Star Trek would have you believe all he can do is say, "Yes, sir!" and push buttons.
You missed Wheaton's near-legendary emotional control if that's all you saw. He could keep a straight face while saying things like "Commander, if we just could depress the bipolar manic array, we could use our derivative operator to convert the Erudian ship's Heaviside functions into Dirac deltas!" No mere mortal could speak thusly without a belly laugh.
Not to mention the fact that he inspired legions of allegedly homophobic geeks to write PAGE after PAGE describing the sodomization of Wesley Crusher IN DETAIL. Wheaton clearly has the ability to bring deeply closeted emotions to the fore. =)
Hey, I'll go you one better...quarks and electrons exist, just not in the correct configuration yet. Any idea how to get them into the correct configuration? No? I'm thinking you're more of an idea rat.
Your friend is right. When you work in a closed source world, your only option is blind obedience to the people who have the source. The alternative is simply blind disobedience, and then you have no recourse when things break. At least when you obey the Priests of the SOurce, you can (eventually) get them to listen when the API is broken. Disobey them and you will be shunned.
"Breaking things" is subjective. Does a beaver who builds a dam break things? Does the farmer who rips out a beaver dam to un-flood his fields break things? If a service pack breaks something, it means you have disobeyed the Priests of the Source. Repent and change your ways.
His way is best if you want to be certain that, when things break, it's Microsoft's fault. Apply the service pack and things break? It's Microsoft's fault for creating a faulty service pack. Don't apply a service pack and things break? Microsoft's fault for writing faulty code in the first place. It's a CYA mentality.
Sourcely missed! SOURCELY! He was an advocate of open SOURCE, you idiot, not open...oh. Nevermind.
Re:Good idea off-planet, bad idea at home
on
Living on Mars Time
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Actually, we go through 13 lunar cycles in a year. The calendar year is more easily measured on the basis of solar events - the equinox and the solstice. The year is thus naturally divided into four seasons. Each of these seasons then contains a little more than three lunar cycles. So the year isn't based on 12 lunar cycles but four seasons of about three cycles each.
Minutes and seconds go back to the Babylonians and their base-60 (sexagesimal) numbering system. We don't really know why they used a base 60 system, but we use minutes, seconds, and hours for entirely historical reasons.
Yum - federally funded radio! I can see the ads now:
"Vote for this politician, who is just like the other one, except for his stance on the death penalty!"
"Support our drive to change this wholly irrelevant government policy! Ignore the $=power equation, and the fact that you=$0!"
"Vote! Cloak the government in the mantle of legitimacy!"
"Vote twice! Cloak the government in the Mantle of Legitimacy +2!"
Corporate sponsorship is fundamentally no different from federal sponsorship. Both sponsors want you to be a good sheep. Both hold up the threat of mutton to encourage you to permit your fleecing.
A musician without the RIAA, is like a fish without a bicycle.
Try this...A musician without the RIAA is like a fish without a hook.
The RIAA is actually harmful. The original quote suggested simply that women didn't need men. (Also that women were slimy scaly smelly creatures and men were carefully engineered tools of great craftsmanship, but I digress...)
Agreed, but consider this..."Gee, officer, I didn't mean to exceed the speed limit. I was going downhill and wasn't paying attention." Will the officer be reasonable and give you the benefit of the doubt? Absolutely not; nor should he. AT&T's intent is utterly irrelevant. If they violated the law, they should be punished accordingly.
Because so very much of sci-fi is excrable I would postulate that 90% of all writing is crap. Several conclusions your comments and this postulate. (1) You read a lot of science fiction and realize that 90% of it is crap (2) You don't read a representative sample of anything else (Otherwise, you'd know that 90% of everything is crap and that science fiction is no different) (3) From (2), it follows that EITHER (a) You don't don't read much except for science fiction, OR (b) You read a lot that's not science fiction, but only what others recommend (and people don't recommend crap)
From other statements you make, I infer that (3)(a) is not true; thus (3)(b) must be the case. Outside of science fiction, you only read what's recommended to you - from best seller lists, Oprah, your boss ("Who Move My Cheese?"), all your friends, etc.
My recommendation, therefore, is that you become a literary adventurer. Exercise some independence - don't just read what everyone else is reading! Go out there and mine the stacks for good books. Tell other people about the arcane gems you find - "She can't write a good protagonist to save her life, but her minor characters make it all worthwhile." "The plot sucks, but the setting blows away everything else written in the 20th century." "Why isn't everyone reading this guy? He's AWESOME!"
