if you're old enough, you'll remember that's how things were displayed back in the day. upper case white characters on a black background, or light blue on black (adm-3a, people?), or bright green on a dark green-ish background (lanparscopes, some hazeltine terms), etc. and that didn't bother us at all.
but now, like you, i can't read such colour schemes and do experience the "burned in my vision" feeling too. maybe it's to be expected when you are older?
i wouldn't say it's to give off a "1337 hax0r" vibe, but rather it's for the *retro look*, for the younger ones who never experienced it.
to quote: "It's mostly a problem of identification. The real power-brokers love to be behind the scenes. They aren't the ones who are out there, on TV, participating in campaigns, issuing press releases, etc. That's all a puppet show for public consumption, to put it simply.
The real aristocracy does everything by proxy, by funding, by corporations, and by front organizations. The single most effective thing they ever did was to replace real state-issued money with bank-issued monetized debt. That's how you grab a nation by the balls without ever using physical force."
dear lord, this reminds me so much of this brilliant mini-series called "a very british coup" ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094576/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Very_British_Coup), where... this unseen, unelected establishment decides to take out the democratically elected prime minister of england because he was not acting like he was supposed to. when one of "them" met with Harry Perkins (the labour pm in this series), he basically said "they" preferred to stay behind the curtains, out of the limelight... that they were the real power going way back... hence the subsequent speech by perkins on the telly, ending with:
"You the people must decide wether you prefer to ruled by an elected government or by people you've never heard of, people you've never voted for, people who remain quiet, behind the scenes, generaton after generation, yeah even unto the middle ages."
like '1984', this story is still very relevant. do yourself a favour, go and watch it.
oops. mea culpa. instead of:
"some critics of the formats were saying initially that the fault lied with the format of the cd" i should have typed:
"some critics of the format were saying initially that the fault lied with the sampling rate of the cd" and sorry for the other typos.
"When the CD first came out, it was MUCH higher quality than a record or tape"
i will have to take exception to that. i'm old enough to have been an adult when the cd came out -- and i can tell you, the cd was *not* much higher quality than the current mainstay, the lp.
the cd was new and shiny (literally!), but at the time, it *didn't sound right*. for example, pianos sounded metallic and tinny. stereo imaging was muddled up. and so on. it took the recording companies until 1990 or thereabouts to come out with cds that didn't sound fundamentally wrong.
some critics of the formats were saying initially that the fault lied with the format of the cd (i.e., 16bits sampled at 44.1khz) and that "they" needed to up the resolution... in the late '90s, i read in the specialized press & heard from other audiophiles that it turned out that the main culprit of the bad sound was not insufficient resolution (16/44.1), but rather excessive jitter in the digitizing/recording chain... and, apparently, the fact that the "first few batches" of cds were sampled at less than 16 bits, due to design flaws in the early equipment used to digitize existing recordings!
once they got *properly sampled* audio to work with, the cd started to sound ok.
some people will dispute the rumoured causes of early digital audio's ills, and i will welcome any correction. i'm just an "innocent bystander" who goes with what he read & heard in the audio media.
but they cannot dispute the fact that early cds sounded like crap and that it took a few years before that changed.
and btw, who are we going to e-mail at apple, now that steve is gone? i don't think that tim cook would personally answer / act upon e-mails like sjobs did...
just turned on the telly for some background noise as i do the nightly chores and whatnot, saw this newscast talks about apple, etc. (did they announce something else today? is it "one more thing" taken up to the next level?) then noticed the "steve jobs / 1955 - 2011" in the background. O_O ran upstairs to the box that is turned on... crap, it's true!
whoa, was tmz right after all?
too bad sjobs died so early, most of personal computing is in a critical phase right now, apple still needs his touch at this time... very well managed, yes, but that "vision" thing, i'm not so sure...
unless i missed something, apple 2.0 is most definitively *not* the same company as apple 1.0, which was an out-of-control herd of juvenile cats (to put it mildly) that survived and succeeded (up to a point) despite itself... and despite Jobs 1.0.
the countless horror stories i've heard over the years from people that *actually worked* at apple 1.0 could be packaged and sold as management/corporate psychology textbooks, in the "this is how *not* to manage a company" section. there were some serious textbook examples of "when things go bad" scenarios...
i think it was in businessweek were it was printed that apple was "firing on all cylinders" during the Mike "Diesel" Spindler era... clearly it was not the case then.
