But you also have to consider the occasional eBay users here. I was lucky enough to get an XBox 360. (At 2:30pm!) on the release day. I took it home, saw what they were going for on eBay, and decided to sell it. Now, I have exactly 6 positive feedback and those were all as a buyer. In the end, I noticed that my auction 1) didn't meet my reserve price and 2) had far fewer bids than many other similar auctions. I'm a perfectly honest and legitimate seller, but it seemed to me that a lot of people were probably hesitant to buy from me since I had so little feedback. I ended up listing the auction again under a friend's username who had ~2000 positive feedback.
I agree that the feedback system is flawed, but I was hoping that the fact that I was "eBay verified" would help with the lack of feedback in my case. I really don't know what more eBay can do for their customers other than "verify" them.
I think I might just get together with a large group of my friends and start "selling" stuff to each other so we can increase our feedback ratings.
We can dream, can't we? But the reality is that this is Microsoft. What you'll get will be DRM enabled,.wma format, crappy bitrate, lossy compression files that you'll only be able to play in Windows Media Player 10 and it's derivative and future versions.
I didn't RTFA, but I'm sure they'll release a specialized "MSTV" player or some junk with a snazzy interface that will just use Windows Media Player on the back end. You'll only be able to use that piece of software to upload to your.wma compatible player. They'll make it easy for you to buy songs and even easier for you to buy your "MSTV" mobile audio device for added profit.
Eventually - maybe 6 months from now or maybe a year from now - they'll follow along in Apple's footsteps and release music videos for sale on the service. However, this is MTV we're talking about, so the release of music videos on the service will be followed shortly by downloadable versions of all of MTV's popular shows. They'll make it very easy for you to download the latest Real World and Pimp My Ride programs to your "MSTV" Portable Windows Media Player. Eventually they'll follow up the release of MTV programs with other programs produced and/or owned by Viacom. This means Nickalodean, Comedy Central, and yes, even CBS.
In the end, the service will win becuase Microsoft is the 800 lb. technology gorilla, and a partnership with MTV means gaining the mind share of the young & pre-teen demographic -- a demographic that is most likely very important to the online content distribution industry. This is a partnership that could very well challenge the dominance of Apple's iTMS in the market.
I would like to say that I welcome our new digital content delivery overlords, but I don't. A merger like this one will mean that we'll probably have even less choice. I'm 95% certain that Urge (urge to what? choke myself?) will offer downloads and a variable price scheme carefully computed to maximize profit, especially in light of the surprising amount of purchasing power weilded by MTV's chosen demographic. And with the service "getting 'em while their young" we'll have a whole new generation of consumers who won't know anything about the advantages of.mp3, FLAC, and any other number of technologies which are far, far superior to the festering pile of shit that is.wma. They weild the marketing power and the cash reserves to flood the market with their cheap media players, which although not as cleverly designed as the iPod, will be cheap enough to entice consumers to purchase a portable Portable MSTV Windows Media Player, and I'm sure Urge won't work with anything else.
For the record, I predicted this would happen not too long after iTunes was released. It's simply natural. I'd like to say that I'm proud to have predicted such an unholy partnership between two large corporate giants, but I'm not.
Perhaps I mangled the words. Computer Science has indeed been accredited for quite some time, where as Computer Engineering just received its accreditation sometime within the last year or 2. This was retroactive to a few years prior to the actual accreditation as well. I can't say how far back the retroaction goes, but I do know that the Computer Engineers I graduated with in '03 are covered.
95 was a long time ago. Was Dr. Benard as much of a fixture then as he was when I graduated? He was by far the best instructor in the department.
Actually the other engineering disciplines, the ones that are left, probably will not get cut. Biomedical Engineering, and Chemical Engineering integrate much better with the "traditional" sciences (Chemistry, Biology, etc.) than do the rest of the engineering programs. Tulane will just have to hire a professor to teach the few odd-ball classes such as Circuits I & II. Traditionally only engineering students took these classes since they were requirements and most non-engineering students learned all they needed to know about circuits in Physics. They state the degree requirements will remain the same so this professor will probably also be the CS101 (C programming class) that is also a pre-req for all engineering majors. Or they will just cut that requirement in the future. Suffice it to say that Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering will integrate much more neatly into the future Science and Engineering school.
Atlanta. I've been here since a few weeks after the hurricane, and I've yet to find a good way to decipher this mess. Partly because the county I live in has it's own TA seperate from the Metro Atlanta RTA (MARTA). I just give up and drive myself everywhere.
Hey, if you do get that refund can you let me know? I, uh, could really use that extra $120,000 after Katrina wiped out my finances...
