It's uncanny how crackpot beliefs tend to occur in clusters.
When my significant other got into the whole Y2K survivalist scene, he absorbed a whole bunch of other crackpot memes during his Y2K doomer surfing. The common thread among all of them was "the [government | medical establishment | media] is lying to us, and most people are ignorant sheep, but our little group knows better!" There was an undercurrent of bitterness and hostility that was seriously icky.
Three years later, he's still ranting about the Federal Reserve. He briefly flirted with "tax protest" (only pragmatism held him back: even "though" he was right and the government really didn't have the authority to impose taxes, a judge would still throw the book at him, yada yada). I've had to steer him away from a couple of quack medical treatments. I had to debunk the idea that those white trails appearing in the wake of airplanes were actually toxic/experimental chemicals deliberately dropped on us by the gubmint. He still thinks the price of gold is about to skyrocket Any Day Now when "They" can no longer manage to suppress it. For a while I took to surfing the crackpot sites to get a heads-up on what bizarre idea he would embrace next.
Ironically, while he accused me of believing everything I read (in the NYTimes), he was basically believing everything he read in the crackpot fringe media. It seems to come down to, what sources do you find credible? If the fringe is correct, then the government and the entire massive mainstream news media are perpretrating huge, outrageous conspiracies of silence and deception, and for some reason, not a single respectable journalist is exposing them. Once you believe that, then every new "the government is lying about X" statement is automatically credible to you.
He's gradually calming down (either that or hiding it, since we've had some blazing fights over this tendency of his). He's otherwise a good guy, but this stuff almost drove me away.
Yup. By 26, they're secure enough in their maturity that they're not threatened by bright colors and, as my boyfriend put it, "#$%^& carnival music." (Then again, he's 47 and still displays this macho contempt for all things childlike. I can't even get him to watch Ice Age with me.)
I bought a Gamecube at 33 to play Mario Sunshine. My Xbox is gathering dust in a corner, awaiting the day another decent platformer is released (I'm not holding my breath... if it hadn't been for Oddworld, I wouldn't have even bought it).
I cringe when I hear people saying Nintendo should grow up. Hey, if you want gory FPSs, get an Xbox or a PS2.
Nintendo's right where they should be. Their stuff sells like crazy, and SOMEBODY's gotta make games for the kids and the kids-at-heart. I'm 33, just bought a Gamecube with Mario Sunshine last week, and I'm having a great time with it.
It's not just the kiddies who like Mario. I just bought a GameCube bundle with Mario Sunshine, and I am seriously hooked.
I want platform games. Good luck finding them on PCs--or, for that matter, on Xbox (with a few exceptions, most of which I've bought). I don't want the games where you walk around shooting things. I don't want a game with controls more complicated than my car's. I just wanna run and jump and bounce on turtles. I spend all day in the real world being a grownup; in the evenings, give me a game that makes me smile.
As previous posts have mentioned, prions are nearly indistructible. Multiple cases of human CJD have been proved to be transmitted by surgical instruments that were 'sterilized' by standard techniques after being used on a patient later diagnosed with CJD.
This is chilling, considering how much deer meat is put through meat processing equipment. It doesn't matter if you try not to shoot sick-looking deer; if that processor had any contaminated meat go through the works, there are prions on the equipment. My significant other is a hunter who happily brings home packages of venison sausage and jerky, having made every lame rationalization in the book (including "I make sure not to shoot sick-looking deer"). For all I know, my kitchen is a prion hot zone.
I wasn't too happy when I found out my favorite butcher shop also processes venison.
The only mini-ITX board I'm aware of is the Via Epia, which comes with the C3 processor permanently affixed to it...
If I were going to work on another small-form-factor system, I'd go with one of the newer Shuttle barebones kits at this point. Don't know if the nForce version is out yet, but that sounded promising. (That said... I'm not planning on it. I found that futzing around in Windows on a TV screen was hard on the eyes. If someone would put together a media-box interface designed for TV resolution, one that actually worked, then the idea would be more palatable.)
Wish I could get my hands on a standalone SVCD recorder.
Mini-ITX mobos have everthing from S-video, LAN, to firewire and USB2. Couple the above with a 800-1.0Ghz VIA C3 processor, a largish hard drive, and you have a cute little box that can play DIVXs, MPEGs, or whatever.