but it is the case now. from all accounts, there is no better company for supply-and-logistics management, for minimizing overall costs of operations, etc. as of today. it is a very well *managed* company, with everyone pulling in the same direction and generally aware of reality outside the wall of cupertino hq. that's a very big difference from apple 1.0.
as for the "vision thing", on the other hand, we can't be so sure. but somehow, i have the impression that Jobs has trained & drilled apple into trying to take a few steps back and look at the bigger picture, think a few steps ahead, and so on. will they succeed by themselves? i think apple 2.0 has a much better chance of it than apple 1.0 ever had.
nit: Jobs was not "fired from his own company" -- that was Rod Canion, who was fired from Compaq. he was "just" stripped of executive power and, out of spite, he eventually quit (that's different from being fired) to found NeXT afterwards. Jobs 1.0 was not a good manager and was in fact the worst possible leader for apple, at the time. he needed that 11 years (1985 ---> 1996) away from apple to learn a thing of two... and become Jobs 2.0 who was (unexpectedly, at least to me) a much better company leader and a better overall strategist. apple's many successes after Jobs came back have been quite a surprise to me.
powerpc was for some time far more capable than x86.
like the 68k architecture, it eventually lost its advantages because its manufacturers could not care less about its development, not because it was "less popular" or whatever metric you're using. (well, actually, some could argue that motorola had become an out-of-control herd of juvenile cats like pre-Jobs 2.0 apple was, but that's another discussion.)
motorola, then ibm, simply lost interest. and esp. ibm, it's not that they could not have been capable of developing the g5 to meet apple's on-going needs, they just didn't care anymore.
intel "won" because it is simply the most pig-headed bunch of stubborn bastards around. thank ${deity} amd is still around and *willing* to continue the fight...
you know, i've seen salescritters use the line "this pc has slots whilst the mac doesn't" quite a few times whilst pushing their wares on muggl^H^H^H^H^Hbuyers. i've seen people show me their brand new dell, hp, compaq and other assorted cloneshop boxes, telling me it had slots and all......and they'd never open their box. never. in fact, i can't recall how many dos/windows boxen i've seen that were designed/built with borderline specs like being incapable of holding a 2nd hard drive -- the physical space just wasn't there and the power supply was so stupendously weak (55w, really, dell?) that i still can't understand how the pc could turn on. even if they wanted to take advantage of these slots, they would not have been able to. but they rarely did.
techies, geeks and nerds do care about openness, lock-down and all, but the technically-illiterate do not. as long as it works, as long as they can swap data with their friends, that's all they care about.
iOS devices are not your ordinary computers. they are information APPLIANCES. no-fuss, no-muss, just-use-it devices to consume "content". it's like your washer-dryer, except that you can extend said washer via apps. i don't think i'd see you rant against the "closeness" of your maytag, so why would you rant against your, say, ipod touch's?
yes, it would be nice it the ipad was more "open" and all, but really, the target audience for this device (and other iOS devices) does not care about "openess" (sp?!). *you* or the geek crowd are not the target audience. it's the proverbial "suzy secretary" who just wants to pick up her device and just use it ("it just works!") who's the target.
i'm not saying that all that apple has been doing with iOS is perfect; they could do things a bit differently, for sure, but again, you have to consider whom the devices are designed for. one day you'll understand what "marketing" truly means -- it's also about identifying a target market and how to design a product for said buyers.
check my earlier Doug Engelbart reference. check what was done at SRI in the '60s, before PARC was even founded. and apple did not nick anything. you better re-check your computing history.
dude, the original apple ][ clones were just photocopies of an original design, down to the roms. those companies (esp. the *original* chinese/taiwanese computer clones, which copied apple's hardware) were litterally rip-offs coat-tailing on apple's success.
compaq et al, on the other hand, were actual, bona-fide clean-room reverse engineering efforts and deserved to live/succeed. well, imo.
maybe Jobs was/is not a nerd like Woz is, sure he could not come up with circuit designs like Woz did, but he could recognize good ideas when he saw them. i've been in this field (IT et al) long enough to know that not everyone can do that. trust me on this.
Xerox PARC *DID NOT* "do" the original GUI environment. Doug Engelbart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart) did it at SRI. Xerox PARC *DID NOT* invent the mouse. Engelbart did it also at SRI.