The reality of it is that this doesn't necessarily mean that our degrees are worthless. Maybe I'm just not seeing things clearly, but many of my friends have been saying the same thing. It's not like we didn't have the professors there when we did actually get our degrees. The facts are that we do have degrees from accredited programs (even Computer Science finally got accredited last year or the year before, retroactive for several years before the accreditation) and the fact that the programs are being eliminated doesn't change a thing.
Beleive me, I am angry too and really don't see myself donating money to the school now, but I do still have a degree. It was earned under full professors in an accredited program at a large private university. Those are the facts, and they will not change, even if Tulane deicdes to shut its doors entirely.
Still, if you do manage to get a refund, let me know since I that money would be really nice right about now. Right now, I would suggest the course of action that I recommended to all of my friends last night -- advice which I took myself: drink. Or maybe I was just been living in New Orleans for too long.
You are entirely correct in your assertion that there may not be any other options in New Orleans. If we don't want to go with BellSouth, our only other choice in the city for a "landline" is VOIP. That means having to spend the money on a cable modem subscription from Cox cable, and I hate to say it, but my service wasn't that great when I was last down there to move my furniture away. Personally, I already didn't like BS due to the horrible service we received from them on our Telecom equipment at work.
I haven't really done much programming since college and none of those programs have been multithreaded, so maybe I don't have the right background to comment. But, all I can say is wow. This is crazy compared to the Sparc processors that I learned assembly on. As somebody pointed out, not only do these processors have multiple cores, but apparently each one has 128 registers?! Processor design has come a long way.
That said, I see a lot of comments reflecting on how hard it will be for programmers to adjust to programming on this architecture. While I agree that there may be some learning that will have to take place, shouldn't most of the optimization take place on the compiler level? I mean, that's partly the point of languages such as C/C++: write a minimum ammount of architecture specific code and let the compiler do the rest.
Anyway, I find this new architecture very impressive and can't wait to see devices take advantage of this hardware.
I supposedly have an IQ of 160 as of about 2 years ago. I don't know if I believe that, though, and I never put much stock in IQ tests anyway. That said, I do kind of see where you're coming from. I was bored out of my mind all through high school. I was actually given poor marks for a while in my trig class becuase I didn't show any work. It wasn't until I stopped sleeping in class enough to solve the problems on the board without writing anthing down that the teacher realized that I didn't need to show work and started grading my work correctly.
Not to mention, it wasn't cool to be smart.
But, I never blamed my lack of learning skills and studying skills on anybody except for myself. When I went to college and made a C in Calculus 3, I knew that a large portion of the blame rested on me, my lack of studying skills, and my lack of desire to learn the material. It was the first class that I had in college that didn't fall into the "I'm really interested so it's worth putting for the effort" category or the "I learned this in high school so I'm going to sleep in class" category, and I shamefully admit that it kicked my ***.
The point I'm attempting to make, however, (and I fear that I'm doing a really poor job of it as it is 3 AM my time and I am sick) is that we can't just blame the system. The system has its faults, but it has its benefits as well. I lived near a fellow college class mate to whom I gave the occasional ride to and from home during the holidays and breaks. This guy went to one of the hyper elite math and science schools in my state... and he had horrible social skills. I attempted to assimilate him into my group of friends at college, but he really wasn't very adept at interacting with people on a non-academic level, and we gave up on him. I can only get so much enjoyment out of discussing the political ramifications of the nuclear bomb (or some such concept) until I have to shut the mind of, have a few beers and play some pool or something. I played football in high school, and was good at it. I got invited to parties, and this meant that I learned those oh so valuable social interaction skills. (The fact that I now don't talk to 99% of those old football buddies is beside the point.)
Being able to easily interact with people on lower levels is an integral part to making it through life - especially in the post college work environment where, more often than not, most of us end up working with people who have a much lower IQ than we do. This ability is necessary just to be able to play the office politics to get ahead.
Don't blame the system for your faults. It's flawed, but it does have hidden benefits if you know how to take advantage of them.
That said, I'm still a slacker because now that I'm out in the work environment I'm bored out of my mind again. My job is completely unchallenging and so far my boss has been less than accomidating when I express a desier to learn a new concept. (I think he feels threatened by me, but how do you tell him that you don't want to take his crummy job, but simply wish to find another position in the company that will challenge me?) I've been trying to take it upon myself to learn new concepts on my own time, but that's hard to balance along with an active social life. (A man's got needs.) I am doing it - my mind is practically screaming out to learn something new these days - but there's a delicate balance in there somewhere that I have yet to find.
Well, when you hit the Red Alert button everybody drops what they're doing for one. However, usually during a red alert I seem to end up with about 20 or more guys just hanging out around the entrance to my armory. Maybe under an extended Red Alert they would go back to their normal tasks, but it doesn't appear so initially.
