I am more judgmental because I've been in the IT field for years and have used, and I mean really used, many different OSes out there. I also wouldn't have considered calling myself a Mac user before OS X. Sorry fans, but OS 9 was pretty terrible.
Disclaimer: I now own a Macbook, and I like it (though my X20 was better in its day).
OS 9 was a dog. I worked in an educational media lab during the transition from OS 9 to OS X, and it was hilarious to hear the fanboys go from talking about how flawless OS 9 was to how many issues OS X fixed. As hard as they tried, they could never quite reconcile their excitement over the new OS with their support of the old.
You wouldn't take stories about old Greek myths and say their days were figurative and really represented a longer time. Specially when it's connected with evening and morning day x.
Sophocles would disagree with you. You know, in Oedipus Rex? The Riddle of the Sphinx?
"What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening?"
The answer is "A man, who crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two legs as an adult, and walks with a cane in old age."
So, here we have an "old Greek myth" with a figurative day representing longer time, despite morning, noon, and evening being clearly represented.
It's good that my humanities degree is finally coming to use.
However, someone persuaded the students that Blackboard was a wonderful thing. So much so, that their organizations petitioned the administration to make Blackboard mandatory for all classes.
Blackboard's licensing fees are usually per-faculty, rather than per student, or flat size-of-institution-based. So, a VP of IT, CTO, etc., has a hard time justifying the purchase to trustees when only 20% of the faculty uses it.
I don't know your institution's case, but most of the time, mandating use of Blackboard is an attempt by higher-ups to justify its high cost.
I knew a graduate student who was Oracle certified and got SELECT access to the Blackboard DB at his school. He wrote his thesis in educational technology on how most courses that were "using" Blackboard were only using it to post syllabi and other mundane documents, mainly so departments could shift printing costs to the students. In other words, the bulk of the work Blackboard was doing could be done much more efficiently by free (or low-cost commercial) software.
1. You can see all sorts of diseases in them, not just cancer.
2. They're cheap. A small team at a small lab, like at a State College (see Project #4), can do good quality research with them. Even better, several small teams can be researching concurrently.
I probably still have it (or at least my parents probably do) in a box in their storage unit.
I was at my parents' house for the holidays and my son (6) got some new Lego sets for Christmas. As he was putting them together he commented, "Dad, I'm better at building Legos than you are."
Now, I've heard some pretty insulting things in my time, but this one cut straight to the bone.
So, I walked (as calmly as I could) down to my parents' basement, found the two HUGE bins labeled "Lego," and dragged them up the stairs. I put down a blanket (so they'd be easy to spread out and clean up) and DUMPED out 15 years of disassembled creativity.
My son just stood there gawking for a few seconds. Yes, words can fail even a six-year-old. "I... I... I don't even know where to start!"
Why do I remember this? Because I was so green with jealously as I watched my older brother assesemble the one he got for his birthday. Oooo, how I hated that castle.
If CMV was really the cause of this strange, but fortunate, occurence, that's a tough one.
CMV is no laughing matter. It's one of the opportunistic diseases that immuno-deficit people have to worry about. It can lead to blindness and a slew of other complications.
The best we can hope for (if CMV is to thank for this effect) is that they can isolate the mechanism and replicate it. You wouldn't want to use CMV in this way.
Portal also reminds us of the day when there wasn't a computer-controlled character telling you exactly how to accomplish every objective. Sure, there were hints, but you had to figure out everything yourself, including the story. ("The cake is a lie!")
"Gordon, I bet that sparking wire is the problem." (From HL2:E1).
Aspects of curriculum that are too demanding, or perceived as tedious, are downplayed in favor of simplified material that attracts a larger enrollment.
Let me be the first to welcome you to higher education.
What would you give me to go to the MacWorld keynote with an Apple remote. Imagine how pissed Jobs would get if every time he tried to show a new app on an iMac of MacBook, FrontRow started up and then started browsing his shared music.
I'm not surprised, and "dysfunctional" is the appropriate word to describe most of the US government. (And I would add most large and many small governments.)
OT, but....
When I was in college, I worked between 3 and 5 part time jobs (mostly tech-related). I had the habit of declaring zero deductions, just to simplify my life. When tax time came, I was expecting a nice refund, but instead I had to pay. Why?
The explanation I got was that "to protect the poor" the state did not withhold money from small paychecks... but still expected the taxes be paid at the end of the year. I checked my paystubs, and, sure enough, nothing had been withheld. Luckily I had some money saved to pay taxes with, but what about other semi-employed people? How is this actually supposed to help poor people?