People overestimate PARC's importance, downright ignore Engelbart and underestimate Apple's contributions (when they don't say that Jobs & co. "stole" from Xerox)... this cheeses me off royally./rant
yeah, that's what i ended up thinking, that all the good ones are already taken. (maybe it depends on the service you're on -- do the "freebies" attract the wrong crowd?)
there's a lot of angry women out there: divorced, ex-battered wife, etc. it's funny that they demand that *you* have dealt with your past, that you have gotten over your ex (or whatever), but _them_, on the other hand...
and i agree that waiting for the perfect one won't work... you have to take a chance, as long as there are enough common points or good points to bootstrap the process, who knows where it's going to lead?
though i wonder: should one consider looking "out of town" or is it too risky? and, no, i'm not talking about getting a mail-order bride from china or russia... (one poor sap at the office did it and all the worse clichés happened to him. ouch)
yes, i connected with them. out of quite a few dates from which i bailed out quickly, i ended up in two rather unsuccessful relationship -- quite a learning experience.
one turned out to be a very undesirable human being, someone i could not trust at all, who would have gotten me in trouble through her sheer stupidity and irresponsibility: financially, legally and even worse.
the other is a wingnut who's still psychologically stuck in her native country, a few decades ago. acquaintances from the same country all say "why is she doing x, she's not in ${native country} anymore, and even then, we don't do this anymore back home". she's got such a weird idea of what a husband should be that she's never been in any true relationship. at every level. and when she decides you're not a perfect suitor for her, she turns beyond nasty on you. that one hurt.
i met my wife at work (previous workplace), and i was not even looking for a girlfriend. it all started with a bad hair joke and went downhill from there -- a few weeks after that, i was moving in with her... and i was not even supposed to be staying in that city for more than a few months! talk about "out of town" work that takes an unexpected turn...
maybe i should have qualified my rant. i'm in my 40s... er, late 40s (damn). i've tried these dating sites between 2003 and 2007. my observations about the women on these dating sites are more about the females in their 40s, and not about young chicks in their 20s. maybe only the bad women end up on these dating sites when they are in their 40s... or their "30s" (yeah, right). again, it's from my own experience and that of a few other guys at the office.
p.s.: not to be petty Taco, but the new slashdot still sucks. even logged in we can't have the "old skool"/. anymore! arrgh!
the biggest problem with PofF (and all the other dating sites i've been on), is that people... huh, women lie. big time.
(i'm writing this from a guy's perspective. i'm sure the reverse can be quite true...)
they lie about their age -- i've lost count of the "38yo" females who'se personal picture clearly show they're 48-50yo. and fat (no, really)
they lie about their financial status -- "financially independant" more often than not means "i need a sugar daddy with deep pockets".
they lie about their job status -- "self employed" / "entrepreneur" / etc. 99.99% of the time mean "i can't keep a job even if my life depended on it".
they lie about what they want -- "i've really looking for the love of my life" 9x% of the time mean "i'm looking for a sucker i can fleece".
they lie about their hobbies (if they have any) -- for example, "cycling" truly means "i have this wal-mart bike i've found in my neighbour's trash, that i use to go around the block... every blue moon". and don't get me started about "hiking", "camping" and/or anything remotely outdoorsy. (i never thought saying i'm a scuba diver could be taken in the same way as if i said i was a necrophiliac pedophile. whoa)
and then there's the laundry list of requirements you have to meet. as the parties involved get older, the list gets more and more insane. so, gents, even you are in your 40s, you have to be in absolutely perfect shape, absolutely no medical issues, you have to be wealthy, no baggage, etc. and, preferably, you must not be divorced, widowed, whatever. it's like if they want a 27yo rich athletic subservient virgin... whilst, of course, they can be unemployed and going nowhere fast, fat, looking like beaten hag, etc. unless they're the insane cosmetic surgery addicted athlete wannabe who'se the mahogany row witch of BigCorp inc.
are dating sites a good thing, should geeks look to them to find "the one"?
i don't know. theoretically, it sure beats the bar scene, but my experience and that of other guys at the office who let it slip they tried those sites, is not positive.
maybe Clifford Stoll is right, maybe we do need to turn the tube off and "get out there".
i know that how i met my late wife, "out there"...