Actually, the last time I went to CompUSA to buy an ATA cable, all they had in stock were the rounded cables. My friend with me couldn't understand why I was upset that I couldn't get a standard cable instead of the "better" rounded cable.
The Audi TT's not that popular where I live. But then, it's the American south where domestics are still regarded very highly. I couldn't find an article about the exact study that I read, but here is another article that talks briefly about the lift phenomena of the two cars:
So it was interesting to since find that on the recently released 1.8 Turbo New Beetle, an auto-deploying lip spoiler is placed at the top of the rear window. It pops up at 150 km/h - obviously the generated lift was so bad that Volkswagen was concerned that autobahners were going to "do an Audi TT" at high speed. [The Audi TT developed so much rear lift that people were crashing them on sweeping high-speed corners. Even a former rally champion died in such a crash. Audi recalled all cars, fitting a rear spoiler and also making suspension mods.]
Also, back in their time, these devices ran on double a's and triple a's and couldn't be recharged easily. They failed because of the 4-6 hour life, yes, but because not everyone had a battery recharger, and a quick means to recharge them was not available.
Not entirely correct. See the videos of the Mercedes CLK Le Mans cars from a few years back. One "took off" during practice. A second "took off" during the race and was caught on film. The car had a serious aerodynamic flaw that allowed it to briefly generate enough lift under certain situations that the car would take off.
Also, see the studies into the aerodynames of the Audi TT and (I believe) the New Beetle. There's a reason for the addition of the spoiler on later model year TTs. While neither car would take off per se, a study showed that both could generate enough lift to become highly unstable and/or flip at high rates of speed. I wish I could remember in which issue of Road & Track I read about this study, but it was several years ago, and I haven't the time to search for it on the web.
Also, back in their time, these devices ran on double a's and triple a's and couldn't be recharged easily. They failed because of the 4-6 hour life, yes, but because not everyone had a battery recharger, and a quick means to recharge them was not available.
Not to mention that many of the rechargable batteries at that time has significantly less life than regular batteries. My parents bought the Rayovac Renewal line of batteries for my portable game systems. I probably only got about 2 hours on my Game Gear with a freshly charged set of batteries. My Nomad (a portable Sega Genesis for those who don't know) was lucky to get an hour with those batteries. It was pretty much relegated to "within range of an outlet" duty. But at least it used the same adapter as my Genesis!
So, just like when the TDMA markets were rolling out some years ago, it took a couple years to expand them to remote areas. I suspect fairly uniform GSM coverage throughout remote areas in the near future. Perhaps if Cingular provides better service and lower rates, they might win myself and many others back.
This is exactly why I switched from Cingular to, of all people, Sprint. I had been a Cingular customer for over 2 years and contractless for well over a year. I was constantly over my minutes, so I needed a new plan, and my phone was starting to flake out, so I needed one of those too. I was surprised at their lack of netogiating to keep me as a customer, considering I always paid my bills on time (except for the one I never got), including a couple of $150+ bills. They of couse wanted to sell me a GSM phone, as well as try to force me to sign a new contract since I had to switch my billing plan. When I expressed my concern over the lack of GSM in rural areas they tried to sell me a GAIT plan for even more money. I then told them that they were out of their mind if they thought that 1) I was going to pay even more money to have the same level of service I already had 2) I was going to sign a new contract to do this and 3) their GAIT phones sucked. I was already mad about the month where I didn't get my bill and they were unwilling to drop the service charge, but it was only $1.50 so I didn't argue it too much.
So, I switched to Sprint where I get a discount through work. For less than twice my monthly Cingular bill I now get twice as many minutes, 7:00 PM nights and weekends, no roaming anywhere in the nation (as long as less than half my minutes are roaming minutes), and PCS Vision. Oh, and I have the added ability to actually make and receive calls in my office or in the server room now. That's right. I'm getting better service with Sprint. That's not to say that Sprint doesn't have their issues. Sometimes the handoffs in rural areas don't occur correclty causing dropped calls. Doubly so when I'm on roam, but that's to be expected. Also, the service at my parents' house is marginal, but that's not a huge issue since I can always just force roam and get a great signal, probably from the Cingular tower less than a mile from the house. The only real beef I have is that sometimes the signal in my apartment is sketchy, mostly in the hallway next to the washer, dryer, and AC unit, so it can probably be attributed to too much RF interference. Oh, and I have had some people tell me that sometimes when they call me the phone just rings and rings and rings and then goes to voicemail, when my phone never got the call at all. But, all the providers have their issues. It's just that, now I feel like I'm actually getting what I pay for.
Heh. My other car is a 1986 Toyota Corolla GTS. I've had the car for about a year and a half now, but haven't gotten much done to it due to money issues and graduating from college. Now that I'm ready to spend money on it, I thought that parts might be cheaper due to the popularity of drifting and the corolla's status in drifting, but that's not so. It's still not too easy to find parts for the car.
