Although I certainly agree with the sentiment, this has nothing to do with the First Amendment. This is the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." It enjoins Congress, not Apple Computer.
I ignore spam, but unsubscribe from any other advertisement sent my way. I have also embarked on a campaign to reduce my internet footprint by axing nearly everything I can. (It's impossible, but I still try.) I've gone from a hundred spams a day to less than 10--usually two or three.
Mod parent up. Ellison says someone else has a "pompous dismissive imperial manner"? That is just too funny. Ellison tries to humiliate everyone he meets. Isaac Asimov tells the story of meeting Ellison for the first time when he said something like, "You're the famous Isaac Asimov?" Asimov, no stranger to hubris, replied that indeed, it was he. "Really?" asked Ellison. Once again, Asimov nodded, so Ellison said, "You're not so much!" Later when Asimov had the floor and an opportunity to introduce Ellison to a large audience he told Ellison to please stand on a chair so everyone could see him.
OK, but the problem is that lots of TVs have a 'store display' setting that is specific to the retail store environment. The display you are seeing in the store is not the display you will see in your home. Samsung is one of the brands that has this for sure. I suspect there may be others.
but even Slashdot has a mathematical modeling system to judge the quality of postings. I'd say/.'s is one of the better within the context of 'forum posting judging systems' because it takes a combination of member feedback over time to judge karma (reputation) and specific feedback on a post to judge a particular post. Plus, members can disagree and, to some extent, override an initial bad mark. On other 'forum posting judging systems' you either get points for ANY post, no matter how innane, or no points or recognition at all for a post that may have taken you hours to prepare. I prefer slashdot's method myself, even though the alogorithms are shrouded in secrecy.
The fact is, I would LIKE some sort of objective evaluation system to get away from the subjective prattlings and insecurities of management that does not appreciate, understand, recognize, or even WANT good work. I would love some hard data to present which proved my contribution to the company exceeded most everyone else's contributions. Designing a system that truly did this is, of course, the major issue.
But here's a situation where one has been used successfully in court suits to prove discrimination. In the case I remember it was a female academic who had not been promoted into a tenured position where certain males had. The metric used in court was the number of times the female's papers had been cited by other papers and sources compared to the males. Given that academia works on a 'publish or perish' model of promotion, this was deemed an appropriate metric to show her contribution to her field as evidenced by others who had cited her work in their own efforts. I believe there was enough evidence to show discrimination and she won the case.
So, don't throw all metrics out because someone can design a bad system.
Selling up is hardly new with computer stores. Long time ago I bought a high-end VCR (Yup, THAT long ago) from a Silo store I had frequented. They always tried to sell the warranty, and this time I was damn sure I wasn't going to buy one. The sales lady rung up the order without asking, so I sarcastically asked, "Aren't you going to try to sell me one of those extended warranties?" "No," she said. "I can see it in your face that you aren't going to buy one." which I thought was pretty funny.
About the scripts: I worked retail for awhile and I gotta tell you, some of these 'sales associates' are so afraid of what to say that they demand scripts. They'll say, "What do I say?" so I'd say, 'Just talk to the customer and answer his questions.' "But what, exactly, am I supposed to say?" and it just goes on and on until you write them up a script to keep them quiet. This was especially true for customer complaints where no one wants to say the 'wrong' thing. As you know, once in awhile a customer can be kind of unreasonable, and there's this old aphorism that "the customer is always right." But as far as I'm concerned, that doesn't mean a front-line flak catcher has to take abuse. What the phrase means is, "The customer knows what he wants to buy, and if you don't have it, you screwed up." It doesn't mean if he starts yelling at tou that you have to stand there and just take it. Leave. get a manager. Whatever.
Actually, the commands have been consolidated so both 'bases' are under one command as PSNS & IMF. This inculdes Bangor, which in any case is a 15 minute drive away. And besides, that's pedantic at best.
That is actually correct. The sub shop in Bremerton (West Coast port for Trident Ballistic Missile Submarines, SSBN-726, etc.) sells the Trident Nuclear Submarine Sandwich with an extra serving of horseradish somewhere in the middle of it. It'll light your hair on fire, or, in my case, turn my scalp red.