Have fun. Oh, and quit judging the folks over in the romance section. 90% of it may be crap, but there are some GREAT authors writing trashy romance novels.
they have trouble properly calibrating the polygraph Bingo.
So they might pick up just some general excitedness/exam-stress as a sign of lying, BZZZT! Thanks for playing.
This is the NSA, not the Goober County Sheriff's office. If they can't calibrate, they realize they can't evaluate. The candidate is thus an unknown quantity. They look at the long line of applicants, most of whom are known quantities, and decide this one's not worth the trouble.
I can get this substance from my friendly nearby hot-drinks vending machine. There is the faintest hint of tea in the tepid murky water it dispenses, and I have often commented that it is almost, but not entirely, unlike tea.
I will bet you my next five paychecks that this is not official Dell policy. Rather, this is an employee using a vague but believable pseudo-policy to end customer calls as quickly as he can, thereby improving the statistics that are used to evaluate him
For those who have never worked in a call center, there is one core stat used to evaluate workers: call volume. The more calls you answer, the more they pay you. The phone switches allow this stat to be measured easily. There is the expectation that customers will be satisfied, policies will be followed, etc. but it's practically impossible to measure or verify this.
Your conclusion still follows - if you can buy locally from someone who can support you, do so. It doesn't matter if you're being screwed by a technician (who disobeys policy) or by his corporate masters (who implement poor policy) - you're still screwed if you buy nationally.
It's "buried to 3m...burial depth"? Time to fire the editor, or we'll have balls thrown to a 20m throwing height, and cars driving 50 km of driving distance, jets flying at a speed of 600mph airspeed.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, you don't need to give modifications to ANYONE, so long as you don't distribute.
Those who say the GPL limits freedom want anarchy, not freedom.
Peter Jackson and the ONE RING.
Really? Is that what the contract says? Because the contract language is what matters in a contract dispute.
The US military is just such a bureaucracy, with just the flaws you describe. Yet it accomplishes its primary mission quite effectively.
A single tear runs down my face...
This is the FIRST TIME I have seen this point made in ANY discussion of wired vs. wireless.
Still waiting for someone to point out that it's unacceptable for software infrastructure to be anything less than flawless.
It's not gay - it's metrosexual!
Star Trek would have you believe all he can do is say, "Yes, sir!" and push buttons.
You missed Wheaton's near-legendary emotional control if that's all you saw. He could keep a straight face while saying things like "Commander, if we just could depress the bipolar manic array, we could use our derivative operator to convert the Erudian ship's Heaviside functions into Dirac deltas!" No mere mortal could speak thusly without a belly laugh.
Not to mention the fact that he inspired legions of allegedly homophobic geeks to write PAGE after PAGE describing the sodomization of Wesley Crusher IN DETAIL. Wheaton clearly has the ability to bring deeply closeted emotions to the fore. =)
"carbon nanotubes do exist"
Hey, I'll go you one better...quarks and electrons exist, just not in the correct configuration yet. Any idea how to get them into the correct configuration? No? I'm thinking you're more of an idea rat.
Your friend is right. When you work in a closed source world, your only option is blind obedience to the people who have the source. The alternative is simply blind disobedience, and then you have no recourse when things break. At least when you obey the Priests of the SOurce, you can (eventually) get them to listen when the API is broken. Disobey them and you will be shunned.
"Breaking things" is subjective. Does a beaver who builds a dam break things? Does the farmer who rips out a beaver dam to un-flood his fields break things? If a service pack breaks something, it means you have disobeyed the Priests of the Source. Repent and change your ways.
His way is best if you want to be certain that, when things break, it's Microsoft's fault. Apply the service pack and things break? It's Microsoft's fault for creating a faulty service pack. Don't apply a service pack and things break? Microsoft's fault for writing faulty code in the first place. It's a CYA mentality.
So again, you're coding for programmers, not users. Tell me again how you've added something to his core insight.
He will be sorely missed.
Sourcely missed! SOURCELY! He was an advocate of open SOURCE, you idiot, not open...oh. Nevermind.
Actually, we go through 13 lunar cycles in a year. The calendar year is more easily measured on the basis of solar events - the equinox and the solstice. The year is thus naturally divided into four seasons. Each of these seasons then contains a little more than three lunar cycles. So the year isn't based on 12 lunar cycles but four seasons of about three cycles each.