And the worst part is that now I look like I've jumped on the bandwagon by buying one.
I guess it's all relative. Mine is an '03 and it does handle much better than I expected when I bought it. However, the ride is still softer than I would generally like. (Much stiffer than the '95 Cutlass I drove last, but...) I think with some better tires and perhaps a shock upgrade, and maybe even a stiffer rear sway bar, the car would handle even better. The spring rate seems high enough for a car I want to drive regularly. But, that's possibly the good part about driving a Civic. The rice scene has caused an explosion in the aftermarket parts arena. If I don't like something about my car, chances are somebody makes a part to replace the stock part with something I do like.
I apologize. My callous, dry sense of humor can sometimes come off wrong, and I meant no offense. However, I still stand by my assertion that your words could be interpreted that way.
Anyway... They are heavy, so they have a longer stopping distance. They are topheavy, so they are more likely to roll over, and their weight and shape are likely to keep them rolling for extended periods of time (though admittedly minivans share that particular fault.)
That is precisely why I don't enjoy driving them. Basically, they handle and drive like crap, even compared to the little Honda econobox I drive now. My Civic may not be a sports car, but I can sure as heck out handle, and probably out break most SUVs out there. (Maybe the Porsche Cayenne could be an exception though. I haven't looked at the test data for it in a while.) Anyway, the point I was making was that, while I personally share a similar distaste for SUVs, I can see where the extra features could outweigh the vehicle's shortcomings to some people. And, admittedly, I do sometimes miss the ability to hop curbs and drive over bumpstops in parking lots at will.
Oh god. I could just see the disaster that would cause now. I brake deep into a corner, clutch in, swing the heel around to blip the throttle, and... the ignition is cut instead of matching the engine to the tranny. I then proceed to release the clutch, purely on instict, but the rear end locks up and I go spinning of the track. Maybe it would work better if you have to hold the brake, the horn, and the headlight swtich...
Also note that buying a vehicle because it looks cool is ok - except that big heavy SUVs are impossible to see over, under, through, or around, damage the roads, and consume more resources.
So, what you're basically saying is that people shouldn't drive SUVs becuase you don't think they look cool. Did you ever think that maybe people who buy SUVs might not have an immediate need for some of the extra features over a van, but decided to go ahead with the SUV becuase they would like the convenience of the extra features. It's actually a lot like my grandfather's cell phone. He doesn't actually need one, but it sure is convenient when his car breaks down on the side of the road.
And for the record, it's pretty easy to see over, under, through, or around an SUV if you're driving one yourself. (Except for those jackasses with illegal tint.) Anyway, I don't drive an SUV any more, but when I did, I enjoyed the extra ground clearance the vehicle provided. Not to mention the vehicle just felt more robust than many minivans due to its stiffer ladder frame construction as opposed to the unibody construction that many minivans use. Lastly, the vehicle was rear wheel drive, a big plus in mine and many people's books.
Although, I do want to go on record as saying that any "SUV" based on a car platform, with unibody construction, and featuring front wheel drive, isn't really an SUV. It's just a minivan masquerading as one, partly to be cool, and possibly partly because trucks/SUVs don't have to abide by the same fuel consumption regulations as cars. (To be fair, I'm not sure if minivans are classified as cars or trucks by the government, so they may also have to comply to the less strict truck regulations.)
What we (me at least) are annoyed about is that the vast majority of the folks who do the modding think that somehow by putting a rear spoiler on a front wheel drive car, adding a 6 billion watt stereo system, thin wheels, a tweaked engine chip and metallic paint makes them think that now they can go out and drive like the idiots we know them to be.
Seriously man. You've got a point here. My Civic is completely stock and, but I still go out and drive like an idiot all the damn time. You don't need GT spoilers and a coffee can exhaust to do that. When will these kids learn that you can drive like an idiot in a stock car. Hell, they could even do it in their mom's minivan if they wanted!
You aren't kidding when you say that UltraVNC has a few stability issues. I was evaluating UltraVNC for a bit at work. I had the server installed on my PC and the client installed on a few other PCs that I visit somewhat regularly, but the majority of our PCs have RealVNC viewer on them. All too often I ran into an issue where sending Ctrl+Alt+Del from the Real VNC viewer to the UltraVNC server would cause my computer to restart. I never had this issue from the UltraVNC viewers, but I only had that on a few computers. Eventually, I went back to RealVNC and decided that UltraVNC was too unstable to invest the necessary time to roll it out to the rest of the PCs.
