I've already saved several people's lives and I've found it suits me. The only thing that's likely to freak me is a dying child.
I've been working in tech since I dropped out of college about 8 years ago with terrible grades. Computers were something I'd been raised around and had a knack for, and I could make a decent amount of money from them. That was enough for a while. Not anymore, tho.
For several years, it's bothered me that I don't really do anything to help anyone. Well, I do help them make money faster, but that's about it. I can't stand watching all the suffering in the world and thinking like I'm wasting my time building manufacturing systems so that some company can make widgets more efficiently. Instead, I've gone back to college. One semester down with a 3.7 so far, and I've got about 6 or 7 more to go til I've got my neuroscience degree, then on to med school, hopefully.
I understand that some of y'all are stuck in jobs you don't like because of circumstances beyond your control. And I'm sure that a bunch of you are doing things in programming and engineering that will one day improve the quality of life for those around ou. For the rest of you that aren't, take a long hard look in the mirror and see if you're happy helping someone else make money and playing with toys. I think, or at least I hope, that some of you might be a bit uncomfortable with that idea. At the end of your life, do you want your big accomplishment to be "I got my company ISO 9001 certified" or even "I raised my kid to work as a drone in the tech sector?"
That is a badass little device. I've got several cats, and I was worried about whether it could handle kitty litter tracked out of the bathroom, or the rather large amount of cat hair. It handles both just fine. Also, my house is rather cluttered with workout equipment and electronics, and it manages to navigate very well, even getting into corners most of the time. all in all, it was an excellent purchase. I do recommend getting the 2 hour charger if you can find it, though.
Walk away. Just walk away.
on
New Mad Max Film
·
· Score: 3, Funny
While I'd love to see a good new movie, and I hope that the script really is as polished as everyone attached is claiming, I get the feeling that the best move is to walk away.
Of course, as soon as I turn to leave, I'll catch a crossbow bolt through the head by some mohawked buy hissing at me.
Roll your saving throw...
on
Layoffs at WotC
·
· Score: 4, Funny
... or immediately lose your job. On the other hand, if the rumors I've heard in the industry about WotC's downhill slide are true, it's good that a bunch of talented designers are now free to look for positions elsewhere. These are all good folks, and I'm sure they'll land on their feet elsewhere.
I've spent the last 7 or 8 years in various computer related jobs, most of that time programming. I've spent the last 28 years of my life in an ever-increasing search for new ways to amuse myself and to accumulate wealth.
A few months ago, I realized that none of it mattered to me. No matter how many videogames I played, lines of code I laid down, how much cash I could pull out of my wallet, it didn't change the fact that at the end of the day, I wasn't doing a goddamned thing for anyone but myself, I wasn't improving the world or helping people in any way. And it was something I had known for a while, but it finally became something I can't ignore.
August 26th, I start back to college, working through my degree in biology. In four years, I plan to be in med school. My only regret is that I didn't start sooner.
I highly recommend an occasional evaluation of one's life, to see if the path travelled is the one that should be travelled. If you're happy with what you're doing, great. But don't just stick to programming or sysadmin or, hell, being a doctor for that matter, without examining why you do it, and if that goal makes you happy. Life's too damned short.
Is your head ENTIRELY lodged in your ass?
on
The Drone War
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· Score: 2
Umm, there have been plenty of casualties on our side of the conflict, they just haven't been Americans. We've been using the Northern Alliance as our proxy ground troops and letting them suck up bullets instead of our troops. I agree that American firepower has played a large role in ensuring FEWER casualties, but there have still been plenty on the side of our in-country allies. And, as one poster pointed out earlier, it's entirely possible some of our special forces troops have been killed but not reported yet. I don't think that's very likely, but it is a possibility.
While the concept of a drone war is interesting, and even possible, we haven't gotten there yet, and saying that people fighting on one side of the war don't have any emotional investment is INCREDIBLY callous. Just because you don't have any friends stuck in Afghanistan doesn't mean it's the case for all of us. Beyond that, I assure you that the troops getting shot at have PLENTY of emotional investment in the war. Jackass.
My internet connection (AT&T@Home Dallas) died on Saturday morning, but it appears that the system is back up and running now, albeit still somewhat shaky. I'm actually fairly surprised at the speed with which AT&T responded to this.