No, I don't have it all wrong. I was here at the time and I have studied the issue. The SST program was minor compared to the rest of Boeing's business. It was an added blow to have the SST program cut, which simply added to the woes of the company. Understand: Bowing went from well over 100,000 workers to 35,000 workers in about 18 months. My friends, family, and neighbors were all affected. You can't attrbute that simply to the SST program being cut. If you will remember, the US entered a recession about the time the 747 was introduced and hit an oil crisis in 1973. Passenger traffic was expected to increase, and that was the reason Boeing built the 747 in the first place. However, passenger traffic did NOT increase, which redulted in 747s flying half full. The economies of scale don't work with that % passengers, so airlines began replacing 747s with smaller jets. The 747 is also a long haul jet, and airlines began to use them for that instead of shorter flights, much different than what they expected. The 747 remains a long haul and cargo jet to this day.
The resulting fall off in orders and the recession left Boeing a shadow of its former self. Seattle and the surrounding region felt the recession keenly. There were no jobs. People abandoned the equity in their houses and just moved away, prompting the now famous billboard. Seattle was then a one-horse town relying on Boeing and Boeing wound up a one-horse manufacturer that had relied on the 747 for its future. Both entities have changed so that won't happen quite the same way again.
There have been a number of economic studies on this issue and at least one good documentary put out (I believe) by Seattle's KOMO-TV Channel 4. We also just happen to have used this issue as a case study in my MBA economics class. Of course, 40 years later now it's all happy-talk about the wonderful 747, but the plane nearly sunk Seattle and nearly took the city with it.
But it did fail--initially. Boeing bet the farm on the 747 expecting ridership to increase. We entered a recession. It did not increase. Boeing went from 135,000 workers to 35,000 workers in the space of a few months. At the time Boeing was a one-horse show just like Seattle and the firm nearly went bankrupt. People left their homes to the banks and moved out of Seattle, Renton, Kent, and Auburn. Someone put up a billboard that said, "Will the last one to leave please turn out the lights." It took years for the local economy to recover. And the 747 caused it.
Today Seattle and Boeing are both very much more diversified. Anf yeah, Boeing is laying off a few thousand workers--but it's not 100,000 workers.
Kurt Vonnegut's older brother, Bernard Vonnegut, 1914-1997 was a meteorologist who figured this out while working for General Electric. Why is this news now?
of course, which had the answer to the life, the universe, and everything. And when he got old the RFP for a new one was called 'The Quest for the Son of Deep Thought,' made famous in some esoteric circles. Our Novell server way back then was 'Moby Fred,' since Moby Dick was on another line (originally the secretary's big white SUV.)
Fido takes a year to travel around the world, sniffing Panda poop and kangaroo poop, meeting exotic dogs, eating different food, and you maintain it is the SAME dog after a year? Just because you can't tell doesn't mean the dog has experienced nothing. I maintain that Fido(1) and Fido(2) are going to be different dogs regardless of their genes. Whetehr it is the experience of havin small kids around the house with Fido(1) and no kids around the house for Fido(2) or traveling around the world, the two dogs will have different experiences affecting their personality and be no different than identical twins who experience life diffrently.
Even if you did clone Fido(1), he wouldn't be the same dog any more than identical twins are the same person. Chances are, if he were parti-colored, he wouldn't even have the same spots. He also wouldn't have the same experiences as Fido(1). You are older and the unique experiences that made Fido(1) what he was are gone forever. In short, Fido(2), though he may look more or less like Fido(1), is not Fido(1) and never will be. If you simply must have a pure bred, go to the same breeder and get Fido(X) in the same genetic line as Fido(1) for a few hundred dollars instead of tens of thousands. It's a pretty expensive way to fool yourself.
Myers-Briggs has been mentioned in the threads. When my new boss was hired the first thing she did to her management staff (myself and my spousal unit included) was force us to take the Meyers Briggs. She had memorized the thing and from then on went around saying stuff like, "well, you're an INTJ, therefore you would approach this issue in this way, blah, blah, blah for the next few years. I told her I thought it was as valid as astrology and that I could cast her chart and come up with as valid assumptions as she was spouting.
I continued to test INTJ when she made us re-take the test, and I guess my score was why I considered her a complete blithering idiot. Finally she got fired for incompetence.
I'm also a licensed pilot and there is no 'personality' test to get a license. However, at the commercial level the airline may very well administer tests, but this has nothing to do with the license itself.