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But you also have to consider the occasional eBay users here. I was lucky enough to get an XBox 360. (At 2:30pm!) on the release day. I took it home, saw what they were going for on eBay, and decided to sell it. Now, I have exactly 6 positive feedback and those were all as a buyer. In the end, I noticed that my auction 1) didn't meet my reserve price and 2) had far fewer bids than many other similar auctions. I'm a perfectly honest and legitimate seller, but it seemed to me that a lot of people were probably hesitant to buy from me since I had so little feedback. I ended up listing the auction again under a friend's username who had ~2000 positive feedback.
I agree that the feedback system is flawed, but I was hoping that the fact that I was "eBay verified" would help with the lack of feedback in my case. I really don't know what more eBay can do for their customers other than "verify" them.
I think I might just get together with a large group of my friends and start "selling" stuff to each other so we can increase our feedback ratings.
We can dream, can't we? But the reality is that this is Microsoft. What you'll get will be DRM enabled, .wma format, crappy bitrate, lossy compression files that you'll only be able to play in Windows Media Player 10 and it's derivative and future versions.
.wma compatible player. They'll make it easy for you to buy songs and even easier for you to buy your "MSTV" mobile audio device for added profit.
.mp3, FLAC, and any other number of technologies which are far, far superior to the festering pile of shit that is .wma. They weild the marketing power and the cash reserves to flood the market with their cheap media players, which although not as cleverly designed as the iPod, will be cheap enough to entice consumers to purchase a portable Portable MSTV Windows Media Player, and I'm sure Urge won't work with anything else.
I didn't RTFA, but I'm sure they'll release a specialized "MSTV" player or some junk with a snazzy interface that will just use Windows Media Player on the back end. You'll only be able to use that piece of software to upload to your
Eventually - maybe 6 months from now or maybe a year from now - they'll follow along in Apple's footsteps and release music videos for sale on the service. However, this is MTV we're talking about, so the release of music videos on the service will be followed shortly by downloadable versions of all of MTV's popular shows. They'll make it very easy for you to download the latest Real World and Pimp My Ride programs to your "MSTV" Portable Windows Media Player. Eventually they'll follow up the release of MTV programs with other programs produced and/or owned by Viacom. This means Nickalodean, Comedy Central, and yes, even CBS.
In the end, the service will win becuase Microsoft is the 800 lb. technology gorilla, and a partnership with MTV means gaining the mind share of the young & pre-teen demographic -- a demographic that is most likely very important to the online content distribution industry. This is a partnership that could very well challenge the dominance of Apple's iTMS in the market.
I would like to say that I welcome our new digital content delivery overlords, but I don't. A merger like this one will mean that we'll probably have even less choice. I'm 95% certain that Urge (urge to what? choke myself?) will offer downloads and a variable price scheme carefully computed to maximize profit, especially in light of the surprising amount of purchasing power weilded by MTV's chosen demographic. And with the service "getting 'em while their young" we'll have a whole new generation of consumers who won't know anything about the advantages of
For the record, I predicted this would happen not too long after iTunes was released. It's simply natural. I'd like to say that I'm proud to have predicted such an unholy partnership between two large corporate giants, but I'm not.
You can just call me Cassandra from now on.
Well, you know what they say about Murphy's law...
(see sig.)
Perhaps I mangled the words. Computer Science has indeed been accredited for quite some time, where as Computer Engineering just received its accreditation sometime within the last year or 2. This was retroactive to a few years prior to the actual accreditation as well. I can't say how far back the retroaction goes, but I do know that the Computer Engineers I graduated with in '03 are covered.
95 was a long time ago. Was Dr. Benard as much of a fixture then as he was when I graduated? He was by far the best instructor in the department.
The company made a horrendous mistake and yet, there you see two executives bowing apologetically and taking responsibility on the day it happened .
I have to wonder how a U.S. bank would have handled such a mistake?
They would have blamed it on terrorists.
Actually the other engineering disciplines, the ones that are left, probably will not get cut. Biomedical Engineering, and Chemical Engineering integrate much better with the "traditional" sciences (Chemistry, Biology, etc.) than do the rest of the engineering programs. Tulane will just have to hire a professor to teach the few odd-ball classes such as Circuits I & II. Traditionally only engineering students took these classes since they were requirements and most non-engineering students learned all they needed to know about circuits in Physics. They state the degree requirements will remain the same so this professor will probably also be the CS101 (C programming class) that is also a pre-req for all engineering majors. Or they will just cut that requirement in the future. Suffice it to say that Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering will integrate much more neatly into the future Science and Engineering school.
Atlanta. I've been here since a few weeks after the hurricane, and I've yet to find a good way to decipher this mess. Partly because the county I live in has it's own TA seperate from the Metro Atlanta RTA (MARTA). I just give up and drive myself everywhere.