The problem is that trolls, even though they my not realize it, sometimes have good points. And because they usually take the point of view diametrically opposite the average slashdot reader, in order to enrage them, sometimes these points are the one that need to be heard most so that slashdot doesn't become (remain?) just another old boy network.
Wether you believe that the bovarian illuminati actually controlled anything, the fact is that a real group did (and may still) exist under that name.
The Bovarian Illuminati? What, they raised the price of milk? Started the whole "Cow Rights movement? A-HA! This explains all of the Chik-Fil-A campaigns!
Home school, but don't JUST home school
on
Sean In The Middle
·
· Score: 4
From what I've seen of kids that are home schooled, you're often right, particularly if the parents are homeschooling due to religious convictions, rather than due to academic ones. However, I have also seen perfectly normal (socially speaking) kids come out of homeschooling. The trick to it seems to be activities other than academic ones.
My wife and I plan to home school our children. However, we also plan to take the kids to martial arts classes, dance, gymnastics, music, kids sports, etc. The general key to raising not just an intelligent kid but a sociable one seems to be making sure that if they're not getting socialization lessons at school, they get them elsewhere. Hopefully, this theory proves true. I have a fair bit of anecdotal evidence supporting it, based on conversations I've had with kids who were home schooled this way, as well as parents who are currently doing so.
Actually, there ARE laws in place to prevent record companies from directly paying radio stations to play the songs the record companies want played. They were enacted in the late '50s or early '60s, and are generally referred to as payola laws, after the payola scandal of the '50s. Since the radio industry deregulation, folks have found a way through this by going through "independent promoters" that pay radio stations a certain amunt of money in exchange for the ability to choose a certain chunk of their playlist. These independent promoters then turn around and charge the record companies to make sure their songs are added to the playlist. If you read the Salon article listed above, most of the info is in there.
I recently moved back to Dallas after 8 years from Austin, and that's not quite correct. I remember the Edge from when I was in high school here, and here's where the various stations have shifted to on the dial: Q102 is dead and gone from what I can tell, although similar music plays on 92.5 still. For more metallish/hard rock stuff, if that's what you want, there's 97.1. Mostly crap 80s hard rock there, though, with some of the most annoying DJs on the radio here, other than the 93.3 ones. The Edge moved to Q102's old slot, 102.1. For the most part, they play about the same type of stuff they've played since a year after the station started (no old post-punk or other interesting stuff, more current "hard alternative" music for the most part). At 94.5, where the Edge used to be, there's an oldies R&B station, which was an odd but interesting change of pace when I moved back. Hope that helps.
Slashdot Mirror
So, wait, wait, let me get this straight. You came out of a third-world hellhole, you know how bad things are there, and you still want cheap consumer goods at the expense of people still in a third world hellhole?
Wow. Just wow. I should have about twelve thousand snarky comments to make about you at this point, but you pretty much just made it so that I don't have to say a single one. Anything I say on the matter of your avarice, arrogance and lack of empathy is going to seem redundant.
The arbitrage thing is a good point, tho. Or it would be if, you know, shipping and price of business costs wouldn't make the margins on the arbitrage you described so infintessimally small that it would be a complete waste of time for anyone that wanted to try it, particularly selling back to a first world nation where a better used laptop is available for $200.
Wah! I live in a developed country and I don't want to pay more than someone in a developing country for something I want! Why should I subsidize something for poor people!
Tell you what. Why don't you move to Africa with no money or resources, try to find work or an education, with little food, little to no medical care, the constant threat of violence, an unstable government, while relying on the kindness of strangers to even have a stab at making a decent life for yourself?
Then we'll let you pay $100 for a laptop. Hey, maybe someone will even pay $300 to buy one for themself, and you can get one for free!
Until then, STFU and pay $300 for the privilege of owning a toy you'll probably barely use.
Man, that's a long way to go for a bad punchline.
What, are you on crack? We still use them damn near everywhere we're deployed.
I highly recommend that you make an alliance with the martial arts or weightlifting club. Do their homework, buy yourself some bodyguards. Cross train with them. Teach them how to use a mouse, let them teach you how to snap a man's neck or bench 200 pounds. A sound mind in a sound body and all that.
Besides, as a poster above put it, you are not going to meet girls doing this. Best to pick up an activity that might help there, too.