Having said that, the pilot medical physical is obviously looking for issues. The doctor who gave me my physical grilled me on my tattoo, which is of 'Captain High,' the shadow portrait on Zig-Zag cigarette papers used, of course, to roll joints. He kept asking me, over and over, what this tattoo represented. I told him as far as I knew it was a French Farmer. I told him I got it when I was in the Navy at Great Lakes. A bunch of guys piled into a car and went up to a tattoo parlor in Geneva, Wisconsin. There were all these expensive tattoos in vivid colors with "Death before dishonor" slogans, skulls and crossbones, and all that. I got this one because it was the cheapest one available at $10.00. (Yeah, it was awhile ago, but the tattoo is still there!)
Technically, I told the truth, but, of course, I lied.
I have a 6500 watt portable generator that runs diesel. An electrician charged about $1000 to put in a transfer switch - legally - to the power box. (I know that's expensive, but I also know it's done correctly to code as it was permitted inspected by the State.) The generator runs hot water, plus all lights, microwave, electronics, etc. It will NOT run the heat pump or the oven/range or the drier, but everything else works, literally. The generator burns about half a gallon an hour. I have a 240 gallon tank full (usually) of biodiesel along with a Duramax truck which holds another 34 gallons. Of course, you take your chances with either of those being 100% full during an outage, but I figure with frugal use I can get by about six weeks at the minimum and twice that at the maximum.
1) Better have surge suppressors -- good ones -- on all electronics. Only the more expensive generators have compensators on them which regulate the voltage within tolerances expected by stuff like computers.
2) I would NOT put an auto start on a generator, myself, for fear it would start up when I was not at home. In my opinion, home generators need personalized attendance to regulate what is on and off. You don't want to waste fuel.
3) depending on how you're set up, the furnace fan idea might work if the furnace heat source is not electric, but I've chosen a wood stove which is capable of heating most of the downstairs rather than waste heat upstairs where it isn't really needed. I keep a cord of wood back and I can always steal wood from my neighbors.:-)
Just my opinion FYI. My system works pretty well for me. No real complaints.
Slashdot Mirror
This entire discussion has been most revealing and interesting. Thank you.
100 comments and no mention of Linux as a cult, the big elephant in the room. Yes, it's a cult.
Although I certainly agree with the sentiment, this has nothing to do with the First Amendment. This is the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." It enjoins Congress, not Apple Computer.
I ignore spam, but unsubscribe from any other advertisement sent my way. I have also embarked on a campaign to reduce my internet footprint by axing nearly everything I can. (It's impossible, but I still try.) I've gone from a hundred spams a day to less than 10--usually two or three.
An ideal job for Blackwater.
I don't see that as British English myself. I think you're way off base there.
Mod parent up. Ellison says someone else has a "pompous dismissive imperial manner"? That is just too funny. Ellison tries to humiliate everyone he meets. Isaac Asimov tells the story of meeting Ellison for the first time when he said something like, "You're the famous Isaac Asimov?" Asimov, no stranger to hubris, replied that indeed, it was he. "Really?" asked Ellison. Once again, Asimov nodded, so Ellison said, "You're not so much!" Later when Asimov had the floor and an opportunity to introduce Ellison to a large audience he told Ellison to please stand on a chair so everyone could see him.
OK, but the problem is that lots of TVs have a 'store display' setting that is specific to the retail store environment. The display you are seeing in the store is not the display you will see in your home. Samsung is one of the brands that has this for sure. I suspect there may be others.
but even Slashdot has a mathematical modeling system to judge the quality of postings. I'd say /.'s is one of the better within the context of 'forum posting judging systems' because it takes a combination of member feedback over time to judge karma (reputation) and specific feedback on a post to judge a particular post. Plus, members can disagree and, to some extent, override an initial bad mark. On other 'forum posting judging systems' you either get points for ANY post, no matter how innane, or no points or recognition at all for a post that may have taken you hours to prepare. I prefer slashdot's method myself, even though the alogorithms are shrouded in secrecy.
The fact is, I would LIKE some sort of objective evaluation system to get away from the subjective prattlings and insecurities of management that does not appreciate, understand, recognize, or even WANT good work. I would love some hard data to present which proved my contribution to the company exceeded most everyone else's contributions. Designing a system that truly did this is, of course, the major issue.
But here's a situation where one has been used successfully in court suits to prove discrimination. In the case I remember it was a female academic who had not been promoted into a tenured position where certain males had. The metric used in court was the number of times the female's papers had been cited by other papers and sources compared to the males. Given that academia works on a 'publish or perish' model of promotion, this was deemed an appropriate metric to show her contribution to her field as evidenced by others who had cited her work in their own efforts. I believe there was enough evidence to show discrimination and she won the case.