The reality of it is that this doesn't necessarily mean that our degrees are worthless. Maybe I'm just not seeing things clearly, but many of my friends have been saying the same thing. It's not like we didn't have the professors there when we did actually get our degrees. The facts are that we do have degrees from accredited programs (even Computer Science finally got accredited last year or the year before, retroactive for several years before the accreditation) and the fact that the programs are being eliminated doesn't change a thing.
Beleive me, I am angry too and really don't see myself donating money to the school now, but I do still have a degree. It was earned under full professors in an accredited program at a large private university. Those are the facts, and they will not change, even if Tulane deicdes to shut its doors entirely.
Still, if you do manage to get a refund, let me know since I that money would be really nice right about now. Right now, I would suggest the course of action that I recommended to all of my friends last night -- advice which I took myself: drink. Or maybe I was just been living in New Orleans for too long.
--- A (somewhat less) proud 2003 CS Alumni
You are entirely correct in your assertion that there may not be any other options in New Orleans. If we don't want to go with BellSouth, our only other choice in the city for a "landline" is VOIP. That means having to spend the money on a cable modem subscription from Cox cable, and I hate to say it, but my service wasn't that great when I was last down there to move my furniture away. Personally, I already didn't like BS due to the horrible service we received from them on our Telecom equipment at work.
I'm lost, but curious. What's the movie?
I haven't really done much programming since college and none of those programs have been multithreaded, so maybe I don't have the right background to comment. But, all I can say is wow. This is crazy compared to the Sparc processors that I learned assembly on. As somebody pointed out, not only do these processors have multiple cores, but apparently each one has 128 registers?! Processor design has come a long way.
That said, I see a lot of comments reflecting on how hard it will be for programmers to adjust to programming on this architecture. While I agree that there may be some learning that will have to take place, shouldn't most of the optimization take place on the compiler level? I mean, that's partly the point of languages such as C/C++: write a minimum ammount of architecture specific code and let the compiler do the rest.
Anyway, I find this new architecture very impressive and can't wait to see devices take advantage of this hardware.
I supposedly have an IQ of 160 as of about 2 years ago. I don't know if I believe that, though, and I never put much stock in IQ tests anyway. That said, I do kind of see where you're coming from. I was bored out of my mind all through high school. I was actually given poor marks for a while in my trig class becuase I didn't show any work. It wasn't until I stopped sleeping in class enough to solve the problems on the board without writing anthing down that the teacher realized that I didn't need to show work and started grading my work correctly.
Not to mention, it wasn't cool to be smart.
But, I never blamed my lack of learning skills and studying skills on anybody except for myself. When I went to college and made a C in Calculus 3, I knew that a large portion of the blame rested on me, my lack of studying skills, and my lack of desire to learn the material. It was the first class that I had in college that didn't fall into the "I'm really interested so it's worth putting for the effort" category or the "I learned this in high school so I'm going to sleep in class" category, and I shamefully admit that it kicked my ***.
The point I'm attempting to make, however, (and I fear that I'm doing a really poor job of it as it is 3 AM my time and I am sick) is that we can't just blame the system. The system has its faults, but it has its benefits as well. I lived near a fellow college class mate to whom I gave the occasional ride to and from home during the holidays and breaks. This guy went to one of the hyper elite math and science schools in my state... and he had horrible social skills. I attempted to assimilate him into my group of friends at college, but he really wasn't very adept at interacting with people on a non-academic level, and we gave up on him. I can only get so much enjoyment out of discussing the political ramifications of the nuclear bomb (or some such concept) until I have to shut the mind of, have a few beers and play some pool or something. I played football in high school, and was good at it. I got invited to parties, and this meant that I learned those oh so valuable social interaction skills. (The fact that I now don't talk to 99% of those old football buddies is beside the point.)
Being able to easily interact with people on lower levels is an integral part to making it through life - especially in the post college work environment where, more often than not, most of us end up working with people who have a much lower IQ than we do. This ability is necessary just to be able to play the office politics to get ahead.
Don't blame the system for your faults. It's flawed, but it does have hidden benefits if you know how to take advantage of them.
That said, I'm still a slacker because now that I'm out in the work environment I'm bored out of my mind again. My job is completely unchallenging and so far my boss has been less than accomidating when I express a desier to learn a new concept. (I think he feels threatened by me, but how do you tell him that you don't want to take his crummy job, but simply wish to find another position in the company that will challenge me?) I've been trying to take it upon myself to learn new concepts on my own time, but that's hard to balance along with an active social life. (A man's got needs.) I am doing it - my mind is practically screaming out to learn something new these days - but there's a delicate balance in there somewhere that I have yet to find.
Well, when you hit the Red Alert button everybody drops what they're doing for one. However, usually during a red alert I seem to end up with about 20 or more guys just hanging out around the entrance to my armory. Maybe under an extended Red Alert they would go back to their normal tasks, but it doesn't appear so initially.