Minutes and seconds go back to the Babylonians and their base-60 (sexagesimal) numbering system. We don't really know why they used a base 60 system, but we use minutes, seconds, and hours for entirely historical reasons.
Yum - federally funded radio! I can see the ads now:
"Vote for this politician, who is just like the other one, except for his stance on the death penalty!"
"Support our drive to change this wholly irrelevant government policy! Ignore the $=power equation, and the fact that you=$0!"
"Vote! Cloak the government in the mantle of legitimacy!"
"Vote twice! Cloak the government in the Mantle of Legitimacy +2!"
Corporate sponsorship is fundamentally no different from federal sponsorship. Both sponsors want you to be a good sheep. Both hold up the threat of mutton to encourage you to permit your fleecing.
-1, Groaner
A musician without the RIAA, is like a fish without a bicycle.
Try this...A musician without the RIAA is like a fish without a hook.
The RIAA is actually harmful. The original quote suggested simply that women didn't need men. (Also that women were slimy scaly smelly creatures and men were carefully engineered tools of great craftsmanship, but I digress...)
Agreed, but consider this..."Gee, officer, I didn't mean to exceed the speed limit. I was going downhill and wasn't paying attention." Will the officer be reasonable and give you the benefit of the doubt? Absolutely not; nor should he. AT&T's intent is utterly irrelevant. If they violated the law, they should be punished accordingly.
Because so very much of sci-fi is excrable
I would postulate that 90% of all writing is crap. Several conclusions your comments and this postulate.
(1) You read a lot of science fiction and realize that 90% of it is crap
(2) You don't read a representative sample of anything else (Otherwise, you'd know that 90% of everything is crap and that science fiction is no different)
(3) From (2), it follows that EITHER (a) You don't don't read much except for science fiction, OR (b) You read a lot that's not science fiction, but only what others recommend (and people don't recommend crap)
From other statements you make, I infer that (3)(a) is not true; thus (3)(b) must be the case. Outside of science fiction, you only read what's recommended to you - from best seller lists, Oprah, your boss ("Who Move My Cheese?"), all your friends, etc.
My recommendation, therefore, is that you become a literary adventurer. Exercise some independence - don't just read what everyone else is reading! Go out there and mine the stacks for good books. Tell other people about the arcane gems you find - "She can't write a good protagonist to save her life, but her minor characters make it all worthwhile." "The plot sucks, but the setting blows away everything else written in the 20th century." "Why isn't everyone reading this guy? He's AWESOME!"
Have fun. Oh, and quit judging the folks over in the romance section. 90% of it may be crap, but there are some GREAT authors writing trashy romance novels.
they have trouble properly calibrating the polygraph
Bingo.
So they might pick up just some general excitedness/exam-stress as a sign of lying,
BZZZT! Thanks for playing.
This is the NSA, not the Goober County Sheriff's office. If they can't calibrate, they realize they can't evaluate. The candidate is thus an unknown quantity. They look at the long line of applicants, most of whom are known quantities, and decide this one's not worth the trouble.
The post itself isn't all that amusing - but the fact that it's currently moderated to +1 informative is +23 HILARIOUS.
Nice to know that you agree with the last paragraph I wrote =)
I can get this substance from my friendly nearby hot-drinks vending machine. There is the faintest hint of tea in the tepid murky water it dispenses, and I have often commented that it is almost, but not entirely, unlike tea.
I will bet you my next five paychecks that this is not official Dell policy. Rather, this is an employee using a vague but believable pseudo-policy to end customer calls as quickly as he can, thereby improving the statistics that are used to evaluate him
For those who have never worked in a call center, there is one core stat used to evaluate workers: call volume. The more calls you answer, the more they pay you. The phone switches allow this stat to be measured easily. There is the expectation that customers will be satisfied, policies will be followed, etc. but it's practically impossible to measure or verify this.
Your conclusion still follows - if you can buy locally from someone who can support you, do so. It doesn't matter if you're being screwed by a technician (who disobeys policy) or by his corporate masters (who implement poor policy) - you're still screwed if you buy nationally.
Quotes from Agent Elrond:
"What good is a ring of power, if you're unable...to speak?"
"Hobbits...are a disease."
It's "buried to 3m...burial depth"? Time to fire the editor, or we'll have balls thrown to a 20m throwing height, and cars driving 50 km of driving distance, jets flying at a speed of 600mph airspeed.
Were I to blow up your car, you could still walk everywhere you wanted to go.
Get it?