Perhaps it's just a UK thing, but many really do insist on.doc. This is what I received from one company after sending them a PDF:
Dear [my name]
Please can you re-send your CV to me in WORD format as I am unable to open the attachment. Please state the vacancy you are applying for in the subject line.
Oh I'd love to, with something with spikes on it. They just match up keywords in return for 10% of your starting salary. If they're looking for MS-SQL and you've only put down SQL Server experience you're not qualified. If you've got 10 years experience and know Perl and Python you're a worse candidate for a Ruby job than some guy fresh out of college who once wrote a 100 line Ruby script. Because, you know, he knows Ruby and you don't.
I only ever hear bad things about recruitment agents. I really don't know why more companies don't advertise directly. It can't be that much hassle to take a few phone calls and read a few emails.
After the second person who didn't have clue what a PDF is (I shit you not), I gave up on them. For direct applications to tech companies PDFs are ideal, but recruitment agents are a) stupid and b) prefer Word files, so they can edit out your contact details to ensure they don't get bypassed.
I've been looking for a job over the past couple of months (I've now found one, thanks for asking). I used OO to write my CV (resume) and saved it as a.doc. I wasn't getting anything like the response rate I usually get from applications and really couldn't understand why. Until, that is, I loaded up my CV in Word and discovered the formatting was fucked - my CV looked like shit. I never bothered to work out exactly what happened, but it seems some small difference in font rendering or spacing meant half the dates wrapped onto the next line, so the whole thing looked a mess. I gave up on OO, switched to Word and heard back from the very next job I applied for. Perhaps I screwed up, perhaps there are some compatibility options I should have used, but the fact of the matter is I used OO, selected "save as.doc" and didn't get what I expect. That cost me a good few weeks work and as a result a few thousand pounds.
My stance is of complete disinterest. I don't want my OS to be easy for them to use, I don't want it to be hard for them to use. I want it to be easy (typically via the path of least unpredictability) for me to use, that's all.
If that's you stance, why did you write "Personally I would prefer it that the idiots _weren't_ using the same OS as me."?
VMS's Files-11, which is what the GP described, is a versioning filesystem. It's ZFS which is the less-elegant approach if you want file versioning. Snapshots aren't the same thing at all.
Am I the only person who hates those "My Documents" folders? Or on a Mac iTunes insisting on putting music in a certain weird place?
Perhaps things changed with 10.5, but iTunes doesn't "insist" on anything. It defaults to copying music to its own directory, but it doesn't insist on it - if you untick that preference it'll just play them from wherever you decided to put them. Obviously it has a default location for music it copies, downloads or rips, but it's hardly so "weird" a location that you're not going to find it: ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music. The extra "iTunes Music" folder isn't ideal, but it's not like you'll miss it if you got as far as Music > iTunes. You can change that folder's location if you like.
Did it used to store everything in ~/Library? If it did I'll grant you the "weird place". I'm pretty sure it copying files has always been optional though.
Well, there are some people who can't find Pacific Ocean on the map. I dont see map makers running around in panic, thinking how to make their maps more accessible to the general population...
Do you really think that cartographers don't go to great lengths to make their maps as accessible to the target audience as possible? That's basically their job.
No, I wasn't there, I was going by your description, where you claimed you "couldn't be bothered to change lanes". They were you exact words. Now the story has changed and apparently you could be bothered, but couldn't due to traffic. That's a fundamental difference. Not being bothered to change lanes is an utterly obnoxious attitude and that's what I was was reacting to.
It is neither logical nor safe to safe to ignore correct lane discipline. It is illegal (the Germans are very serious about this - it's essential to be serious about it when you have roads with no speed limits) and it confounds the expectations of other drivers, which is dangerous in and of itself. From the description it was not a construction zone, it was between construction zones.
The main point is that no driver gets to decide what other drivers should be doing. You just do not get to decide that everybody else should be doing 80kph (50 mph) and force them either to drive more slowly than they desire or overtake in the incorrect lane. The outside lanes exist solely for the purpose of overtaking. If you are not overtaking you move the fuck over - that's the law, that's the expectation of other drivers, that's the way the system is designed. Let the other drivers decide how they want to drive. If they want to burn some fuel and wear their brakes and the law allows it it's none of your business whether they do so or not.
