This one time, I was at a bank getting hooked up with a savings account. The friendly bankerperson doing the paperwork with me said "Wow. I've never seen anyone actually read the form before signing it."
You would think that the idea of handing hundreds or thousands of dollars to total strangers who promise to take good care of it would motivate people to cast their eyeballs over some turgid prose, but it doesn't. I don't think there's anything that can motivate anyone to read anything *especially* warnings that most of the time don't result in the machine halting and catching fire.
Slashdot is so refreshing. On other boards the whole conversation consists of this: Them: "5 compelling anecdotes" Me: anecdote.plural() != data Them: angry_mob.eviscerate(troll) Me: assert(flounce)
Female. Feminist according to http://tomatonation.com/?p=677 which tends to encompass a *lot* of people (though not all) who say "I'm not a feminist but." I agree that trolling people with no sense of humor, which is a superset of what most folks seem to mean when they say "feminist", can be an entertaining pastime though.
Let's take back the word for "us" and let all the subsets of "trollable people" find new words to describe themselves.
I think females decide pretty early on (like grade school) whether they want to enter math / science / technical fields. That part needs fixing if we are going to continue to change the gender proportion. However, having decided to enter CS, I sure as shooting would not work for, support, or attend companies/organizations/events where stuff like that happens. I'm sitting around thinking "how about equal pay for equal work" and they're thinking "how about free lap dances!" Not a match made in heaven when I could work for a company NOT run by (apparently) cavemen who are thinking with their stones.
If he wanted to ensure that no one charged for a derivative work, he should have chosen a different license. (Like the Moria license maybe.)
But then probably no one would have ported it to the iPhone (unless they've got $99 to burn and are feeling benevolent) and there'd be *two* ways that we'd never be reading this article.
I used to write 3rd party freeware for the Palm. I was an early adopter. I had fun with it. I had to take a little time off when I had kids, and every time I tried to go back, Palm got in my way. New OS with an emulator that only runs on Windows? Every time I try to catch up with their developer resources, download an SDK maybe, they've moved to a different domain name and threw away my old password ("old" but dating back only to the previous domain move)? Gave up and took up knitting (at least the moths *appreciate* me.)
Agreed, I know someone whose schedule is simple enough that even his cat can remember it, and his PDA has become a paperweight.
My lifestyle (or absentmindedness) on the other hand requires an auxiliary brain so I still use my PDA regularly.
Sure it offers a lot of other capabilities besides "glorified daytimer", but in my opinion you have to need the basics in order to have a really compelling reason to (1) carry it around and more importantly (2) remember to change/charge the batteries; and then it just happens to be available and functioning on the random occasions when those extra capabilities would be handy. People who get one just because of the extra capabilities, OTOH, don't have that ongoing motivation so some of them end up basically using it as a highly evolved pet rock.
This is a wonderful new field of science that has incredible potential for human advancement. It also has incredible potential for misuse and unethical behavior.
Heck, forget honest mistakes made by intelligent, thoughtful, ethical scientists; forget unethical misuses slowly plotted by glacial corporations and governments. What I'm worried about is N years after that, when the biology script kiddies swing into action.
and like all the other pda/pc watches it's missing one crucial feature...
WATERPROOF!
Nah, this isn't even close to crucial for the only guy I personally know who wants one. He wants it to replace a scientific calculator watch that isn't made anymore and which is decidedly non-water-resistant.
Ergo, not every geek showers with their Geek Watch on (I admit I've forgotten to take mine off until after turning the water on, once or twice after too little sleep, so I'm glad mine is water resistant, but even so I would surely never try to submerse it).
Given that yet another manufacturer has released yet another PPC, can anyone speculate why there is this rash of companies eager to jump on the PPC bandwagon but only Sony who are with Palm?
Apropos of nothing, I see that Fossil is gonna make a PalmOS watch. The specs say 160x160 screen... square, no Graffiti area, and not surprisingly there aren't as many buttons as a PDA so I don't know how much to trust their claim that all Palm apps will work (or rather I wonder "for what value of work?").
Agreed, most of the "random people post a review of their new Tungsten" reviews that I've read also said that the keyboard slider felt more solid and reliable than they'd expected. So far, it doesn't sound like the sort of fatal flaw that was originally predicted.
It has enough horsepower under the hood to run a software MP3 decoder, so an Ogg player will be possible. Which in turn means that someone will write one!
