Dead on, there. I bet they could fetch twice the price if they sold it in a bundle along with a box of eight dozen vanilla-scented tealight candles and a pair of elastic-waist polyester slacks.
Surely you have acquaintances who feel that you yourself spend too much time playing Wow? How would you react if they posited the idea that maybe you should cut back, get out more, stop wasting all that time and money? And how would you feel if you found out that they had posted this article to slashdot about you?
Comfort yourself with the thought that it is totally and completely not your problem, and you should really just butt out.
I spent a while doing tech support for Solaris systems installed in hospitals. You cannot - CANNOT - insult the head nurse's intelligence, not if you want to keep your job. Even the slightest whiff of insult was enough to get you seriously spanked, and not in a fun way.
Cables often get unplugged in a hospital environment (pixies, maybe, I don't know), but we couldn't just ask "Is it unplugged?" Instead, we informed them that sometimes dust gets in there, so could you do me a favor - pull out the cable, blow on the connector, and plug it back in?
Worked like a charm, and didn't hurt anyone's feelings.
Did you not forsee this eventuality? Did it not occur to you that, at some point in the future, you would need people to write the code for the product that you were attempting, at the time, to demo?
Whoever is in charge of writing your business plan should be politely shot.
Go for it. Have as much fun as you possibly can, take lots of pictures, and enjoy the experience even when it's horrible.
But don't be COMPLETELY irresponsible. Talk to a financial planner before you go. They will be able to assess your likely income/expenses, and help set up a plan so that you can work with your money wisely, even when you're on the road. When you come back to the States, it may be a while before you get hired again, so you'll want to plan ahead.
I've ruined my life many times over; sometimes for love, sometimes for money, and other times just on a whim. I may have lost out on the opportunity to buy a house and settle down and be respectable and have a capital-C Career, but if I had to do it over again, I'd make all the same silly mistakes.
I can't speak for the parent post, but I can tell you I'm really bad at math. And I had some TERRIBLE experiences with tutors in my day, so I had to struggle with a lot of loathing/hostility before writing this post. Under other circumstances, I would have just passed it by, but you must have caught me in a helpful mood.
If you're really good at math, I'll guess that you're very bad at drawing/sketching. (That's always been my experience, but I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions to that rule, so forgive me for presuming.) If you're actually good at drawing things, then mentally substitute something else you're very bad at - playing a musical instrument, perhaps, or repairing a car.
If you really want to know what your students are going through, get a pencil and a stack of plain white paper, and sit down at your desk. Give yourself a two-hour time limit, and try to draw something. Don't use any reference material or models - math work is all theoretical, and drawing from a model is comparing apples to oranges. Draw something you're not particularly familiar with - if you own a dog, draw a cat, and vice versa.
It's hard, isn't it? You know what you're working towards, but you don't necessarily know how to get there. You may feel as if you're fumbling in the dark, knowing that millions of people could just sketch a dog in a few quick lines and be done with it. Your brain will probably feel as if it's being pushed in a direction it was never meant to go, and the venture may feel as if it's taking a thousand times more effort than it should.
Now picture a professional artist sitting across from you. You have hired the artist to help you get better at sketching dogs. What would you have the artist say to you? What sort of assistance would be helpful?
You will see, on the artist's face, an acknowledgement of how very hard you are trying, as well as how poorly you are doing. You can tell that the artist knows you're doing your best, but it's obvious to both of you that your sketched dog is TERRIBLE. This knowledge will not help your morale. You may lose patience with the venture and get snappish. The artist may lose patience with you, and snap back. Or maybe they shake their head sadly and say "You're not very good at this, are you?" in a tone of faux-sympathy. Perhaps they start barking out directions - "Make the paws rounder! ROUNDER!"
If women were really paid that much less for the same work, why don't companies fire all their male employees, replace them with women and drive their compeditors out of business?
I recently left a company which had been, over the past two years, doing just that. Then they went the permatemp route, because the only thing cheaper to hire than a woman is a temp.
Needless to say, it didn't help their stock price much. Possibly because the CEO is fucking said company up the ass (financially speaking), drawing down about $33,000 net pay every two weeks, not to mention his company-sponsored penthouse apartment, to which he commutes (from out of state) via company jet, plus a six-figure annual bonus.
But I digress.
Violence against women by men is a cultural taboo in this country right up there with priests having sex with little boys, but female violence against men is no big deal, deserved, or even funny.