The effort required to change lanes is vanishingly small, it literally takes seconds and involves moving your head and arms a few inches. Inconveniencing other drivers to save such a vanishingly small amount of effort is just obnoxious.
I specifically picked 3G phones and ADSL as both are limited in bandwidth by the available SNR. They will work in the presence of noise, but they will work more slowly. Games consoles, hard drives and so on are designed to be robust to interference. The shielding that keeps noise in keeps it out too, so you'd need seriously obnoxious noise to affect them. The fact that you've not crossed that threshold doesn't mean that the noise is insignificant, it just means you're using the wrong devices to judge the effects.
If every PC was run without a case hard drives and stereos wouldn't fail, but 3G network performance would be worse everywhere, GPS devices would take longer to get a lock, TV reception would be worse at the margins - there is potential to affect every RF device by raising the RF noise floor. Unless you look in the right places you won't notice this, but that doesn't mean it's not real. There are regulations on allowable emissions for good reasons.
The majority of console/computer/card/board gamers are people under 30. This is not even worth refuting as you can simply ask any retail worker in any store. Anywhere.
The only time I've ever actually queued for a game was for GTA4 on release day. Plenty of kids and 20-somethings in the shop, but the people in the queue - you know, the people actually buying something - were more mature. Younger people hang about in game shops and occasionally buy something, more mature people are far more likely to have better things to do, know exactly what they want and be in and out in three minutes.
This is an English-language website, so it's hardly surprising that the stories come predominantly from English-speaking parts of the world. No so much coverage of Europe as a whole, but there are a good few stories about the UK. Not so many about Ireland, but it only has 1/10th the population of the UK.
As somebody who works in the industry, there's plenty of capacity. The reason for the rolling blackouts last summer was because our redundant lines (in Victoria) were taken out by bushfire. There was no way to prevent it.
If you need those lines to deal with peak demand they aren't redundant. Or were there failures on the primary lines too?
I'm with you. One time in Germany I was crawling through roadworks which caused a lot of delay as everyone was forced into one lane. Once the first set of roadworks ended and we were back to three lanes but I could see it was only going to be for about 2km before another set of roadworks, so I didn't bother speeding up too much (maybe to 80km/h) or changing lanes (because the lane I was in was the one we'd all be in in 2km).
So what you're saying is that you were driving too slowly, in the wrong lane and you knew it. Sorry, but you do not get to decide when the rules of the road should and should not apply. If you want to go slow, pick the right fucking lane or you're likely to cause an accident. Not bothering to change lanes because two minutes later you will have to change back is just monumentally lazy, selfish and dangerous. You are extremely lucky you didn't cause an accident.
Been keeping my case open for 5 years and I have yet to notice any side effect or interference.
Have you actually looked for any side effects or interference? Have you, for example, tested the data rate you get from a 3G phone with the PC on and off? How about your ADSL line?
I've ran across similar experiences before too. It's mind boggling how these people, many of which have a degree, can't figure out how to use a different oscilloscope. Not all of them are intuitive to use, but the options and features are generally lain out in a way that you can figure out what to do.
Who said they can't? It's just harder. I find it mind boggling that some people think that making something more difficult for no good reason is fine, just so long as you don't make it impossible.
It's funny and sad...how imaginary pixels can run people's lives to do horrible things in a physical world.
Is it really any funnier than how photons or pressure waves can influence people? MMOs, Second Life etc. are to some extent a medium for communication between people. People are real, no matter how they communicate.
I only disagree that all copyrights have to be exclusive. That is a very small portion (but necessary part) of copyright.
They wouldn't be copyrights if they weren't exclusive, the copyright is the exclusivity and vice versa. People who want to freely distribute their works can already do so under current copyright law and frequently do - the exclusive right includes the right to choose how freely people can redistribute the work. If you want to let people copy it freely but keep attribution there are a number of canned licenses you can use - CC, BSD etc. The extent to which exclusivity is exercised is wholly under their control. I don't really get what your point is, as far as I can see everything you want exists under the current system.