When I was in grad school and dirt poor, my wife had a child on medicaid. When I finally got a real job, we started getting bills for medical services that should have been covered. The hospital had been trying to bill medicaid for over a year, but when they didn't pay, they would send us the bill. If the hospital used the correct (new) address, we would just call them and they would re-bill medicaid. If they used our old address, the bill would get returned, and then sent to collections (hitting our credit). How is medicaid supposed to help people if they don't pay the bills they cover?
Back on topic...
These many years later, I have contracted with federal agencies and private agencies who have government contracts. I avoid directly being paid by the government. They'll pay, but your check will be delayed, and you never know which expenses they'll decide aren't included in the contract.
I play guitar, I can hold a tune, and I've played Rock Band once. It *almost* made me want to buy a 60" HDTV and an Xbox 360 (the setup I played). The microphone isn't lame, but seemed really easy, even on advanced settings. Either I was *really* on key, or the mic looks more for tempo and relative pitch than true accuracy.
The guitar was not as easy (and I only went up to medium difficulty), but, like you said, strumming was simple because I already play. As for "finger independence," Rock Band only makes you move your finger on the frets. There are five buttons, and you only have four fingers (the neck was too broad for me to wrap my thumb around). So, I did have to move my hand some.
The really fun part was how involuntary moving around was when I played the guitar, or get into the song when on the mic. Nail a solo (even your first time on easy settings) and you'll swing around while holding the last "chord." Try, just try singing "Enter Sandman" without yelling, "Ya, Ya, YAAA!" at the end.
As for the drums... I suck. I could either hit the bass pedal or the right color, not both. I didn't get booed off stage, but even on "easy" I wasn't good.
No, I would settle for a compromise of a 0-9 key pad. Rather than: "right - right - right - right - right - right - right - right - right - right - right - right - right", I would push: "1 - 3 - play".
Add ten buttons, remove ten actions from the command.
I have a keyboard with 101 buttons on it, and every one of them is there because some engineer along the line knew how to use that button and believed I would want to use it, too...
I have a MacBook, with the Apple remote. How do I jump to chapter 13 of a track? I hit "forward" 12 times. Why? Because some usability guru thought simplicity was more important than functions I use daily.
Personally, I would rather have the power to perform complex task simply (and let the non-power user ignore the 48+ buttons they never use) than not have the ability to perform the tasks easily because someone took out the button.
I give it 5 minutes before a physics nerd RTFA and then calculates the force of the 0-60MPH and brake times and concludes it would rip out a human aorta.
It's not that Blue has the edge on most maps. Their edge is minimal, and probably not significant. It's the seemingly HUGE discrepancy in favor of Red on Dustbowl. Red wins over 70% of the rounds?!?
I say hurray for free thought, freedom of opinion, expression, and belief.
People who go to YouTube for medical advice (and their spawn) will be less likely to pass on that trait. Hopefully, the situation will correct itself in a generation or two.
1) I long ago divided my personal/hobby posts from my professional presence on the Internet. I did this when an interviewer asked for my blog address, and I realized I had just posted about how great microwavable juice concentrate was. I had been "blogging" using some Slash wannabe code I wrote myself since before the term "blog" had been coined, so I had a lot of stuff up.
I keep two blogs, use two different emails, etc. Sure, it wouldn't take much work to connect the two, but it provides some insulation between my personal and professional identities.
2) If your last name is Anderson, and your nick is Neo, keep using the nick.
Wait... so in Leopard, I can't use expanding folders in the dock anymore?
WTF?
I just got my first Mac in August, and one of the first things I did was plop my Documents folder in my dock. Click to open, right-click to browse. I read that Stacks had issues (limited to 62 items, no nested browsing), but I thought I would just go on using my old method.
This is the same type of behavior that has the US lodging WTO complaints against Airbus on behalf of Boeing.
It is very unlikely that Airbus could have ever gotten off the ground without EU financial support. The WTO agreements lay out what is appropriate and inappropriate governmental intervention in trade. The US opinion is that the EU directly supporting Airbus (and probably this project as well - if it ever matures) is inappropriate.
OTOH, I have no idea how it differs from the the US giving public grants to pharmaceutical companies, and then letting them keep the patents.
Slashdot Mirror
I am more judgmental because I've been in the IT field for years and have used, and I mean really used, many different OSes out there. I also wouldn't have considered calling myself a Mac user before OS X. Sorry fans, but OS 9 was pretty terrible.
Disclaimer: I now own a Macbook, and I like it (though my X20 was better in its day).
OS 9 was a dog. I worked in an educational media lab during the transition from OS 9 to OS X, and it was hilarious to hear the fanboys go from talking about how flawless OS 9 was to how many issues OS X fixed. As hard as they tried, they could never quite reconcile their excitement over the new OS with their support of the old.