Cute, yes. Play DivXs, no. I built one of these things and found I couldn't play DivX files, especially ones longer than 20 minutes, without problems. Stuttering, loss of audio-video sync, freezing... Too slow. Not to mention the lousy onboard sound quality, even using digital audio out.
What was Via thinking when they put S-Video and SPDIF out on this thing? The specs make it look like a multimedia machine, but it's not.
Watch out. c2it says that your transaction "may" be considered a cash advance by your credit card company.
I did a $16.49 payment through them, crossing my fingers and hoping that caveat didn't apply to my credit card... Next thing I know it's listed on my credit card statement as a $16.49 cash advance at the corresponding higher interest rate, with a $15 cash advance fee piled on top of it. When I called to complain, my soon-to-be-ex-credit-card-company (Direct Merchants Bank) told me that since Citibank is a financial institution, this is considered a cash advance, and no, they wouldn't waive the fee.
If you're going to use c2it, check with your credit card's customer service first.
I am female. I do not want or expect a diamond from my guy. If he bought me one, the first words out of my mouth would be, "Are you nuts? Take that back!"
Talk about a waste of money. Pointless, gaudy, impractical. There are better ways to spend that ludicrous amount of money than a useless piece of jewelry.
Look, I know you're being a hopeless romantic and I'm sure some women think that's sweet, but guys, get it through your heads, not every woman wants a rock.
No she doesn't. If she says she doesn't need the diamond, listen to her. If she insists that she does need the diamond, ask yourself what kind of shallow person you're marrying.
As a non-diamond-wearing woman, if I see one more "if she says she doesn't want one, she's lying" post, I'm going to throw up.
Look, guys--all of you who are complaining about how every girl you've been with wants a rock--examine your criteria. If you're always going after the gorgeous babes, keep in mind that looking that way is practically a full-time job: these women are, more often than not, obsessed with their appearance. And then you're surprised when they want to decorate their hand with a big honking diamond?!
I say basically the same thing to my friend who bitches about how she always dates handsome jerks who treat her like dirt: Stop chasing eye candy. Find yourself a smart person with a great personality who makes you laugh.
The AC's are going to have a field day with this one. I can see it now: "You must be 300 pounds, huh huh huh..." You know something? I'm no Vogue model. But I can make my guy laugh, cook him a killer meal, build him a computer, and do a few other nifty things I won't go into right now, and I told him flat-out NOT to waste his money on a diamond.
It's your choice. Find yourself a geeky woman, or else keep chasing diamond-fixated babes and quit bitching about it.
Not all of us are into useless stuff. I don't want a diamond, I want an 80-hour ReplayTV.
Sounds like you're picking the wrong women. Hint: If you're consistently attracted to the stereotypically feminine Barbie-doll types with the big hair and the makeup and the trendy clothes, then don't be surprised when they're shallow and they demand expensive, useless trinkets. It's a package deal.
Let me give you one female geek's perspective. When things got serious with my guy, I said: "Don't even think about wasting your money on a diamond ring. It's pointless and gaudy and it'll snag on things. If we exchange rings at some point, I want to get simple matching gold bands."
And I meant it. Absolutely, 100%. None of my friends are going to put him down for not buying me a big honking rock, because none of them are shallow dingbats either. Guys, if you're with a woman who insists on a rock, think carefully about what you're doing. Chances are she's been brainwashed about lots of other crap too.
There are better ways to prove your love. Use your imagination.
Reading some of these anecdotes is making my teeth hurt...
I recently found another way to deal with the pain and fear involved in dental work (yeah, I know, you're not afraid... but I am!). Found a place that does "sedation dentistry." Best Google search I ever did. They offer a couple of sedation options, including a big dose of a sleeping pill and/or an IV. They monitor your vital signs to ensure safety. If you're afraid of dental work or you still feel pain despite the novocaine, this might be worth considering. And if you've put off the dental work until you need a lot of stuff done, they can do a lot at once while you're out of it.
Dunno about you, but I'd rather be sedated than sit there, fully alert, wondering if I'm about to feel intense pain.
Have you been able to get decent video playback? I have the same setup, except with video files on the 80GB drive I installed in the box. I'm having a tough time getting video files to play with stuttering and getting out of sync, if they're playable at all. And I hate the audio quality.
Dunno, but I think someone over at the Anandtech forums had a thread about that in the last week or two. (I posted in the thread, IIRC, but I don't have a link handy.)
what about using a C3 processor of some sort I wouldn't recommend it. I recently bought a mini-ITX system with a C3-800, and it's a real turkey. Lousy sound quality, even with the digital coax output; and the processor is downright anemic. I'm struggling to get DivX files to play on the thing without stuttering and getting out of sync.