..."and unlike LP's (which are subject to all kinds of mechanical issues like physical wear, wow and flutter, turntable rumble and needle mistracking)"...
urgh. yes, lps can be subject to the above, but so does the cd. "wow and flutter" have an equivalent in the digital domain, it's called jitter. physical wear is not the sole domain of the lp, cds can get scratched too *and* can suffer from "cd rot" (yes, still today). and a laser can mis-track / mis-read a cd's pits (they don't have grooves, they have pits, representing ones and zeros). why do you think there is so much error-correction technology on music cds?
quite a few time, after hearing someone talk trash about vinyl and praise cds as "perfect", i have dragged them to my listening room, plunked them in my chair and cued up an lp copy of an album they liked (this, in the pre-mp3 days, when i was not solo)... my wife, not an audiophile herself, would always enjoy seeing them pick up their jaw off the ground after _hearing_ how good vinyl can be. quite a few refused to believe at first that it was an old 33rpm that would be playing, saying i was playing a cd and faking the "lp thing". they had to eat crow when i pointed out that the cd transport was turned off... and even more when they noticed that some good-sounding lp was an obviously "not new" one.
and yes, lps can still sound damn good after a few years. that lp wear and tear thing has been greatly exaggerated, especially by a music industry that was pushing cds... to make you buy the white album yet again. just know how to handle your vinyl albums and stop buying your gear at radio shack.
i will readily admit that analogue playback requires more work, that you need to take more care of your vinyls compared to cds, that it can require relatively expensive gear to make vinyl sound blow-your-socks-off-i-can't-believe-it's-not-a-cd good; but to say that vinyl is inherently worse than compact discs, i will have to strongly disagree.
(of course, if an lp is made from the same digital master recordings as a cd, then it's no better than said cd. i might be a fan of analogue playback, but i'm not a blind fanboi either.)
Slashdot Mirror
/* old fart alert */
if you're old enough, you'll remember that's how things were displayed back in the day. upper case white characters on a black background, or light blue on black (adm-3a, people?), or bright green on a dark green-ish background (lanparscopes, some hazeltine terms), etc. and that didn't bother us at all.
but now, like you, i can't read such colour schemes and do experience the "burned in my vision" feeling too. maybe it's to be expected when you are older?
i wouldn't say it's to give off a "1337 hax0r" vibe, but rather it's for the *retro look*, for the younger ones who never experienced it.
(well, that's my theory and i'm sticking with it)
to quote:
"It's mostly a problem of identification. The real power-brokers love to be behind the scenes. They aren't the ones who are out there, on TV, participating in campaigns, issuing press releases, etc. That's all a puppet show for public consumption, to put it simply.
The real aristocracy does everything by proxy, by funding, by corporations, and by front organizations. The single most effective thing they ever did was to replace real state-issued money with bank-issued monetized debt. That's how you grab a nation by the balls without ever using physical force."
dear lord, this reminds me so much of this brilliant mini-series called "a very british coup" ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094576/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Very_British_Coup), where... this unseen, unelected establishment decides to take out the democratically elected prime minister of england because he was not acting like he was supposed to. when one of "them" met with Harry Perkins (the labour pm in this series), he basically said "they" preferred to stay behind the curtains, out of the limelight... that they were the real power going way back... hence the subsequent speech by perkins on the telly, ending with:
"You the people must decide wether you prefer to ruled by an elected government or by people you've never heard of, people you've never voted for, people who remain quiet, behind the scenes, generaton after generation, yeah even unto the middle ages."
like '1984', this story is still very relevant.
do yourself a favour, go and watch it.
oops. mea culpa. instead of:
"some critics of the formats were saying initially that the fault lied with the format of the cd"
i should have typed:
"some critics of the format were saying initially that the fault lied with the sampling rate of the cd"
and sorry for the other typos.
"When the CD first came out, it was MUCH higher quality than a record or tape"
i will have to take exception to that.
i'm old enough to have been an adult when the cd came out -- and i can tell you, the cd was *not* much higher quality than the current mainstay, the lp.
the cd was new and shiny (literally!), but at the time, it *didn't sound right*. for example, pianos sounded metallic and tinny. stereo imaging was muddled up. and so on. it took the recording companies until 1990 or thereabouts to come out with cds that didn't sound fundamentally wrong.
some critics of the formats were saying initially that the fault lied with the format of the cd (i.e., 16bits sampled at 44.1khz) and that "they" needed to up the resolution... in the late '90s, i read in the specialized press & heard from other audiophiles that it turned out that the main culprit of the bad sound was not insufficient resolution (16/44.1), but rather excessive jitter in the digitizing/recording chain... and, apparently, the fact that the "first few batches" of cds were sampled at less than 16 bits, due to design flaws in the early equipment used to digitize existing recordings!