You wouldn't take stories about old Greek myths and say their days were figurative and really represented a longer time. Specially when it's connected with evening and morning day x.
Sophocles would disagree with you. You know, in Oedipus Rex? The Riddle of the Sphinx?
"What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening?"
The answer is "A man, who crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two legs as an adult, and walks with a cane in old age."
So, here we have an "old Greek myth" with a figurative day representing longer time, despite morning, noon, and evening being clearly represented.
It's good that my humanities degree is finally coming to use.
Next question...
However, someone persuaded the students that Blackboard was a wonderful thing. So much so, that their organizations petitioned the administration to make Blackboard mandatory for all classes.
Blackboard's licensing fees are usually per-faculty, rather than per student, or flat size-of-institution-based. So, a VP of IT, CTO, etc., has a hard time justifying the purchase to trustees when only 20% of the faculty uses it.
I don't know your institution's case, but most of the time, mandating use of Blackboard is an attempt by higher-ups to justify its high cost.
I knew a graduate student who was Oracle certified and got SELECT access to the Blackboard DB at his school. He wrote his thesis in educational technology on how most courses that were "using" Blackboard were only using it to post syllabi and other mundane documents, mainly so departments could shift printing costs to the students. In other words, the bulk of the work Blackboard was doing could be done much more efficiently by free (or low-cost commercial) software.
No one in the administration listened to him.
Will the toilet only accept one kind of input?
No, but you'll need a per-seat license.
[Bud-dum-dum]
Thanks! You're great. Remember to tip your servers...
Two great things about zebrafish:
1. You can see all sorts of diseases in them, not just cancer.
2. They're cheap. A small team at a small lab, like at a State College (see Project #4), can do good quality research with them. Even better, several small teams can be researching concurrently.
Most of the large castles of that period swung open.
6080 King's Castle http://guide.lugnet.com/set/6080
6085 Black Monarch's Castle http://guide.lugnet.com/set/6085
6073 Knight's Castle http://guide.lugnet.com/set/6073
6074 Black Falcon's Fortress http://guide.lugnet.com/set/6074
But, after that, they went to the molded baseplate for castles, so swinging open wasn't an option.
I probably still have it (or at least my parents probably do) in a box in their storage unit.
I was at my parents' house for the holidays and my son (6) got some new Lego sets for Christmas. As he was putting them together he commented, "Dad, I'm better at building Legos than you are."
Now, I've heard some pretty insulting things in my time, but this one cut straight to the bone.
So, I walked (as calmly as I could) down to my parents' basement, found the two HUGE bins labeled "Lego," and dragged them up the stairs. I put down a blanket (so they'd be easy to spread out and clean up) and DUMPED out 15 years of disassembled creativity.
My son just stood there gawking for a few seconds. Yes, words can fail even a six-year-old. "I... I... I don't even know where to start!"
The gray castle pictured as the first (1984) castle set is incorrect.
It should be this yellow one: http://guide.lugnet.com/set/375_2
Why do I remember this? Because I was so green with jealously as I watched my older brother assesemble the one he got for his birthday. Oooo, how I hated that castle.
If CMV was really the cause of this strange, but fortunate, occurence, that's a tough one.
CMV is no laughing matter. It's one of the opportunistic diseases that immuno-deficit people have to worry about. It can lead to blindness and a slew of other complications.
The best we can hope for (if CMV is to thank for this effect) is that they can isolate the mechanism and replicate it. You wouldn't want to use CMV in this way.
Portal also reminds us of the day when there wasn't a computer-controlled character telling you exactly how to accomplish every objective. Sure, there were hints, but you had to figure out everything yourself, including the story. ("The cake is a lie!")
"Gordon, I bet that sparking wire is the problem." (From HL2:E1).
This comic might explain it better: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23108889@N06/2212589455/
Aspects of curriculum that are too demanding, or perceived as tedious, are downplayed in favor of simplified material that attracts a larger enrollment.
Let me be the first to welcome you to higher education.
What would you give me to go to the MacWorld keynote with an Apple remote. Imagine how pissed Jobs would get if every time he tried to show a new app on an iMac of MacBook, FrontRow started up and then started browsing his shared music.
I'm not surprised, and "dysfunctional" is the appropriate word to describe most of the US government. (And I would add most large and many small governments.)
OT, but....
When I was in college, I worked between 3 and 5 part time jobs (mostly tech-related). I had the habit of declaring zero deductions, just to simplify my life. When tax time came, I was expecting a nice refund, but instead I had to pay. Why?
The explanation I got was that "to protect the poor" the state did not withhold money from small paychecks... but still expected the taxes be paid at the end of the year. I checked my paystubs, and, sure enough, nothing had been withheld. Luckily I had some money saved to pay taxes with, but what about other semi-employed people? How is this actually supposed to help poor people?