Hate to break it to you but there are (hotly desired by someone) apps that could fit on older PalmOS models and yet they haven't been written yet. For example I have seen a number of people ask, over the past n years, "why hasn't anyone ported vi?" Heck, there might even be more people who think they want vi than people who think they want ogg.
Still I do admire your "no matter what I want, someone will code it up for me, for free" optimism.:) There are too many things I've wanted, and had to write myself, for me to ever feel that way.
When I buy a movie on DVD at Blockbuster for $19.99 - I own it outright. I can set up a theatre and show it for profit.
Um, you "can", but not legally unless you jump through the proper "public performance license" hoops. Otherwise all you're allowed to do is to show it in your home to friends/family.
they seem to be overlooking the fact that not everyone votes.
Sure, normally people are complacent. I suspect a lot more people would turn out at the polls if local media started reporting that a bunch of unemployed* lunatics from California** had moved in and were plotting to take over***.
* the FAQ indicates that they've looked at "weather" and "liberty-lovingness of the natives" when considering states but I didn't see any mention of "job market can absorb sudden appearance of 20,000 nerds".
** or other creative paper-selling interpretation of "libertarian".
*** and, hey, this part of the story would even be true.
Novak, meanwhile, said he has further legal targets. One is the Better Business Bureau of Metropolitan New York. The BBB gives Pets Warehouse an "unsatisfactory rating," the organization's lowest. Novak said some of the complaints were from another business that licensed the Pets Warehouse name and that he didn't get adequate opportunity to respond.
The moment that, to me, made Minority Report worth watching is when the dude using gesture-gloves to sort through some data goes to shake the hand of someone who just walked in, and all the stuff on his virtual desktop basically falls off the edge of the world. Ohhh yeah.
Slashdot Mirror
This one time, I was at a bank getting hooked up with a savings account. The friendly bankerperson doing the paperwork with me said "Wow. I've never seen anyone actually read the form before signing it."
You would think that the idea of handing hundreds or thousands of dollars to total strangers who promise to take good care of it would motivate people to cast their eyeballs over some turgid prose, but it doesn't. I don't think there's anything that can motivate anyone to read anything *especially* warnings that most of the time don't result in the machine halting and catching fire.
Slashdot is so refreshing. On other boards the whole conversation consists of this:
Them: "5 compelling anecdotes"
Me: anecdote.plural() != data
Them: angry_mob.eviscerate(troll)
Me: assert(flounce)
YES! I am not alone!
Female. Feminist according to http://tomatonation.com/?p=677 which tends to encompass a *lot* of people (though not all) who say "I'm not a feminist but." I agree that trolling people with no sense of humor, which is a superset of what most folks seem to mean when they say "feminist", can be an entertaining pastime though.
Let's take back the word for "us" and let all the subsets of "trollable people" find new words to describe themselves.
I think females decide pretty early on (like grade school) whether they want to enter math / science / technical fields. That part needs fixing if we are going to continue to change the gender proportion. However, having decided to enter CS, I sure as shooting would not work for, support, or attend companies/organizations/events where stuff like that happens. I'm sitting around thinking "how about equal pay for equal work" and they're thinking "how about free lap dances!" Not a match made in heaven when I could work for a company NOT run by (apparently) cavemen who are thinking with their stones.
If he wanted to ensure that no one charged for a derivative work, he should have chosen a different license. (Like the Moria license maybe.)
But then probably no one would have ported it to the iPhone (unless they've got $99 to burn and are feeling benevolent) and there'd be *two* ways that we'd never be reading this article.
I used to write 3rd party freeware for the Palm. I was an early adopter. I had fun with it. I had to take a little time off when I had kids, and every time I tried to go back, Palm got in my way. New OS with an emulator that only runs on Windows? Every time I try to catch up with their developer resources, download an SDK maybe, they've moved to a different domain name and threw away my old password ("old" but dating back only to the previous domain move)? Gave up and took up knitting (at least the moths *appreciate* me.)
hmm. "iphone" you say? I'm so there.
Agreed, I know someone whose schedule is simple enough that even his cat can remember it, and his PDA has become a paperweight.
My lifestyle (or absentmindedness) on the other hand requires an auxiliary brain so I still use my PDA regularly.