Settle down, tiger. Rest assured, if a woman told me I couldn't be as good at computers as a man - and believe me, there are plenty of women out there who've bought into the party line - I would not hesitate to punch her in the face, as well. Is that culturally taboo, or culturally accepted? I don't know; I've lost track of my rhetoric handbook. You tell me - sounds like you've got a recent copy close at hand.
Personally, I vote we treat each other fairly, and put all the sexist assholes and bitches up against the wall. And the greedy, ass-fucking CEOs, too!
The world would be a much better place if I was in charge.
My mistake - I should have done more research before posting. Upon further digging, the wage gap varies from one profession to another. We earn 92 cents on the dollar at best. I guess I should be glad I'm not a physician, or I'd only be earning (on average) 58 cents on the dollar compared to men.
Here's a nice little table the AFL-CIO put together from US Department of Labor statistics, breaking down the wage gap by profession.
Ha ha, yeah. According to the advertising industry, men are completely unable to choose their own cough syrup. That always cracks me up. Perhaps it's just that my secret feminine over-the-counter-medication-fu allows me to choose wisely when ill.
But I feel obliged to politely point out that we're still earning (on average) only 92 cents on the dollar compared to men. And the gender-based salary discrepancy is even higher in high tech fields. And if anyone says women don't earn as much as men in high-tech fields because we're not as good, I will personally punch them in the face.
As far as I'm concerned, registering for the draft would only be fair... as long as you're all sure you WANT us in the military. A lot of guys are still pretty pissed about that, you know.
Mm, I don't know. I like this idea of a "kinder, gentler Slashdot" (new and improved, with 95% fewer goatse links, and no more testosterone-fueled pissing contests!) but it's just not quite working for me.
Can you build a handle on it? Because if so, I'd be sold!
Ethan Hawke's Hamlet . (This version thinks it's ever so clever for having put Hamlet in a modern setting, but the contemporary stage dressing can't hide the limp acting and slowwwww pacing.)
Prospero's Books, ostensibly an adaptation of The Tempest. Actually just an excuse for Peter Greenaway to get all artistic on your ass. Painfully nonsensical, although fans of the director will defend his every work to the last. Don't listen to them - they're insane.
I won't hear a bad word said against Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, but it's not half as funny until after you have a handle on Hamlet.
Then again, don't listen to me. I kind of liked Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, with Claire Danes and Leonardo di Caprio.
e-Chaucer! New! Improved! Updated for the internet age!
But with his mouth he kiste hir naked ers
Ful savorly, er he were war of this.
Abak he stirte, and thoughte it was amys,
For wel he wiste a womman hath no berd.
But the thing is, you look ever so much more important in an Aeron chair! Because they're very very expensive.
The Aeron chair says "Behold! I am so spectacularly important that my ass - which is also spectacularly important - requires a $700 item of seating technology!"
Plastic patio furniture says "Behold! I require furniture which can be cleaned with Formula 409, if necessary!"
The fact that both chairs are functionally equivalent is completely irrelevant. If Aeron chairs were sold at Target for $25, no one would ever have heard about them.
Any player who rolls snake-eyes has to draw an "AC URL" card and flip it over (ever so carefully, to spare the other players trauma). If you're lucky, it's an Amazon referral link. More likely, it isn't.
This is either the weirdest troll of all time, or the honest truth. If IHBT, then congratulations on a job well done. Otherwise, a thank you is in order. I never knew there was a right way to apply rubber cement. My whole life, I've been slopping it on there and then mashing the two pieces of paper together. I honestly never realized there was a better way.
Not that this is, you know, a life-changing revealation, or anything, but still. Good to know.
Slashdot Mirror
Dead on, there. I bet they could fetch twice the price if they sold it in a bundle along with a box of eight dozen vanilla-scented tealight candles and a pair of elastic-waist polyester slacks.
Surely you have acquaintances who feel that you yourself spend too much time playing Wow? How would you react if they posited the idea that maybe you should cut back, get out more, stop wasting all that time and money? And how would you feel if you found out that they had posted this article to slashdot about you?
Comfort yourself with the thought that it is totally and completely not your problem, and you should really just butt out.
I spent a while doing tech support for Solaris systems installed in hospitals. You cannot - CANNOT - insult the head nurse's intelligence, not if you want to keep your job. Even the slightest whiff of insult was enough to get you seriously spanked, and not in a fun way.