In all seriousness, don't make the mistake that a lot of us made. Don't concentrate on computer skills and academia at the expense of things that will improve your health. Cultivate an interest in athletic activities, even if you hate gym class and team sports. It can do nothing but help you. Good luck on the computer club, too.
Goddamned wall-haxoring bastards!
I know that the reason that we have to use electron microscopes to take "images" of anything smaller than a cell is because that's the point at which the wavelength of visible light becomes larger than the item that we're attempting to focus on, and therefore not enough of the visible light waves bounce off of, say, an atom for an image to be created. Altho I doubt that it would be the case, is it possible that these lenses will allow us to overcome this restriction? Anyone with a better grounding in the physics of microscopy and better understanding of metamaterials want to take a swing at this one?
In all of those cases (and all of the cases mentioned in other replies to my post), with the exception of antibiotics, there were years, and even decades of research leading up to those points. "Too good to be true" still stands as an excellenmt rule of thumb. And, looking at all of the rules that Dr. Park laid out, most of them would have ruled out antibiotics, too, until five or ten years after they appeared.
Is it too good to be true? That is pretty much the only thing you need to check. Simple antigravity? Too good to be true. Car that runs on water? Too good to be true. Honest politician? Too good to be true.
The big problem is that people are greedy, lazy, and generally lacking in common sense. Another set of rules isn't going to change that.
Heh. Yeah, I've thought about this possibility. That's part of why I'm also getting my basic paramedic certs. I don't know if it's the same everywhere, but in Texas, to get them you ahve to do ridealongs on an ambulance, full eight hour shifts, three times a semester minimum. This was recommended to me by a friend who is a nurse and seen several doctors drop out just like you described when they realized they couldn't stand dealing with sick people.
I'm not particularly worried about it, tho. I've already saved several people's lives and I've found it suits me. The only thing that's likely to freak me is a dying child.
I've been working in tech since I dropped out of college about 8 years ago with terrible grades. Computers were something I'd been raised around and had a knack for, and I could make a decent amount of money from them. That was enough for a while. Not anymore, tho.
For several years, it's bothered me that I don't really do anything to help anyone. Well, I do help them make money faster, but that's about it. I can't stand watching all the suffering in the world and thinking like I'm wasting my time building manufacturing systems so that some company can make widgets more efficiently. Instead, I've gone back to college. One semester down with a 3.7 so far, and I've got about 6 or 7 more to go til I've got my neuroscience degree, then on to med school, hopefully.
I understand that some of y'all are stuck in jobs you don't like because of circumstances beyond your control. And I'm sure that a bunch of you are doing things in programming and engineering that will one day improve the quality of life for those around ou. For the rest of you that aren't, take a long hard look in the mirror and see if you're happy helping someone else make money and playing with toys. I think, or at least I hope, that some of you might be a bit uncomfortable with that idea. At the end of your life, do you want your big accomplishment to be "I got my company ISO 9001 certified" or even "I raised my kid to work as a drone in the tech sector?"
That is a badass little device. I've got several cats, and I was worried about whether it could handle kitty litter tracked out of the bathroom, or the rather large amount of cat hair. It handles both just fine. Also, my house is rather cluttered with workout equipment and electronics, and it manages to navigate very well, even getting into corners most of the time. all in all, it was an excellent purchase. I do recommend getting the 2 hour charger if you can find it, though.
While I'd love to see a good new movie, and I hope that the script really is as polished as everyone attached is claiming, I get the feeling that the best move is to walk away.
Of course, as soon as I turn to leave, I'll catch a crossbow bolt through the head by some mohawked buy hissing at me.
... or immediately lose your job. On the other hand, if the rumors I've heard in the industry about WotC's downhill slide are true, it's good that a bunch of talented designers are now free to look for positions elsewhere. These are all good folks, and I'm sure they'll land on their feet elsewhere.
I've spent the last 7 or 8 years in various computer related jobs, most of that time programming. I've spent the last 28 years of my life in an ever-increasing search for new ways to amuse myself and to accumulate wealth.
A few months ago, I realized that none of it mattered to me. No matter how many videogames I played, lines of code I laid down, how much cash I could pull out of my wallet, it didn't change the fact that at the end of the day, I wasn't doing a goddamned thing for anyone but myself, I wasn't improving the world or helping people in any way. And it was something I had known for a while, but it finally became something I can't ignore.