Anyone wanna buy this tur^H^H^H cute little mini-ITX system? Cheap?
a lot of people on the adkins diet have dangerously high cholesterol counts...
I'd love to know where you get THAT information. They may have high cholesterol before they start, but for most people it drops when they do low-carb.
I did an Atkins variant and lost about twenty pounds; then I fell off the wagon (my own fault -- my desire for food outweighed my desire to keep the weight off). But even when I began eating more carbs, I kept up the fat intake because I was convinced of the science behind it. As the NYT article (did you read it?) says, if you do the math you realize you could eat pure lard and reduce your heart attack risk...
After practically swimming in butter and cream for a few years I had a lipids panel done. Approximate results: Total cholesterol: 177 LDL: 110 HDL: 65 Triglycerides: 99
Wish I remembered the 'normal' ranges well enough to post them, but on the lab results card my doctor included them and wrote that my results were "fantastic."
When I stuck to a low-carb regimen, my blood pressure (usually borderline high) dropped like a rock. My energy level improved. Reading the article was just the kick in the butt I needed to get with the program again.
I'm glad someone said this. It's what has gone through my mind every time I see an article about how Microsoft oppresses the poor "permatemps."
What the news articles usually ignore is that contract work tends to pay better-- a lot better. A contractor is not a permanent employee minus benefits and job security; a contractor is an employee (temporary, like all employees) who takes a higher hourly wage in lieu of a benefits package and the illusion of "job security." I don't want questionable stock options that take forever to vest, I don't want the damn discount gym membership or the free Snapple or the feel-good company picnic or any of the other dubious baubles that companies throw to their perm people. Just give me the money and let me do my work.
This ruling worries me because it's going to make it harder to stay anywhere for long or get hired back. I don't feel like job-hunting every 3-6 months. Those who say that "temp"/contract means "short term" are confusing the employment model with the employment duration--for me and other contractors I know, duration has nothing to do with it; we're contractors for the money and the independence, and companies hire us because by some weird accounting voodoo they convince themselves it's cheaper this way, and they want the option to fire us without getting sued. Perm and contract are two different employment models. As long as there are contractors and employers willing to work this way, I don't want to see time limits imposed because of legal maneuvering. All that does is screw over the contractor who wants to make a living and the company who wants a halfway stable workforce determined by project needs, not by anxious hand-wringing in the Legal Dept.
To "permatemps" who dislike their situation, I offer the same advice I offer to permanent employees who envy contractor wages: don't like it? Then switch sides. There's nothing preventing permatemps from finding a perm job (somewhere other than Microsoft if need be) or preventing "captives" from trading in their benefits package for a bigger paycheck. But it seems to me that whiners on both sides of the fence want a contractor's big paycheck AND an employee's security and perks. They can't have it both ways.
I have flextime now. It was one of the major factors that attracted me to my current job. In my previous position, I was at a federal agency whose "flextime" (and they even called it that) meant, basically, pick one of the following time slots and stick to it forever: 7:30-4, 8-4:30.... Laughable. I pushed the envelope by asking for an 8:30 start time. Problem was, 8:30 was considered the absolute last moment anyone could walk in the door without being considered late... so if I came in at 8:35, I was "late" even though it was five measly minutes past my agreed-upon start time, and the secretary would put me on the "late list" to be circulated to the supervisors so they would be apprised of such earth-shaking events as my oversleeping by 5 minutes.
That seriously damaged my respect for the place: I felt their priorities were seriously screwed up. I'm a tech writer. I sit in my pod all day and write documentation. It shouldn't matter what time my butt hits the chair, as long as I have a couple of hours where I can reach the people I need to talk to. The only conceivable reasons to make me adhere to a fixed schedule were: (a) employer power trip; and (b) conformity for conformity's sake.
Over the course of two years I lost many hours of productivity to fretting over this kind of trivia. If I left the house late and knew I'd arrive at 8:34, I would be in a vile mood by the time I arrived, just full of sarcastic things I wanted to say to the officious secretary who would pointedly look at the clock when I walked in the door. I was perpetually exhausted; I'm a night owl who can't get to sleep before midnight, but I was up before 7 every morning to get there in time.