Cables often get unplugged in a hospital environment (pixies, maybe, I don't know), but we couldn't just ask "Is it unplugged?" Instead, we informed them that sometimes dust gets in there, so could you do me a favor - pull out the cable, blow on the connector, and plug it back in?
Worked like a charm, and didn't hurt anyone's feelings.
They PLANNED AHEAD.
Did you not forsee this eventuality? Did it not occur to you that, at some point in the future, you would need people to write the code for the product that you were attempting, at the time, to demo?
Whoever is in charge of writing your business plan should be politely shot.
Darth Sidious has a blog, too. (And it's funnier!)
That's not true! I use Usenet, and... um... oh. *sheepish*
This works well on really stupid roommates, too.
Go for it. Have as much fun as you possibly can, take lots of pictures, and enjoy the experience even when it's horrible.
But don't be COMPLETELY irresponsible. Talk to a financial planner before you go. They will be able to assess your likely income/expenses, and help set up a plan so that you can work with your money wisely, even when you're on the road. When you come back to the States, it may be a while before you get hired again, so you'll want to plan ahead.
I've ruined my life many times over; sometimes for love, sometimes for money, and other times just on a whim. I may have lost out on the opportunity to buy a house and settle down and be respectable and have a capital-C Career, but if I had to do it over again, I'd make all the same silly mistakes.
I can't speak for the parent post, but I can tell you I'm really bad at math. And I had some TERRIBLE experiences with tutors in my day, so I had to struggle with a lot of loathing/hostility before writing this post. Under other circumstances, I would have just passed it by, but you must have caught me in a helpful mood.
If you're really good at math, I'll guess that you're very bad at drawing/sketching. (That's always been my experience, but I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions to that rule, so forgive me for presuming.) If you're actually good at drawing things, then mentally substitute something else you're very bad at - playing a musical instrument, perhaps, or repairing a car.
If you really want to know what your students are going through, get a pencil and a stack of plain white paper, and sit down at your desk. Give yourself a two-hour time limit, and try to draw something. Don't use any reference material or models - math work is all theoretical, and drawing from a model is comparing apples to oranges. Draw something you're not particularly familiar with - if you own a dog, draw a cat, and vice versa.
It's hard, isn't it? You know what you're working towards, but you don't necessarily know how to get there. You may feel as if you're fumbling in the dark, knowing that millions of people could just sketch a dog in a few quick lines and be done with it. Your brain will probably feel as if it's being pushed in a direction it was never meant to go, and the venture may feel as if it's taking a thousand times more effort than it should.
Now picture a professional artist sitting across from you. You have hired the artist to help you get better at sketching dogs. What would you have the artist say to you? What sort of assistance would be helpful?
You will see, on the artist's face, an acknowledgement of how very hard you are trying, as well as how poorly you are doing. You can tell that the artist knows you're doing your best, but it's obvious to both of you that your sketched dog is TERRIBLE. This knowledge will not help your morale. You may lose patience with the venture and get snappish. The artist may lose patience with you, and snap back. Or maybe they shake their head sadly and say "You're not very good at this, are you?" in a tone of faux-sympathy. Perhaps they start barking out directions - "Make the paws rounder! ROUNDER!"
Um. Not that I'm bitter, you understand.
HTH.
If women were really paid that much less for the same work, why don't companies fire all their male employees, replace them with women and drive their compeditors out of business?
I recently left a company which had been, over the past two years, doing just that. Then they went the permatemp route, because the only thing cheaper to hire than a woman is a temp.
Needless to say, it didn't help their stock price much. Possibly because the CEO is fucking said company up the ass (financially speaking), drawing down about $33,000 net pay every two weeks, not to mention his company-sponsored penthouse apartment, to which he commutes (from out of state) via company jet, plus a six-figure annual bonus.
But I digress.
Violence against women by men is a cultural taboo in this country right up there with priests having sex with little boys, but female violence against men is no big deal, deserved, or even funny.
Settle down, tiger. Rest assured, if a woman told me I couldn't be as good at computers as a man - and believe me, there are plenty of women out there who've bought into the party line - I would not hesitate to punch her in the face, as well. Is that culturally taboo, or culturally accepted? I don't know; I've lost track of my rhetoric handbook. You tell me - sounds like you've got a recent copy close at hand.
Personally, I vote we treat each other fairly, and put all the sexist assholes and bitches up against the wall. And the greedy, ass-fucking CEOs, too!
The world would be a much better place if I was in charge.