So, don't throw all metrics out because someone can design a bad system.
Selling up is hardly new with computer stores. Long time ago I bought a high-end VCR (Yup, THAT long ago) from a Silo store I had frequented. They always tried to sell the warranty, and this time I was damn sure I wasn't going to buy one. The sales lady rung up the order without asking, so I sarcastically asked, "Aren't you going to try to sell me one of those extended warranties?" "No," she said. "I can see it in your face that you aren't going to buy one." which I thought was pretty funny.
About the scripts: I worked retail for awhile and I gotta tell you, some of these 'sales associates' are so afraid of what to say that they demand scripts. They'll say, "What do I say?" so I'd say, 'Just talk to the customer and answer his questions.' "But what, exactly, am I supposed to say?" and it just goes on and on until you write them up a script to keep them quiet. This was especially true for customer complaints where no one wants to say the 'wrong' thing. As you know, once in awhile a customer can be kind of unreasonable, and there's this old aphorism that "the customer is always right." But as far as I'm concerned, that doesn't mean a front-line flak catcher has to take abuse. What the phrase means is, "The customer knows what he wants to buy, and if you don't have it, you screwed up." It doesn't mean if he starts yelling at tou that you have to stand there and just take it. Leave. get a manager. Whatever.
And here's where it is:
36*24'31" N
25*24'09" E
Given other recorded incidents of refugees arriving to Crete and Egypt about this time, this very likely is the source of the legend.
Actually, the commands have been consolidated so both 'bases' are under one command as PSNS & IMF. This inculdes Bangor, which in any case is a 15 minute drive away. And besides, that's pedantic at best.
That is actually correct. The sub shop in Bremerton (West Coast port for Trident Ballistic Missile Submarines, SSBN-726, etc.) sells the Trident Nuclear Submarine Sandwich with an extra serving of horseradish somewhere in the middle of it. It'll light your hair on fire, or, in my case, turn my scalp red.
The Fine Print: The 50% off coupon is for one buttock only. There's an extra charge of both buttocks are on fire at once.
Umm, it's not slanderous if it's true. And it may be actionable of you don't tell your partner. Oh, wait! This is /.
No, I don't have it all wrong. I was here at the time and I have studied the issue. The SST program was minor compared to the rest of Boeing's business. It was an added blow to have the SST program cut, which simply added to the woes of the company. Understand: Bowing went from well over 100,000 workers to 35,000 workers in about 18 months. My friends, family, and neighbors were all affected. You can't attrbute that simply to the SST program being cut. If you will remember, the US entered a recession about the time the 747 was introduced and hit an oil crisis in 1973. Passenger traffic was expected to increase, and that was the reason Boeing built the 747 in the first place. However, passenger traffic did NOT increase, which redulted in 747s flying half full. The economies of scale don't work with that % passengers, so airlines began replacing 747s with smaller jets. The 747 is also a long haul jet, and airlines began to use them for that instead of shorter flights, much different than what they expected. The 747 remains a long haul and cargo jet to this day.
The resulting fall off in orders and the recession left Boeing a shadow of its former self. Seattle and the surrounding region felt the recession keenly. There were no jobs. People abandoned the equity in their houses and just moved away, prompting the now famous billboard. Seattle was then a one-horse town relying on Boeing and Boeing wound up a one-horse manufacturer that had relied on the 747 for its future. Both entities have changed so that won't happen quite the same way again.
There have been a number of economic studies on this issue and at least one good documentary put out (I believe) by Seattle's KOMO-TV Channel 4. We also just happen to have used this issue as a case study in my MBA economics class. Of course, 40 years later now it's all happy-talk about the wonderful 747, but the plane nearly sunk Seattle and nearly took the city with it.
But it did fail--initially. Boeing bet the farm on the 747 expecting ridership to increase. We entered a recession. It did not increase. Boeing went from 135,000 workers to 35,000 workers in the space of a few months. At the time Boeing was a one-horse show just like Seattle and the firm nearly went bankrupt. People left their homes to the banks and moved out of Seattle, Renton, Kent, and Auburn. Someone put up a billboard that said, "Will the last one to leave please turn out the lights." It took years for the local economy to recover. And the 747 caused it.
Today Seattle and Boeing are both very much more diversified. Anf yeah, Boeing is laying off a few thousand workers--but it's not 100,000 workers.