See subject. Then make everyone talk in UTC. That should do it.
You've been modded funny, but I seriously don't see any problem with doing that at all[1]. Why does it matter that the clock points close to 12 when we have lunch, instead of 3 or 9 or some other arbitrary number?
China has only one timezone and no DST, it seems to work for them.
[1] I actually live in the UK, so for me this would only mean losing DST, but I wouldn't care if the standard chosen was UTC + 6 or whatever.
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Perhaps it's just a UK thing, but many really do insist on .doc. This is what I received from one company after sending them a PDF:
Oh I'd love to, with something with spikes on it. They just match up keywords in return for 10% of your starting salary. If they're looking for MS-SQL and you've only put down SQL Server experience you're not qualified. If you've got 10 years experience and know Perl and Python you're a worse candidate for a Ruby job than some guy fresh out of college who once wrote a 100 line Ruby script. Because, you know, he knows Ruby and you don't.
I only ever hear bad things about recruitment agents. I really don't know why more companies don't advertise directly. It can't be that much hassle to take a few phone calls and read a few emails.
After the second person who didn't have clue what a PDF is (I shit you not), I gave up on them. For direct applications to tech companies PDFs are ideal, but recruitment agents are a) stupid and b) prefer Word files, so they can edit out your contact details to ensure they don't get bypassed.
I've been looking for a job over the past couple of months (I've now found one, thanks for asking). I used OO to write my CV (resume) and saved it as a .doc. I wasn't getting anything like the response rate I usually get from applications and really couldn't understand why. Until, that is, I loaded up my CV in Word and discovered the formatting was fucked - my CV looked like shit. I never bothered to work out exactly what happened, but it seems some small difference in font rendering or spacing meant half the dates wrapped onto the next line, so the whole thing looked a mess. I gave up on OO, switched to Word and heard back from the very next job I applied for. Perhaps I screwed up, perhaps there are some compatibility options I should have used, but the fact of the matter is I used OO, selected "save as .doc" and didn't get what I expect. That cost me a good few weeks work and as a result a few thousand pounds.
If that's you stance, why did you write "Personally I would prefer it that the idiots _weren't_ using the same OS as me."?
I think you must be confused over what a versioning filesystem is.
VMS's Files-11, which is what the GP described, is a versioning filesystem. It's ZFS which is the less-elegant approach if you want file versioning. Snapshots aren't the same thing at all.
Perhaps things changed with 10.5, but iTunes doesn't "insist" on anything. It defaults to copying music to its own directory, but it doesn't insist on it - if you untick that preference it'll just play them from wherever you decided to put them. Obviously it has a default location for music it copies, downloads or rips, but it's hardly so "weird" a location that you're not going to find it: ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music. The extra "iTunes Music" folder isn't ideal, but it's not like you'll miss it if you got as far as Music > iTunes. You can change that folder's location if you like.
Did it used to store everything in ~/Library? If it did I'll grant you the "weird place". I'm pretty sure it copying files has always been optional though.
Do you really think that cartographers don't go to great lengths to make their maps as accessible to the target audience as possible? That's basically their job.
Are people really so insecure about their OS that they worry about whether a senile old grandmother can use the same one?
Oops, I was sure I checked your exact words. My bad. Still, it doesn't change my point - didn't bother, couldn't be bothered; potato, potato.
No, I wasn't there, I was going by your description, where you claimed you "couldn't be bothered to change lanes". They were you exact words. Now the story has changed and apparently you could be bothered, but couldn't due to traffic. That's a fundamental difference. Not being bothered to change lanes is an utterly obnoxious attitude and that's what I was was reacting to.
A perfect illustration of why Macs sell like hot cakes and it's been "year of Linux on the desktop" for the past decade.