How can I frame this all in terms management will understand? Everyone else said it pretty well--it's a matter of morale. Most geeks are independent-minded people with excellent built-in crap detectors. When we see an employer focus on meaningless things like start time and dress codes, we conclude that the employer is an idiot and proceed to slack off and eventually quit.
So you can't read a ballot. I don't see that it's reasonable for one district to get to vote again (assuming that happens) and not let the whole state, or even the whole nation, vote again.
You're talking about an election like it's a glass of spilled milk.
"So you're a klutz and you spilled your milk. Too bad. I don't see that's it's reasonable to give you a new glass and not give everyone else a new glass. Maybe this will teach you to hold your glass more carefully."
Except this isn't a trivial situation like spilled milk. This is the presidency of a superpower. This is the office that will appoint Supreme Court justices whose decisions will affect us for decades to come. The need to get this right and have accurate election results far outweighs any other consideration, including the need many people apparently feel to punish inattentive (or visually impaired, or elderly, or simply confused) voters.
We have a chance to set this situation right. It would be an outrage not to.
Those people voted Buchanan, period. If it was a mistake, I'm sorry but they blew it.
An election is supposed to reflect the will of the people. Every individual's ballot is supposed to reflect their choice. Since obviously several thousand people accidentally marked their ballots wrong, we have two choices:
Say "too bad, they blew it" and elect a president on the basis of several thousand accidental votes; or
Repoll the county with a clearer ballot and get a result that accurately reflects the voters' choices.
Option #2 is, IMHO, the morally right choice. We have nothing to lose--we have to wait for the absentee ballots to come in anyway, so we have the time--and we stand to gain a more accurate election result. Your impulse to teach those voters a lesson ("it's their own fault") is much less important than the need for a fair and accurate election.
I'm a card-carrying liberal Democrat, but even if Gore were ahead and the recount/repoll threatened his lead, I would feel the same way. If I were a Republican right now, I'd want the county repolled so that my candidate could win fair-and-square and not spend the next four years shadowed by accusations that the election did not accurately represent the will of the people.
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It's uncanny how crackpot beliefs tend to occur in clusters.
When my significant other got into the whole Y2K survivalist scene, he absorbed a whole bunch of other crackpot memes during his Y2K doomer surfing. The common thread among all of them was "the [government | medical establishment | media] is lying to us, and most people are ignorant sheep, but our little group knows better!" There was an undercurrent of bitterness and hostility that was seriously icky.
Three years later, he's still ranting about the Federal Reserve. He briefly flirted with "tax protest" (only pragmatism held him back: even "though" he was right and the government really didn't have the authority to impose taxes, a judge would still throw the book at him, yada yada). I've had to steer him away from a couple of quack medical treatments. I had to debunk the idea that those white trails appearing in the wake of airplanes were actually toxic/experimental chemicals deliberately dropped on us by the gubmint. He still thinks the price of gold is about to skyrocket Any Day Now when "They" can no longer manage to suppress it. For a while I took to surfing the crackpot sites to get a heads-up on what bizarre idea he would embrace next.
Ironically, while he accused me of believing everything I read (in the NYTimes), he was basically believing everything he read in the crackpot fringe media. It seems to come down to, what sources do you find credible? If the fringe is correct, then the government and the entire massive mainstream news media are perpretrating huge, outrageous conspiracies of silence and deception, and for some reason, not a single respectable journalist is exposing them. Once you believe that, then every new "the government is lying about X" statement is automatically credible to you.
He's gradually calming down (either that or hiding it, since we've had some blazing fights over this tendency of his). He's otherwise a good guy, but this stuff almost drove me away.
Can you just imagine the 23-hour-a-day pledge drives...
Or else Proctor & Gamble's advertising budget will need to increase a hundredfold and they'll pass the costs on to you.
The money's gotta come from somewhere, and "somewhere" is you.
Yup. By 26, they're secure enough in their maturity that they're not threatened by bright colors and, as my boyfriend put it, "#$%^& carnival music." (Then again, he's 47 and still displays this macho contempt for all things childlike. I can't even get him to watch Ice Age with me.)
I bought a Gamecube at 33 to play Mario Sunshine. My Xbox is gathering dust in a corner, awaiting the day another decent platformer is released (I'm not holding my breath... if it hadn't been for Oddworld, I wouldn't have even bought it).
... if no movies were G-rated.
I cringe when I hear people saying Nintendo should grow up. Hey, if you want gory FPSs, get an Xbox or a PS2.