Actually, the last time I went to CompUSA to buy an ATA cable, all they had in stock were the rounded cables. My friend with me couldn't understand why I was upset that I couldn't get a standard cable instead of the "better" rounded cable.
The Audi TT's not that popular where I live. But then, it's the American south where domestics are still regarded very highly. I couldn't find an article about the exact study that I read, but here is another article that talks briefly about the lift phenomena of the two cars:
So it was interesting to since find that on the recently released 1.8 Turbo New Beetle, an auto-deploying lip spoiler is placed at the top of the rear window. It pops up at 150 km/h - obviously the generated lift was so bad that Volkswagen was concerned that autobahners were going to "do an Audi TT" at high speed. [The Audi TT developed so much rear lift that people were crashing them on sweeping high-speed corners. Even a former rally champion died in such a crash. Audi recalled all cars, fitting a rear spoiler and also making suspension mods.]
http://www.autospeed.com/cms/A_1065/article.html (Google cache for highlighting)
Also, back in their time, these devices ran on double a's and triple a's and couldn't be recharged easily. They failed because of the 4-6 hour life, yes, but because not everyone had a battery recharger, and a quick means to recharge them was not available.
Not entirely correct. See the videos of the Mercedes CLK Le Mans cars from a few years back. One "took off" during practice. A second "took off" during the race and was caught on film. The car had a serious aerodynamic flaw that allowed it to briefly generate enough lift under certain situations that the car would take off.
Also, see the studies into the aerodynames of the Audi TT and (I believe) the New Beetle. There's a reason for the addition of the spoiler on later model year TTs. While neither car would take off per se, a study showed that both could generate enough lift to become highly unstable and/or flip at high rates of speed. I wish I could remember in which issue of Road & Track I read about this study, but it was several years ago, and I haven't the time to search for it on the web.
Also, back in their time, these devices ran on double a's and triple a's and couldn't be recharged easily. They failed because of the 4-6 hour life, yes, but because not everyone had a battery recharger, and a quick means to recharge them was not available.
Not to mention that many of the rechargable batteries at that time has significantly less life than regular batteries. My parents bought the Rayovac Renewal line of batteries for my portable game systems. I probably only got about 2 hours on my Game Gear with a freshly charged set of batteries. My Nomad (a portable Sega Genesis for those who don't know) was lucky to get an hour with those batteries. It was pretty much relegated to "within range of an outlet" duty. But at least it used the same adapter as my Genesis!
So, just like when the TDMA markets were rolling out some years ago, it took a couple years to expand them to remote areas. I suspect fairly uniform GSM coverage throughout remote areas in the near future. Perhaps if Cingular provides better service and lower rates, they might win myself and many others back.
This is exactly why I switched from Cingular to, of all people, Sprint. I had been a Cingular customer for over 2 years and contractless for well over a year. I was constantly over my minutes, so I needed a new plan, and my phone was starting to flake out, so I needed one of those too. I was surprised at their lack of netogiating to keep me as a customer, considering I always paid my bills on time (except for the one I never got), including a couple of $150+ bills. They of couse wanted to sell me a GSM phone, as well as try to force me to sign a new contract since I had to switch my billing plan. When I expressed my concern over the lack of GSM in rural areas they tried to sell me a GAIT plan for even more money. I then told them that they were out of their mind if they thought that 1) I was going to pay even more money to have the same level of service I already had 2) I was going to sign a new contract to do this and 3) their GAIT phones sucked. I was already mad about the month where I didn't get my bill and they were unwilling to drop the service charge, but it was only $1.50 so I didn't argue it too much.
So, I switched to Sprint where I get a discount through work. For less than twice my monthly Cingular bill I now get twice as many minutes, 7:00 PM nights and weekends, no roaming anywhere in the nation (as long as less than half my minutes are roaming minutes), and PCS Vision. Oh, and I have the added ability to actually make and receive calls in my office or in the server room now. That's right. I'm getting better service with Sprint. That's not to say that Sprint doesn't have their issues. Sometimes the handoffs in rural areas don't occur correclty causing dropped calls. Doubly so when I'm on roam, but that's to be expected. Also, the service at my parents' house is marginal, but that's not a huge issue since I can always just force roam and get a great signal, probably from the Cingular tower less than a mile from the house. The only real beef I have is that sometimes the signal in my apartment is sketchy, mostly in the hallway next to the washer, dryer, and AC unit, so it can probably be attributed to too much RF interference. Oh, and I have had some people tell me that sometimes when they call me the phone just rings and rings and rings and then goes to voicemail, when my phone never got the call at all. But, all the providers have their issues. It's just that, now I feel like I'm actually getting what I pay for.