once they got *properly sampled* audio to work with, the cd started to sound ok.
some people will dispute the rumoured causes of early digital audio's ills, and i will welcome any correction. i'm just an "innocent bystander" who goes with what he read & heard in the audio media.
but they cannot dispute the fact that early cds sounded like crap and that it took a few years before that changed.
and btw, who are we going to e-mail at apple, now that steve is gone?
i don't think that tim cook would personally answer / act upon e-mails like sjobs did...
just turned on the telly for some background noise as i do the nightly chores and whatnot, saw this newscast talks about apple, etc. (did they announce something else today? is it "one more thing" taken up to the next level?) then noticed the "steve jobs / 1955 - 2011" in the background.
O_O
ran upstairs to the box that is turned on... crap, it's true!
whoa, was tmz right after all?
too bad sjobs died so early, most of personal computing is in a critical phase right now, apple still needs his touch at this time... very well managed, yes, but that "vision" thing, i'm not so sure...
a starting point could be MacWold's novembre 1984 issue, pages 134-141.
check also Andy Hertzfeld's website (folklore.org) for more.
oh, god, why did i read this?
you owe me a new keyboard. and a lot of screen wipes.
"Hypertext was already developed ..."
and we'd all better thank Ted Nelson for that!
(though, should we look at Vannevar Bush and the Memex, instead?)
Ken Olson and DEC.
oh ${deity}, do i miss dec...
(fuck compaq for what they did to dec & tandem)
unless i missed something, apple 2.0 is most definitively *not* the same company as apple 1.0, which was an out-of-control herd of juvenile cats (to put it mildly) that survived and succeeded (up to a point) despite itself... and despite Jobs 1.0.
the countless horror stories i've heard over the years from people that *actually worked* at apple 1.0 could be packaged and sold as management/corporate psychology textbooks, in the "this is how *not* to manage a company" section. there were some serious textbook examples of "when things go bad" scenarios...
i think it was in businessweek were it was printed that apple was "firing on all cylinders" during the Mike "Diesel" Spindler era... clearly it was not the case then.
but it is the case now. from all accounts, there is no better company for supply-and-logistics management, for minimizing overall costs of operations, etc. as of today. it is a very well *managed* company, with everyone pulling in the same direction and generally aware of reality outside the wall of cupertino hq. that's a very big difference from apple 1.0.
as for the "vision thing", on the other hand, we can't be so sure. but somehow, i have the impression that Jobs has trained & drilled apple into trying to take a few steps back and look at the bigger picture, think a few steps ahead, and so on. will they succeed by themselves? i think apple 2.0 has a much better chance of it than apple 1.0 ever had.
nit: Jobs was not "fired from his own company" -- that was Rod Canion, who was fired from Compaq. he was "just" stripped of executive power and, out of spite, he eventually quit (that's different from being fired) to found NeXT afterwards.
Jobs 1.0 was not a good manager and was in fact the worst possible leader for apple, at the time.
he needed that 11 years (1985 ---> 1996) away from apple to learn a thing of two... and become Jobs 2.0 who was (unexpectedly, at least to me) a much better company leader and a better overall strategist. apple's many successes after Jobs came back have been quite a surprise to me.
powerpc was for some time far more capable than x86.
like the 68k architecture, it eventually lost its advantages because its manufacturers could not care less about its development, not because it was "less popular" or whatever metric you're using. (well, actually, some could argue that motorola had become an out-of-control herd of juvenile cats like pre-Jobs 2.0 apple was, but that's another discussion.)
motorola, then ibm, simply lost interest. and esp. ibm, it's not that they could not have been capable of developing the g5 to meet apple's on-going needs, they just didn't care anymore.
intel "won" because it is simply the most pig-headed bunch of stubborn bastards around. thank ${deity} amd is still around and *willing* to continue the fight...