Nintendo's right where they should be. Their stuff sells like crazy, and SOMEBODY's gotta make games for the kids and the kids-at-heart. I'm 33, just bought a Gamecube with Mario Sunshine last week, and I'm having a great time with it.
It's not just the kiddies who like Mario. I just bought a GameCube bundle with Mario Sunshine, and I am seriously hooked.
I want platform games. Good luck finding them on PCs--or, for that matter, on Xbox (with a few exceptions, most of which I've bought). I don't want the games where you walk around shooting things. I don't want a game with controls more complicated than my car's. I just wanna run and jump and bounce on turtles. I spend all day in the real world being a grownup; in the evenings, give me a game that makes me smile.
As previous posts have mentioned, prions are nearly indistructible. Multiple cases of human CJD have been proved to be transmitted by surgical instruments that were 'sterilized' by standard techniques after being used on a patient later diagnosed with CJD.
This is chilling, considering how much deer meat is put through meat processing equipment. It doesn't matter if you try not to shoot sick-looking deer; if that processor had any contaminated meat go through the works, there are prions on the equipment. My significant other is a hunter who happily brings home packages of venison sausage and jerky, having made every lame rationalization in the book (including "I make sure not to shoot sick-looking deer"). For all I know, my kitchen is a prion hot zone.
I wasn't too happy when I found out my favorite butcher shop also processes venison.
The only mini-ITX board I'm aware of is the Via Epia, which comes with the C3 processor permanently affixed to it...
If I were going to work on another small-form-factor system, I'd go with one of the newer Shuttle barebones kits at this point. Don't know if the nForce version is out yet, but that sounded promising. (That said... I'm not planning on it. I found that futzing around in Windows on a TV screen was hard on the eyes. If someone would put together a media-box interface designed for TV resolution, one that actually worked, then the idea would be more palatable.)
Wish I could get my hands on a standalone SVCD recorder.
Mini-ITX mobos have everthing from S-video, LAN, to firewire and USB2. Couple the above with a 800-1.0Ghz VIA C3 processor, a largish hard drive, and you have a cute little box that can play DIVXs, MPEGs, or whatever.
Cute, yes. Play DivXs, no. I built one of these things and found I couldn't play DivX files, especially ones longer than 20 minutes, without problems. Stuttering, loss of audio-video sync, freezing... Too slow. Not to mention the lousy onboard sound quality, even using digital audio out.
What was Via thinking when they put S-Video and SPDIF out on this thing? The specs make it look like a multimedia machine, but it's not.
Watch out. c2it says that your transaction "may" be considered a cash advance by your credit card company.
I did a $16.49 payment through them, crossing my fingers and hoping that caveat didn't apply to my credit card... Next thing I know it's listed on my credit card statement as a $16.49 cash advance at the corresponding higher interest rate, with a $15 cash advance fee piled on top of it. When I called to complain, my soon-to-be-ex-credit-card-company (Direct Merchants Bank) told me that since Citibank is a financial institution, this is considered a cash advance, and no, they wouldn't waive the fee.
If you're going to use c2it, check with your credit card's customer service first.
Women find computers boring. Is it because they're uninteresting, or that they just don't get it?
I beg your pardon?
fendel
(female, and anxiously awaiting her new OEM Athlon XP2000+ from Googlegear)
Okay, I am officially throwing up now.
I am female. I do not want or expect a diamond from my guy. If he bought me one, the first words out of my mouth would be, "Are you nuts? Take that back!"
Talk about a waste of money. Pointless, gaudy, impractical. There are better ways to spend that ludicrous amount of money than a useless piece of jewelry.
Look, I know you're being a hopeless romantic and I'm sure some women think that's sweet, but guys, get it through your heads, not every woman wants a rock.
Aaarrrghhh!!
No she doesn't. If she says she doesn't need the diamond, listen to her. If she insists that she does need the diamond, ask yourself what kind of shallow person you're marrying.
As a non-diamond-wearing woman, if I see one more "if she says she doesn't want one, she's lying" post, I'm going to throw up.
Sounds like you're picking the wrong women.
Look, guys--all of you who are complaining about how every girl you've been with wants a rock--examine your criteria. If you're always going after the gorgeous babes, keep in mind that looking that way is practically a full-time job: these women are, more often than not, obsessed with their appearance. And then you're surprised when they want to decorate their hand with a big honking diamond?!