It is neither logical nor safe to safe to ignore correct lane discipline. It is illegal (the Germans are very serious about this - it's essential to be serious about it when you have roads with no speed limits) and it confounds the expectations of other drivers, which is dangerous in and of itself. From the description it was not a construction zone, it was between construction zones.
The main point is that no driver gets to decide what other drivers should be doing. You just do not get to decide that everybody else should be doing 80kph (50 mph) and force them either to drive more slowly than they desire or overtake in the incorrect lane. The outside lanes exist solely for the purpose of overtaking. If you are not overtaking you move the fuck over - that's the law, that's the expectation of other drivers, that's the way the system is designed. Let the other drivers decide how they want to drive. If they want to burn some fuel and wear their brakes and the law allows it it's none of your business whether they do so or not.
The effort required to change lanes is vanishingly small, it literally takes seconds and involves moving your head and arms a few inches. Inconveniencing other drivers to save such a vanishingly small amount of effort is just obnoxious.
I specifically picked 3G phones and ADSL as both are limited in bandwidth by the available SNR. They will work in the presence of noise, but they will work more slowly. Games consoles, hard drives and so on are designed to be robust to interference. The shielding that keeps noise in keeps it out too, so you'd need seriously obnoxious noise to affect them. The fact that you've not crossed that threshold doesn't mean that the noise is insignificant, it just means you're using the wrong devices to judge the effects.
If every PC was run without a case hard drives and stereos wouldn't fail, but 3G network performance would be worse everywhere, GPS devices would take longer to get a lock, TV reception would be worse at the margins - there is potential to affect every RF device by raising the RF noise floor. Unless you look in the right places you won't notice this, but that doesn't mean it's not real. There are regulations on allowable emissions for good reasons.
The only time I've ever actually queued for a game was for GTA4 on release day. Plenty of kids and 20-somethings in the shop, but the people in the queue - you know, the people actually buying something - were more mature. Younger people hang about in game shops and occasionally buy something, more mature people are far more likely to have better things to do, know exactly what they want and be in and out in three minutes.
I didn't know that, but I don't find it surprising. He was a great orator too. Being evil doesn't mean everything you ever do is evil.
This is an English-language website, so it's hardly surprising that the stories come predominantly from English-speaking parts of the world. No so much coverage of Europe as a whole, but there are a good few stories about the UK. Not so many about Ireland, but it only has 1/10th the population of the UK.
If you need those lines to deal with peak demand they aren't redundant. Or were there failures on the primary lines too?
So what you're saying is that you were driving too slowly, in the wrong lane and you knew it. Sorry, but you do not get to decide when the rules of the road should and should not apply. If you want to go slow, pick the right fucking lane or you're likely to cause an accident. Not bothering to change lanes because two minutes later you will have to change back is just monumentally lazy, selfish and dangerous. You are extremely lucky you didn't cause an accident.
Have you actually looked for any side effects or interference? Have you, for example, tested the data rate you get from a 3G phone with the PC on and off? How about your ADSL line?
Who said they can't? It's just harder. I find it mind boggling that some people think that making something more difficult for no good reason is fine, just so long as you don't make it impossible.
Is it really any funnier than how photons or pressure waves can influence people? MMOs, Second Life etc. are to some extent a medium for communication between people. People are real, no matter how they communicate.
They wouldn't be copyrights if they weren't exclusive, the copyright is the exclusivity and vice versa. People who want to freely distribute their works can already do so under current copyright law and frequently do - the exclusive right includes the right to choose how freely people can redistribute the work. If you want to let people copy it freely but keep attribution there are a number of canned licenses you can use - CC, BSD etc. The extent to which exclusivity is exercised is wholly under their control. I don't really get what your point is, as far as I can see everything you want exists under the current system.
I am laughing so hard right now. You're a funny guy.
You've been modded funny, but I seriously don't see any problem with doing that at all[1]. Why does it matter that the clock points close to 12 when we have lunch, instead of 3 or 9 or some other arbitrary number?
China has only one timezone and no DST, it seems to work for them.
[1] I actually live in the UK, so for me this would only mean losing DST, but I wouldn't care if the standard chosen was UTC + 6 or whatever.