ME FOR WORLD PRESIDENT!!!11
My mistake - I should have done more research before posting. Upon further digging, the wage gap varies from one profession to another. We earn 92 cents on the dollar at best. I guess I should be glad I'm not a physician, or I'd only be earning (on average) 58 cents on the dollar compared to men.
Here's a nice little table the AFL-CIO put together from US Department of Labor statistics, breaking down the wage gap by profession.
Ha ha, yeah. According to the advertising industry, men are completely unable to choose their own cough syrup. That always cracks me up. Perhaps it's just that my secret feminine over-the-counter-medication-fu allows me to choose wisely when ill.
But I feel obliged to politely point out that we're still earning (on average) only 92 cents on the dollar compared to men. And the gender-based salary discrepancy is even higher in high tech fields. And if anyone says women don't earn as much as men in high-tech fields because we're not as good, I will personally punch them in the face.
As far as I'm concerned, registering for the draft would only be fair... as long as you're all sure you WANT us in the military. A lot of guys are still pretty pissed about that, you know.
Mm, I don't know. I like this idea of a "kinder, gentler Slashdot" (new and improved, with 95% fewer goatse links, and no more testosterone-fueled pissing contests!) but it's just not quite working for me.
Can you build a handle on it? Because if so, I'd be sold!
You, sir, are worse than the Nazis!
Be careful, though. You might be suprised at how awful most Shakespeare movies are. Woe betide the newbie who takes Shakespeare for a test ride with:
Mel Gibson's Hamlet. (Rock 'em Sock 'em Hamlet!)
Ethan Hawke's Hamlet . (This version thinks it's ever so clever for having put Hamlet in a modern setting, but the contemporary stage dressing can't hide the limp acting and slowwwww pacing.)
Prospero's Books, ostensibly an adaptation of The Tempest. Actually just an excuse for Peter Greenaway to get all artistic on your ass. Painfully nonsensical, although fans of the director will defend his every work to the last. Don't listen to them - they're insane.
Titus Andronicus. I have not the words.
I won't hear a bad word said against Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, but it's not half as funny until after you have a handle on Hamlet.
Then again, don't listen to me. I kind of liked Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, with Claire Danes and Leonardo di Caprio.
e-Chaucer! New! Improved! Updated for the internet age!
But with his mouth he kiste hir naked ers
Ful savorly, er he were war of this.
Abak he stirte, and thoughte it was amys,
For wel he wiste a womman hath no berd.
(Don't click that link. Honest.)
I bought one, but I'm having trouble finding a battery charger that will fit that port.
Maybe NASA will make up for it by picking up some Popplers for us on the way home.
Personally, I think they made Aerons out of fishnet so that executives could be sure that everyone could see their ENTIRE suit.
After all, what's the point of dropping a couple grand on a monkey suit if your office chair blocks some of it from view?
But the thing is, you look ever so much more important in an Aeron chair! Because they're very very expensive.
The Aeron chair says "Behold! I am so spectacularly important that my ass - which is also spectacularly important - requires a $700 item of seating technology!"
Plastic patio furniture says "Behold! I require furniture which can be cleaned with Formula 409, if necessary!"
The fact that both chairs are functionally equivalent is completely irrelevant. If Aeron chairs were sold at Target for $25, no one would ever have heard about them.
And how do you propose we go about forcing every software vendor and mail server "administrator" to use SMTP-AUTH?
The same way I get everything else done. By ruthlessly insulting them until they start crying and give into my demands.
("You call that sorry sack of shit a mail server? Upgrade that motherfucker right now, or I'll tell your parents!")
Your attitude is a typical die-hard engineer's attitude. It completely misses the fact that you can't apply engineering rules to a human society.
True... but fortunately we CAN apply SMTP-AUTH to mail servers. Presto, global spam problem solved.
My car was broken into once, and they took all of my tapes EXCEPT the Pogues.
Music criticism from junkie window-breaking scum. Charming!
Any player who rolls snake-eyes has to draw an "AC URL" card and flip it over (ever so carefully, to spare the other players trauma). If you're lucky, it's an Amazon referral link. More likely, it isn't.
This is either the weirdest troll of all time, or the honest truth. If IHBT, then congratulations on a job well done. Otherwise, a thank you is in order. I never knew there was a right way to apply rubber cement. My whole life, I've been slopping it on there and then mashing the two pieces of paper together. I honestly never realized there was a better way.
Not that this is, you know, a life-changing revealation, or anything, but still. Good to know.