Sure it offers a lot of other capabilities besides "glorified daytimer", but in my opinion you have to need the basics in order to have a really compelling reason to (1) carry it around and more importantly (2) remember to change/charge the batteries; and then it just happens to be available and functioning on the random occasions when those extra capabilities would be handy. People who get one just because of the extra capabilities, OTOH, don't have that ongoing motivation so some of them end up basically using it as a highly evolved pet rock.
This is a wonderful new field of science that has incredible potential for human advancement. It also has incredible potential for misuse and unethical behavior.
Heck, forget honest mistakes made by intelligent, thoughtful, ethical scientists; forget unethical misuses slowly plotted by glacial corporations and governments. What I'm worried about is N years after that, when the biology script kiddies swing into action.
and like all the other pda/pc watches it's missing one crucial feature...
WATERPROOF!
Nah, this isn't even close to crucial for the only guy I personally know who wants one. He wants it to replace a scientific calculator watch that isn't made anymore and which is decidedly non-water-resistant.
Ergo, not every geek showers with their Geek Watch on (I admit I've forgotten to take mine off until after turning the water on, once or twice after too little sleep, so I'm glad mine is water resistant, but even so I would surely never try to submerse it).
Given that yet another manufacturer has released yet another PPC, can anyone speculate why there is this rash of companies eager to jump on the PPC bandwagon but only Sony who are with Palm?
Apropos of nothing, I see that Fossil is gonna make a PalmOS watch. The specs say 160x160 screen... square, no Graffiti area, and not surprisingly there aren't as many buttons as a PDA so I don't know how much to trust their claim that all Palm apps will work (or rather I wonder "for what value of work?").
Agreed, most of the "random people post a review of their new Tungsten" reviews that I've read also said that the keyboard slider felt more solid and reliable than they'd expected. So far, it doesn't sound like the sort of fatal flaw that was originally predicted.
> Remember, hacking into other people's computers is a crime
;)
Where's the RGRNCA when you need them?
Nah, lots of people have beaten it. (Not me, but then, I've never played.)
It has enough horsepower under the hood to run a software MP3 decoder, so an Ogg player will be possible. Which in turn means that someone will write one!
:) There are too many things I've wanted, and had to write myself, for me to ever feel that way.
Hate to break it to you but there are (hotly desired by someone) apps that could fit on older PalmOS models and yet they haven't been written yet. For example I have seen a number of people ask, over the past n years, "why hasn't anyone ported vi?" Heck, there might even be more people who think they want vi than people who think they want ogg.
Still I do admire your "no matter what I want, someone will code it up for me, for free" optimism.
When I buy a movie on DVD at Blockbuster for $19.99 - I own it outright. I can set up a theatre and show it for profit.
Um, you "can", but not legally unless you jump through the proper "public performance license" hoops. Otherwise all you're allowed to do is to show it in your home to friends/family.
I'm not sure I'd like to try reading some Joyce or Camus, full stop.
they seem to be overlooking the fact that not everyone votes.
Sure, normally people are complacent. I suspect a lot more people would turn out at the polls if local media started reporting that a bunch of unemployed* lunatics from California** had moved in and were plotting to take over***.
* the FAQ indicates that they've looked at "weather" and "liberty-lovingness of the natives" when considering states but I didn't see any mention of "job market can absorb sudden appearance of 20,000 nerds".
** or other creative paper-selling interpretation of "libertarian".
*** and, hey, this part of the story would even be true.
In my unsusbstantiated opinion:
;)
Programming is fun. Testing, however, is boring as hell. Even testing games.
I guess this doesn't explain the existence of male testers though
agreed, and if they're not solitary, then they're full of people that one wouldn't voluntarily associate with in real life...
Hm... I'm glad my mom uses pine. ;)
ding! give that user a banana!
Long Island Business News reports:
If some wench with a few hours' paralegal experience can cause problems, why can't the average Joe use the same technique in defense?
Or, indeed, hire Marcus "LawGuy" Arnold.
(aw, you remember, the #1-rated "legal expert" on AskMe who was 15 years old at the time and learned it all from TV)
The moment that, to me, made Minority Report worth watching is when the dude using gesture-gloves to sort through some data goes to shake the hand of someone who just walked in, and all the stuff on his virtual desktop basically falls off the edge of the world. Ohhh yeah.
Anonymous Coward, you are my new hero!