Heh. My other car is a 1986 Toyota Corolla GTS. I've had the car for about a year and a half now, but haven't gotten much done to it due to money issues and graduating from college. Now that I'm ready to spend money on it, I thought that parts might be cheaper due to the popularity of drifting and the corolla's status in drifting, but that's not so. It's still not too easy to find parts for the car.
And the worst part is that now I look like I've jumped on the bandwagon by buying one.
I guess it's all relative. Mine is an '03 and it does handle much better than I expected when I bought it. However, the ride is still softer than I would generally like. (Much stiffer than the '95 Cutlass I drove last, but...) I think with some better tires and perhaps a shock upgrade, and maybe even a stiffer rear sway bar, the car would handle even better. The spring rate seems high enough for a car I want to drive regularly. But, that's possibly the good part about driving a Civic. The rice scene has caused an explosion in the aftermarket parts arena. If I don't like something about my car, chances are somebody makes a part to replace the stock part with something I do like.
I apologize. My callous, dry sense of humor can sometimes come off wrong, and I meant no offense. However, I still stand by my assertion that your words could be interpreted that way.
Anyway...
They are heavy, so they have a longer stopping distance. They are topheavy, so they are more likely to roll over, and their weight and shape are likely to keep them rolling for extended periods of time (though admittedly minivans share that particular fault.)
That is precisely why I don't enjoy driving them. Basically, they handle and drive like crap, even compared to the little Honda econobox I drive now. My Civic may not be a sports car, but I can sure as heck out handle, and probably out break most SUVs out there. (Maybe the Porsche Cayenne could be an exception though. I haven't looked at the test data for it in a while.) Anyway, the point I was making was that, while I personally share a similar distaste for SUVs, I can see where the extra features could outweigh the vehicle's shortcomings to some people. And, admittedly, I do sometimes miss the ability to hop curbs and drive over bumpstops in parking lots at will.
Oh god. I could just see the disaster that would cause now. I brake deep into a corner, clutch in, swing the heel around to blip the throttle, and... the ignition is cut instead of matching the engine to the tranny. I then proceed to release the clutch, purely on instict, but the rear end locks up and I go spinning of the track. Maybe it would work better if you have to hold the brake, the horn, and the headlight swtich...
Also note that buying a vehicle because it looks cool is ok - except that big heavy SUVs are impossible to see over, under, through, or around, damage the roads, and consume more resources.
So, what you're basically saying is that people shouldn't drive SUVs becuase you don't think they look cool. Did you ever think that maybe people who buy SUVs might not have an immediate need for some of the extra features over a van, but decided to go ahead with the SUV becuase they would like the convenience of the extra features. It's actually a lot like my grandfather's cell phone. He doesn't actually need one, but it sure is convenient when his car breaks down on the side of the road.
And for the record, it's pretty easy to see over, under, through, or around an SUV if you're driving one yourself. (Except for those jackasses with illegal tint.) Anyway, I don't drive an SUV any more, but when I did, I enjoyed the extra ground clearance the vehicle provided. Not to mention the vehicle just felt more robust than many minivans due to its stiffer ladder frame construction as opposed to the unibody construction that many minivans use. Lastly, the vehicle was rear wheel drive, a big plus in mine and many people's books.
Although, I do want to go on record as saying that any "SUV" based on a car platform, with unibody construction, and featuring front wheel drive, isn't really an SUV. It's just a minivan masquerading as one, partly to be cool, and possibly partly because trucks/SUVs don't have to abide by the same fuel consumption regulations as cars. (To be fair, I'm not sure if minivans are classified as cars or trucks by the government, so they may also have to comply to the less strict truck regulations.)
What we (me at least) are annoyed about is that the vast majority of the folks who do the modding think that somehow by putting a rear spoiler on a front wheel drive car, adding a 6 billion watt stereo system, thin wheels, a tweaked engine chip and metallic paint makes them think that now they can go out and drive like the idiots we know them to be.
Seriously man. You've got a point here. My Civic is completely stock and, but I still go out and drive like an idiot all the damn time. You don't need GT spoilers and a coffee can exhaust to do that. When will these kids learn that you can drive like an idiot in a stock car. Hell, they could even do it in their mom's minivan if they wanted!
You aren't kidding when you say that UltraVNC has a few stability issues. I was evaluating UltraVNC for a bit at work. I had the server installed on my PC and the client installed on a few other PCs that I visit somewhat regularly, but the majority of our PCs have RealVNC viewer on them. All too often I ran into an issue where sending Ctrl+Alt+Del from the Real VNC viewer to the UltraVNC server would cause my computer to restart. I never had this issue from the UltraVNC viewers, but I only had that on a few computers. Eventually, I went back to RealVNC and decided that UltraVNC was too unstable to invest the necessary time to roll it out to the rest of the PCs.