I say basically the same thing to my friend who bitches about how she always dates handsome jerks who treat her like dirt: Stop chasing eye candy. Find yourself a smart person with a great personality who makes you laugh.
The AC's are going to have a field day with this one. I can see it now: "You must be 300 pounds, huh huh huh..." You know something? I'm no Vogue model. But I can make my guy laugh, cook him a killer meal, build him a computer, and do a few other nifty things I won't go into right now, and I told him flat-out NOT to waste his money on a diamond.
It's your choice. Find yourself a geeky woman, or else keep chasing diamond-fixated babes and quit bitching about it.
Not all of us are into useless stuff. I don't want a diamond, I want an 80-hour ReplayTV.
Sounds like you're picking the wrong women. Hint: If you're consistently attracted to the stereotypically feminine Barbie-doll types with the big hair and the makeup and the trendy clothes, then don't be surprised when they're shallow and they demand expensive, useless trinkets. It's a package deal.
You gotta be kidding.
Let me give you one female geek's perspective. When things got serious with my guy, I said: "Don't even think about wasting your money on a diamond ring. It's pointless and gaudy and it'll snag on things. If we exchange rings at some point, I want to get simple matching gold bands."
And I meant it. Absolutely, 100%. None of my friends are going to put him down for not buying me a big honking rock, because none of them are shallow dingbats either. Guys, if you're with a woman who insists on a rock, think carefully about what you're doing. Chances are she's been brainwashed about lots of other crap too.
There are better ways to prove your love. Use your imagination.
Reading some of these anecdotes is making my teeth hurt...
I recently found another way to deal with the pain and fear involved in dental work (yeah, I know, you're not afraid... but I am!). Found a place that does "sedation dentistry." Best Google search I ever did. They offer a couple of sedation options, including a big dose of a sleeping pill and/or an IV. They monitor your vital signs to ensure safety. If you're afraid of dental work or you still feel pain despite the novocaine, this might be worth considering. And if you've put off the dental work until you need a lot of stuff done, they can do a lot at once while you're out of it.
Dunno about you, but I'd rather be sedated than sit there, fully alert, wondering if I'm about to feel intense pain.
Have you been able to get decent video playback? I have the same setup, except with video files on the 80GB drive I installed in the box. I'm having a tough time getting video files to play with stuttering and getting out of sync, if they're playable at all. And I hate the audio quality.
Dunno, but I think someone over at the Anandtech forums had a thread about that in the last week or two. (I posted in the thread, IIRC, but I don't have a link handy.)
what about using a C3 processor of some sort
I wouldn't recommend it. I recently bought a mini-ITX system with a C3-800, and it's a real turkey. Lousy sound quality, even with the digital coax output; and the processor is downright anemic. I'm struggling to get DivX files to play on the thing without stuttering and getting out of sync.
Anyone wanna buy this tur^H^H^H cute little mini-ITX system? Cheap?
a lot of people on the adkins diet have dangerously high cholesterol counts...
I'd love to know where you get THAT information. They may have high cholesterol before they start, but for most people it drops when they do low-carb.
I did an Atkins variant and lost about twenty pounds; then I fell off the wagon (my own fault -- my desire for food outweighed my desire to keep the weight off). But even when I began eating more carbs, I kept up the fat intake because I was convinced of the science behind it. As the NYT article (did you read it?) says, if you do the math you realize you could eat pure lard and reduce your heart attack risk...
After practically swimming in butter and cream for a few years I had a lipids panel done. Approximate results:
Total cholesterol: 177
LDL: 110
HDL: 65
Triglycerides: 99
Wish I remembered the 'normal' ranges well enough to post them, but on the lab results card my doctor included them and wrote that my results were "fantastic."
When I stuck to a low-carb regimen, my blood pressure (usually borderline high) dropped like a rock. My energy level improved. Reading the article was just the kick in the butt I needed to get with the program again.
It's the area code for Alexandria, MN.
Not like we really needed MORE evidence, but what the heck, I live in Minneapolis.
What the news articles usually ignore is that contract work tends to pay better-- a lot better. A contractor is not a permanent employee minus benefits and job security; a contractor is an employee (temporary, like all employees) who takes a higher hourly wage in lieu of a benefits package and the illusion of "job security." I don't want questionable stock options that take forever to vest, I don't want the damn discount gym membership or the free Snapple or the feel-good company picnic or any of the other dubious baubles that companies throw to their perm people. Just give me the money and let me do my work.