"people do care about openness".
you know, i've seen salescritters use the line "this pc has slots whilst the mac doesn't" quite a few times whilst pushing their wares on muggl^H^H^H^H^Hbuyers. ...and they'd never open their box. never.
i've seen people show me their brand new dell, hp, compaq and other assorted cloneshop boxes, telling me it had slots and all...
in fact, i can't recall how many dos/windows boxen i've seen that were designed/built with borderline specs like being incapable of holding a 2nd hard drive -- the physical space just wasn't there and the power supply was so stupendously weak (55w, really, dell?) that i still can't understand how the pc could turn on. even if they wanted to take advantage of these slots, they would not have been able to. but they rarely did.
techies, geeks and nerds do care about openness, lock-down and all, but the technically-illiterate do not.
as long as it works, as long as they can swap data with their friends, that's all they care about.
iOS devices are not your ordinary computers.
they are information APPLIANCES.
no-fuss, no-muss, just-use-it devices to consume "content".
it's like your washer-dryer, except that you can extend said washer via apps.
i don't think i'd see you rant against the "closeness" of your maytag, so why would you rant against your, say, ipod touch's?
yes, it would be nice it the ipad was more "open" and all, but really, the target audience for this device (and other iOS devices) does not care about "openess" (sp?!).
*you* or the geek crowd are not the target audience.
it's the proverbial "suzy secretary" who just wants to pick up her device and just use it ("it just works!") who's the target.
i'm not saying that all that apple has been doing with iOS is perfect; they could do things a bit differently, for sure, but again, you have to consider whom the devices are designed for. one day you'll understand what "marketing" truly means -- it's also about identifying a target market and how to design a product for said buyers.
again...
check my earlier Doug Engelbart reference. check what was done at SRI in the '60s, before PARC was even founded.
and apple did not nick anything.
you better re-check your computing history.
dude, the original apple ][ clones were just photocopies of an original design, down to the roms.
those companies (esp. the *original* chinese/taiwanese computer clones, which copied apple's hardware) were litterally rip-offs coat-tailing on apple's success.
compaq et al, on the other hand, were actual, bona-fide clean-room reverse engineering efforts and deserved to live/succeed. well, imo.
maybe Jobs was/is not a nerd like Woz is, sure he could not come up with circuit designs like Woz did, but he could recognize good ideas when he saw them.
i've been in this field (IT et al) long enough to know that not everyone can do that.
trust me on this.
not again...
NO.
Xerox PARC *DID NOT* "do" the original GUI environment. Doug Engelbart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart) did it at SRI.
Xerox PARC *DID NOT* invent the mouse. Engelbart did it also at SRI.
People overestimate PARC's importance, downright ignore Engelbart and underestimate Apple's contributions (when they don't say that Jobs & co. "stole" from Xerox)... this cheeses me off royally. /rant
yeah, that's what i ended up thinking, that all the good ones are already taken.
(maybe it depends on the service you're on -- do the "freebies" attract the wrong crowd?)
there's a lot of angry women out there: divorced, ex-battered wife, etc. it's funny that they demand that *you* have dealt with your past, that you have gotten over your ex (or whatever), but _them_, on the other hand...
and i agree that waiting for the perfect one won't work... you have to take a chance, as long as there are enough common points or good points to bootstrap the process, who knows where it's going to lead?
though i wonder: should one consider looking "out of town" or is it too risky?
and, no, i'm not talking about getting a mail-order bride from china or russia... (one poor sap at the office did it and all the worse clichés happened to him. ouch)
yes, i connected with them.
out of quite a few dates from which i bailed out quickly, i ended up in two rather unsuccessful relationship -- quite a learning experience.
one turned out to be a very undesirable human being, someone i could not trust at all, who would have gotten me in trouble through her sheer stupidity and irresponsibility: financially, legally and even worse.
the other is a wingnut who's still psychologically stuck in her native country, a few decades ago. acquaintances from the same country all say "why is she doing x, she's not in ${native country} anymore, and even then, we don't do this anymore back home". she's got such a weird idea of what a husband should be that she's never been in any true relationship. at every level. and when she decides you're not a perfect suitor for her, she turns beyond nasty on you. that one hurt.
i met my wife at work (previous workplace), and i was not even looking for a girlfriend.
it all started with a bad hair joke and went downhill from there -- a few weeks after that, i was moving in with her... and i was not even supposed to be staying in that city for more than a few months! talk about "out of town" work that takes an unexpected turn...
maybe i should have qualified my rant.
i'm in my 40s... er, late 40s (damn).
i've tried these dating sites between 2003 and 2007.
my observations about the women on these dating sites are more about the females in their 40s, and not about young chicks in their 20s.
maybe only the bad women end up on these dating sites when they are in their 40s... or their "30s" (yeah, right).
again, it's from my own experience and that of a few other guys at the office.
p.s.: not to be petty Taco, but the new slashdot still sucks. even logged in we can't have the "old skool" /. anymore! arrgh!
the biggest problem with PofF (and all the other dating sites i've been on), is that people... huh, women lie.
big time.