August 26th, I start back to college, working through my degree in biology. In four years, I plan to be in med school. My only regret is that I didn't start sooner.
I highly recommend an occasional evaluation of one's life, to see if the path travelled is the one that should be travelled. If you're happy with what you're doing, great. But don't just stick to programming or sysadmin or, hell, being a doctor for that matter, without examining why you do it, and if that goal makes you happy. Life's too damned short.
Umm, there have been plenty of casualties on our side of the conflict, they just haven't been Americans. We've been using the Northern Alliance as our proxy ground troops and letting them suck up bullets instead of our troops. I agree that American firepower has played a large role in ensuring FEWER casualties, but there have still been plenty on the side of our in-country allies. And, as one poster pointed out earlier, it's entirely possible some of our special forces troops have been killed but not reported yet. I don't think that's very likely, but it is a possibility.
While the concept of a drone war is interesting, and even possible, we haven't gotten there yet, and saying that people fighting on one side of the war don't have any emotional investment is INCREDIBLY callous. Just because you don't have any friends stuck in Afghanistan doesn't mean it's the case for all of us. Beyond that, I assure you that the troops getting shot at have PLENTY of emotional investment in the war. Jackass.
My internet connection (AT&T@Home Dallas) died on Saturday morning, but it appears that the system is back up and running now, albeit still somewhat shaky. I'm actually fairly surprised at the speed with which AT&T responded to this.
It keeps saying "Eat at Joe's. Eat at Joe's. Eat at Joe's."
The problem is that trolls, even though they my not realize it, sometimes have good points. And because they usually take the point of view diametrically opposite the average slashdot reader, in order to enrage them, sometimes these points are the one that need to be heard most so that slashdot doesn't become (remain?) just another old boy network.
If I had flamed you, you would know it. It was a joke. Lighten up.
Wether you believe that the bovarian illuminati actually controlled anything, the fact is that a real group did (and may still) exist under that name.
The Bovarian Illuminati? What, they raised the price of milk? Started the whole "Cow Rights movement? A-HA! This explains all of the Chik-Fil-A campaigns!
From what I've seen of kids that are home schooled, you're often right, particularly if the parents are homeschooling due to religious convictions, rather than due to academic ones. However, I have also seen perfectly normal (socially speaking) kids come out of homeschooling. The trick to it seems to be activities other than academic ones.
My wife and I plan to home school our children. However, we also plan to take the kids to martial arts classes, dance, gymnastics, music, kids sports, etc. The general key to raising not just an intelligent kid but a sociable one seems to be making sure that if they're not getting socialization lessons at school, they get them elsewhere. Hopefully, this theory proves true. I have a fair bit of anecdotal evidence supporting it, based on conversations I've had with kids who were home schooled this way, as well as parents who are currently doing so.
McKinney Independent School District. I heard plenty of horror stories back when I used to go to a nearby school district. Give 'em hell.
Actually, there ARE laws in place to prevent record companies from directly paying radio stations to play the songs the record companies want played. They were enacted in the late '50s or early '60s, and are generally referred to as payola laws, after the payola scandal of the '50s. Since the radio industry deregulation, folks have found a way through this by going through "independent promoters" that pay radio stations a certain amunt of money in exchange for the ability to choose a certain chunk of their playlist. These independent promoters then turn around and charge the record companies to make sure their songs are added to the playlist. If you read the Salon article listed above, most of the info is in there.
I recently moved back to Dallas after 8 years from Austin, and that's not quite correct. I remember the Edge from when I was in high school here, and here's where the various stations have shifted to on the dial: Q102 is dead and gone from what I can tell, although similar music plays on 92.5 still. For more metallish/hard rock stuff, if that's what you want, there's 97.1. Mostly crap 80s hard rock there, though, with some of the most annoying DJs on the radio here, other than the 93.3 ones. The Edge moved to Q102's old slot, 102.1. For the most part, they play about the same type of stuff they've played since a year after the station started (no old post-punk or other interesting stuff, more current "hard alternative" music for the most part). At 94.5, where the Edge used to be, there's an oldies R&B station, which was an odd but interesting change of pace when I moved back. Hope that helps.