How absurd! You don't get mod points UNLESS you contribute.
Kurt Vonnegut's older brother, Bernard Vonnegut, 1914-1997 was a meteorologist who figured this out while working for General Electric. Why is this news now?
of course, which had the answer to the life, the universe, and everything. And when he got old the RFP for a new one was called 'The Quest for the Son of Deep Thought,' made famous in some esoteric circles. Our Novell server way back then was 'Moby Fred,' since Moby Dick was on another line (originally the secretary's big white SUV.)
Fido takes a year to travel around the world, sniffing Panda poop and kangaroo poop, meeting exotic dogs, eating different food, and you maintain it is the SAME dog after a year? Just because you can't tell doesn't mean the dog has experienced nothing. I maintain that Fido(1) and Fido(2) are going to be different dogs regardless of their genes. Whetehr it is the experience of havin small kids around the house with Fido(1) and no kids around the house for Fido(2) or traveling around the world, the two dogs will have different experiences affecting their personality and be no different than identical twins who experience life diffrently.
Even if you did clone Fido(1), he wouldn't be the same dog any more than identical twins are the same person. Chances are, if he were parti-colored, he wouldn't even have the same spots. He also wouldn't have the same experiences as Fido(1). You are older and the unique experiences that made Fido(1) what he was are gone forever. In short, Fido(2), though he may look more or less like Fido(1), is not Fido(1) and never will be. If you simply must have a pure bred, go to the same breeder and get Fido(X) in the same genetic line as Fido(1) for a few hundred dollars instead of tens of thousands. It's a pretty expensive way to fool yourself.
Myers-Briggs has been mentioned in the threads. When my new boss was hired the first thing she did to her management staff (myself and my spousal unit included) was force us to take the Meyers Briggs. She had memorized the thing and from then on went around saying stuff like, "well, you're an INTJ, therefore you would approach this issue in this way, blah, blah, blah for the next few years. I told her I thought it was as valid as astrology and that I could cast her chart and come up with as valid assumptions as she was spouting.
I continued to test INTJ when she made us re-take the test, and I guess my score was why I considered her a complete blithering idiot. Finally she got fired for incompetence.
I'm also a licensed pilot and there is no 'personality' test to get a license. However, at the commercial level the airline may very well administer tests, but this has nothing to do with the license itself.
Having said that, the pilot medical physical is obviously looking for issues. The doctor who gave me my physical grilled me on my tattoo, which is of 'Captain High,' the shadow portrait on Zig-Zag cigarette papers used, of course, to roll joints. He kept asking me, over and over, what this tattoo represented. I told him as far as I knew it was a French Farmer. I told him I got it when I was in the Navy at Great Lakes. A bunch of guys piled into a car and went up to a tattoo parlor in Geneva, Wisconsin. There were all these expensive tattoos in vivid colors with "Death before dishonor" slogans, skulls and crossbones, and all that. I got this one because it was the cheapest one available at $10.00. (Yeah, it was awhile ago, but the tattoo is still there!)
Technically, I told the truth, but, of course, I lied.
I have a 6500 watt portable generator that runs diesel. An electrician charged about $1000 to put in a transfer switch - legally - to the power box. (I know that's expensive, but I also know it's done correctly to code as it was permitted inspected by the State.) The generator runs hot water, plus all lights, microwave, electronics, etc. It will NOT run the heat pump or the oven/range or the drier, but everything else works, literally. The generator burns about half a gallon an hour. I have a 240 gallon tank full (usually) of biodiesel along with a Duramax truck which holds another 34 gallons. Of course, you take your chances with either of those being 100% full during an outage, but I figure with frugal use I can get by about six weeks at the minimum and twice that at the maximum.
1) Better have surge suppressors -- good ones -- on all electronics. Only the more expensive generators have compensators on them which regulate the voltage within tolerances expected by stuff like computers.
2) I would NOT put an auto start on a generator, myself, for fear it would start up when I was not at home. In my opinion, home generators need personalized attendance to regulate what is on and off. You don't want to waste fuel.
3) depending on how you're set up, the furnace fan idea might work if the furnace heat source is not electric, but I've chosen a wood stove which is capable of heating most of the downstairs rather than waste heat upstairs where it isn't really needed. I keep a cord of wood back and I can always steal wood from my neighbors. :-)
Just my opinion FYI. My system works pretty well for me. No real complaints.