(i'm writing this from a guy's perspective. i'm sure the reverse can be quite true...)
they lie about their age -- i've lost count of the "38yo" females who'se personal picture clearly show they're 48-50yo. and fat (no, really)
they lie about their financial status -- "financially independant" more often than not means "i need a sugar daddy with deep pockets".
they lie about their job status -- "self employed" / "entrepreneur" / etc. 99.99% of the time mean "i can't keep a job even if my life depended on it".
they lie about what they want -- "i've really looking for the love of my life" 9x% of the time mean "i'm looking for a sucker i can fleece".
they lie about their hobbies (if they have any) -- for example, "cycling" truly means "i have this wal-mart bike i've found in my neighbour's trash, that i use to go around the block... every blue moon". and don't get me started about "hiking", "camping" and/or anything remotely outdoorsy. (i never thought saying i'm a scuba diver could be taken in the same way as if i said i was a necrophiliac pedophile. whoa)
and then there's the laundry list of requirements you have to meet. as the parties involved get older, the list gets more and more insane. so, gents, even you are in your 40s, you have to be in absolutely perfect shape, absolutely no medical issues, you have to be wealthy, no baggage, etc. and, preferably, you must not be divorced, widowed, whatever. it's like if they want a 27yo rich athletic subservient virgin... whilst, of course, they can be unemployed and going nowhere fast, fat, looking like beaten hag, etc. unless they're the insane cosmetic surgery addicted athlete wannabe who'se the mahogany row witch of BigCorp inc.
are dating sites a good thing, should geeks look to them to find "the one"?
i don't know. theoretically, it sure beats the bar scene, but my experience and that of other guys at the office who let it slip they tried those sites, is not positive.
maybe Clifford Stoll is right, maybe we do need to turn the tube off and "get out there".
i know that how i met my late wife, "out there"...
..."and unlike LP's (which are subject to all kinds of mechanical issues like physical wear, wow and flutter, turntable rumble and needle mistracking)"...
urgh. yes, lps can be subject to the above, but so does the cd. "wow and flutter" have an equivalent in the digital domain, it's called jitter.
physical wear is not the sole domain of the lp, cds can get scratched too *and* can suffer from "cd rot" (yes, still today).
and a laser can mis-track / mis-read a cd's pits (they don't have grooves, they have pits, representing ones and zeros). why do you think there is so much error-correction technology on music cds?
quite a few time, after hearing someone talk trash about vinyl and praise cds as "perfect", i have dragged them to my listening room, plunked them in my chair and cued up an lp copy of an album they liked (this, in the pre-mp3 days, when i was not solo)... my wife, not an audiophile herself, would always enjoy seeing them pick up their jaw off the ground after _hearing_ how good vinyl can be. quite a few refused to believe at first that it was an old 33rpm that would be playing, saying i was playing a cd and faking the "lp thing". they had to eat crow when i pointed out that the cd transport was turned off... and even more when they noticed that some good-sounding lp was an obviously "not new" one.
and yes, lps can still sound damn good after a few years. that lp wear and tear thing has been greatly exaggerated, especially by a music industry that was pushing cds... to make you buy the white album yet again. just know how to handle your vinyl albums and stop buying your gear at radio shack.
i will readily admit that analogue playback requires more work, that you need to take more care of your vinyls compared to cds, that it can require relatively expensive gear to make vinyl sound blow-your-socks-off-i-can't-believe-it's-not-a-cd good; but to say that vinyl is inherently worse than compact discs, i will have to strongly disagree.
(of course, if an lp is made from the same digital master recordings as a cd, then it's no better than said cd. i might be a fan of analogue playback, but i'm not a blind fanboi either.)
you clearly have drunk too much of the "cd forever!" kool-aid.
vinyl wear and tear has been greatly exaggerated.
unless you use a rusty nail on k-tel 33s (those were so cheaply made, ugh...), of course.
good vinyl, read on a good, properly maintained turntable will last a *very very long* time.
on the other hand, ever heard of "cd rot"? it happens, i did have to replace quite a few cds that became unreadable, over the years.