When I was in grad school and dirt poor, my wife had a child on medicaid. When I finally got a real job, we started getting bills for medical services that should have been covered. The hospital had been trying to bill medicaid for over a year, but when they didn't pay, they would send us the bill. If the hospital used the correct (new) address, we would just call them and they would re-bill medicaid. If they used our old address, the bill would get returned, and then sent to collections (hitting our credit). How is medicaid supposed to help people if they don't pay the bills they cover?
Back on topic...
These many years later, I have contracted with federal agencies and private agencies who have government contracts. I avoid directly being paid by the government. They'll pay, but your check will be delayed, and you never know which expenses they'll decide aren't included in the contract.
I play guitar, I can hold a tune, and I've played Rock Band once. It *almost* made me want to buy a 60" HDTV and an Xbox 360 (the setup I played).
The microphone isn't lame, but seemed really easy, even on advanced settings. Either I was *really* on key, or the mic looks more for tempo and relative pitch than true accuracy.
The guitar was not as easy (and I only went up to medium difficulty), but, like you said, strumming was simple because I already play. As for "finger independence," Rock Band only makes you move your finger on the frets. There are five buttons, and you only have four fingers (the neck was too broad for me to wrap my thumb around). So, I did have to move my hand some.
The really fun part was how involuntary moving around was when I played the guitar, or get into the song when on the mic. Nail a solo (even your first time on easy settings) and you'll swing around while holding the last "chord." Try, just try singing "Enter Sandman" without yelling, "Ya, Ya, YAAA!" at the end.
As for the drums... I suck. I could either hit the bass pedal or the right color, not both. I didn't get booed off stage, but even on "easy" I wasn't good.
No, I would settle for a compromise of a 0-9 key pad. Rather than: "right - right - right - right - right - right - right - right - right - right - right - right - right", I would push: "1 - 3 - play".
Add ten buttons, remove ten actions from the command.
I have a keyboard with 101 buttons on it, and every one of them is there because some engineer along the line knew how to use that button and believed I would want to use it, too...
I have a MacBook, with the Apple remote. How do I jump to chapter 13 of a track? I hit "forward" 12 times. Why? Because some usability guru thought simplicity was more important than functions I use daily.
Personally, I would rather have the power to perform complex task simply (and let the non-power user ignore the 48+ buttons they never use) than not have the ability to perform the tasks easily because someone took out the button.
I give it 5 minutes before a physics nerd RTFA and then calculates the force of the 0-60MPH and brake times and concludes it would rip out a human aorta.
It's not that Blue has the edge on most maps. Their edge is minimal, and probably not significant. It's the seemingly HUGE discrepancy in favor of Red on Dustbowl. Red wins over 70% of the rounds?!?
I say hurray for free thought, freedom of opinion, expression, and belief.
People who go to YouTube for medical advice (and their spawn) will be less likely to pass on that trait. Hopefully, the situation will correct itself in a generation or two.
1) I long ago divided my personal/hobby posts from my professional presence on the Internet. I did this when an interviewer asked for my blog address, and I realized I had just posted about how great microwavable juice concentrate was. I had been "blogging" using some Slash wannabe code I wrote myself since before the term "blog" had been coined, so I had a lot of stuff up.
I keep two blogs, use two different emails, etc. Sure, it wouldn't take much work to connect the two, but it provides some insulation between my personal and professional identities.
2) If your last name is Anderson, and your nick is Neo, keep using the nick.
So every child in developing nations will know that door-to-door commuter rail is the only way to avoid congestion.
Wait... so in Leopard, I can't use expanding folders in the dock anymore?
WTF?
I just got my first Mac in August, and one of the first things I did was plop my Documents folder in my dock. Click to open, right-click to browse. I read that Stacks had issues (limited to 62 items, no nested browsing), but I thought I would just go on using my old method.
That truly sucks if I can't.
I'll donate my "Sounds of Slashdot" CD (which include Debian 2.0) to the auction. I got it in a boxed set at Linux World in '99 or 2000.
For those of you who haven't heard it, it's some dance mix Rob put together (or something).
"Torture statistics enough, and it will admit to anything."
This is the same type of behavior that has the US lodging WTO complaints against Airbus on behalf of Boeing.
It is very unlikely that Airbus could have ever gotten off the ground without EU financial support. The WTO agreements lay out what is appropriate and inappropriate governmental intervention in trade. The US opinion is that the EU directly supporting Airbus (and probably this project as well - if it ever matures) is inappropriate.
OTOH, I have no idea how it differs from the the US giving public grants to pharmaceutical companies, and then letting them keep the patents.