This ruling worries me because it's going to make it harder to stay anywhere for long or get hired back. I don't feel like job-hunting every 3-6 months. Those who say that "temp"/contract means "short term" are confusing the employment model with the employment duration--for me and other contractors I know, duration has nothing to do with it; we're contractors for the money and the independence, and companies hire us because by some weird accounting voodoo they convince themselves it's cheaper this way, and they want the option to fire us without getting sued. Perm and contract are two different employment models. As long as there are contractors and employers willing to work this way, I don't want to see time limits imposed because of legal maneuvering. All that does is screw over the contractor who wants to make a living and the company who wants a halfway stable workforce determined by project needs, not by anxious hand-wringing in the Legal Dept.
To "permatemps" who dislike their situation, I offer the same advice I offer to permanent employees who envy contractor wages: don't like it? Then switch sides. There's nothing preventing permatemps from finding a perm job (somewhere other than Microsoft if need be) or preventing "captives" from trading in their benefits package for a bigger paycheck. But it seems to me that whiners on both sides of the fence want a contractor's big paycheck AND an employee's security and perks. They can't have it both ways.
I have flextime now. It was one of the major factors that attracted me to my current job. In my previous position, I was at a federal agency whose "flextime" (and they even called it that) meant, basically, pick one of the following time slots and stick to it forever: 7:30-4, 8-4:30.... Laughable. I pushed the envelope by asking for an 8:30 start time. Problem was, 8:30 was considered the absolute last moment anyone could walk in the door without being considered late... so if I came in at 8:35, I was "late" even though it was five measly minutes past my agreed-upon start time, and the secretary would put me on the "late list" to be circulated to the supervisors so they would be apprised of such earth-shaking events as my oversleeping by 5 minutes.
That seriously damaged my respect for the place: I felt their priorities were seriously screwed up. I'm a tech writer. I sit in my pod all day and write documentation. It shouldn't matter what time my butt hits the chair, as long as I have a couple of hours where I can reach the people I need to talk to. The only conceivable reasons to make me adhere to a fixed schedule were: (a) employer power trip; and (b) conformity for conformity's sake.
Over the course of two years I lost many hours of productivity to fretting over this kind of trivia. If I left the house late and knew I'd arrive at 8:34, I would be in a vile mood by the time I arrived, just full of sarcastic things I wanted to say to the officious secretary who would pointedly look at the clock when I walked in the door. I was perpetually exhausted; I'm a night owl who can't get to sleep before midnight, but I was up before 7 every morning to get there in time.
How can I frame this all in terms management will understand? Everyone else said it pretty well--it's a matter of morale. Most geeks are independent-minded people with excellent built-in crap detectors. When we see an employer focus on meaningless things like start time and dress codes, we conclude that the employer is an idiot and proceed to slack off and eventually quit.
So you can't read a ballot. I don't see that it's reasonable for one district to get to vote again (assuming that happens) and not let the whole state, or even the whole nation, vote again.
You're talking about an election like it's a glass of spilled milk.
"So you're a klutz and you spilled your milk. Too bad. I don't see that's it's reasonable to give you a new glass and not give everyone else a new glass. Maybe this will teach you to hold your glass more carefully."
Except this isn't a trivial situation like spilled milk. This is the presidency of a superpower. This is the office that will appoint Supreme Court justices whose decisions will affect us for decades to come. The need to get this right and have accurate election results far outweighs any other consideration, including the need many people apparently feel to punish inattentive (or visually impaired, or elderly, or simply confused) voters.
We have a chance to set this situation right. It would be an outrage not to.
Those people voted Buchanan, period. If it was a mistake, I'm sorry but they blew it.
An election is supposed to reflect the will of the people. Every individual's ballot is supposed to reflect their choice. Since obviously several thousand people accidentally marked their ballots wrong, we have two choices:
Option #2 is, IMHO, the morally right choice. We have nothing to lose--we have to wait for the absentee ballots to come in anyway, so we have the time--and we stand to gain a more accurate election result. Your impulse to teach those voters a lesson ("it's their own fault") is much less important than the need for a fair and accurate election.
I'm a card-carrying liberal Democrat, but even if Gore were ahead and the recount/repoll threatened his lead, I would feel the same way. If I were a Republican right now, I'd want the county repolled so that my candidate could win fair-and-square and not spend the next four years shadowed by accusations that the election did not accurately represent the will of the people.