"Quick! You have two minutes to name as many ways as possible to kill someone with a doorknob. Go."
(Give it a try, then read on...)
After a few seconds of silence and questioning looks (to which he just started looking at his watch) most people got going. It works great 'cause you don't hire the people that can't come up with any, and you have security escort out the ones that go for the whole two minutes.
I work for a company that makes software for companies that do a lot of scanning (industrial-strength OCR), and as we like to be able to test scanners to see if they have any issues with our software. We get new ones on a monthly cycle; it would seem that we rent them, but it also might just be some deal we have worked out. Even places like Kinko's might be able to set you up with a few-month rental - assuming you'll only need it for that period. And renting will save you some cash until you can afford a "real" one.
Because basically, it is - for them. They're making a bet that if they pay this fee, they can keep you for 3 years. And of course, if you take a good chunk of the 50k, it's going to make it that much harder for you to leave the company over the next 3 years, because I doubt they'd let you pay it back with a fair payment schedule and low interest rates. This actually might be illegal, especially because of all the ways they would be able to abuse you over the next few years - freeze your salary, trim benefits, make you work on unsavory projects. Of course, you should check on what happens if you're fired, and if they start abusing you, find a new job and then just stop coming in... that's a pretty good way to be fired.
Of course, this also might be a litmus test of your loyalty: how much of the training are you going to take indicating how likely you think you'll be there for the next 3 years. Ttraining is generally overpriced, as it's geared for a corporate budget, not a consumer's. My recommendation is: see if you can get some hardware with that training budget, at least if you walk, you've got something truly tangible. If you can handle being there for a bit, I'd say take a class or two on something that you really think would help you find a new job (since it sounds like you're already looking, or should be) and then do so.
Um hello to all the fuckheads at ABC: If the moon receives that much energy, and the Earth is 10x (or whatever) bigger than the moon, I'd bet it receives more energy from the sun (even accounting for all that is scattered by the atmosphere) and would be just a wee bit easier to capture. Let NASA spends it's billions (oh wait, Bush is in office...) on important stuff, like say that little project that is billions overbudget right now.
Well, it seems I need to check my facts before blabbing, huh?
Don't go for USB, it's not worth it. But do check eveything out before you start cutting, I spent 10+ hours of research and 4 hours of work for my simple mod.
I'm sorry this sounds bad, but if you haven't heard of xlr8yourmac.com, I have to doubt your skillz. Not that I can say anything, as the only mod I've done is to a B&W G3 (actually, it was also adding a CD-RW - in the zip drive slot), but that is significantly easier to work on that an iMac - remember that's not a full-size CD drive you've got there, it's one from a laptop, so you're probably going to have to cut/move some stuff. It might not even be possible without major EE-type stuff.
Not that you can't do it, but consider getting an external (Firewire!), that way you can burn CD-to-CD and rip even faster in iTunes. Plus, when you dump your iMac, you've still got a useful CD-RW - check out dealmac.com for good daily prices
Verification
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· Score: 4, Informative
As an employee of a company that does OCR (but not the type you're looking for - we do pre-defined form OCR only, like surveys) I can tell you you're going to spend a lot of time verifying that the software identified the letters of the manual properly. Even though we know exactly where the letters will be and of what type they are (alpha, numeric, other) it still can't get them right - yes even with machine print. And we actually have some of the best OCR for our industry; although we limit our processing to only about a second per page, because we're more volume-oriented. (I work on our other products) Basically, don't expect a miracle.
Of course, it might be easier just to find the original source (be it MS Word or whatever) and find software to convert that. Even if you have to get on the phone and track some people down it would be easier than re-proofing and re-tweaking.
With our adapter, the flexCD plays in most existing CD and DVD devices
Who remembers CD caddies? And how much you hated them? Why would you want to go back to that?
And for non-technical people (the ones that can't set the time on their VCR), they're not going to be able to figure out how to use the adapter and will likely end up destroying their CD players, particularly if they try it with a slot-loading one.
Sure, it will be great for people who like the CD inserts in magazines, and may be the best thing in the world for them, but I've yet to find an insert that would make me want to keep around an extra caddy just so I could play it. But then again, it would be nice to be able to fold up a CD and stick in an envelope instead of buying the special CD protective packages, so it might work.
Oh, and what do those naked men have to do with CDs?
Actually, it's more parabola-shaped (bowl-shaped).
As I said, you sleep the least when you have the most demands on your time. People in retirement have less demands on their time, and can thus afford to sleep more.
Sure, you may be old, but I was talking generally about other people.
Think about it, who do you know that sleeps 8+ hours a day, other than the elderly and sick (both groups who at more likely to die than the average person)? And from my experience, the "average person" generally has more important things to do than spend 8+ hours a day sleeping. So as roffe said, sleeping 8+ hours a day is more likely a symptom of someone trying to maintain their health, because they are in danger of dying.
To put it another way, when I had mono I was sleeping 12 hours a day, and the hours I was awake, it felt like I was dying. And it wasn't like I had to force myself to sleep, my body was naturally making me sleep longer so I wouldn't end up dying. And gee, would you guess what? When I got better, I went back to my normal 6-7 hours of sleeping!
Does anyone want to fund my study? I'm going to see if age has anything to do with death.
First, I could/would never do this, so congratulations. However, it does sound (I know, your microphone sucks) like there is a lot of the normal whirring and clicking of a hard drive laid over the music. Have you given any thought to cancelling this noise out, by perhaps writing something that would play a constant (or variable with rotation speed) noise opposite the humming?
I got my brother some AIWA headphones at Fry's for about $50, he's used them on several plane flights and says that he can no longer hear the engines, but can still hear the flight attendants when they ask what beverage he'd like.
Don't know if you're trying to get rid of all sound, but they do a pretty good job of reducing backgroud noise. He's sworn he's never going back to non-noise cancelling headphones.
I think that's what we used. You'd have to talk to the person in charge of the lab (go to www.cec.wustl.edu/news) and click on that email link - she's an administrator (as in she shuffles paperwork), but she's in charge and can point you to who you need to talk to. I think we use lpquota (Wash U doesn't enforce the limits - see below) and we run it off UNIX, but that's as much as I know.
You also might want to be sure that this is a good idea, like I said, we run lpquota, but don't enforce it 'cause it's not worth the time to track down and add a $.50 charge to someone's transcript, have them raise hell 'cause they didn't know there was a printer limit, and then ultimately get someone to remove it. Not to mention then getting your ass chewed after this happens enough times.
If you actually want to affect the people who print out large numbers of pages, screen out any print jobs larger than 50 pages (not file size) - it's amazing how many people view something a few pagedowns into a really long (poorly segmented) webpage, and then click pring, expecting only that page to show up, and then not realize that it comes out as 104 pages take the 1 they want and throw the rest away (ignoring the bright blue recycle bin). If people complain to your lab admins or whoever, it's an excellent chance to teach them the wonders of how to choose exactly which pages (ie, pages 3-4) they actually want.
Yes this happened to me. I was stupid enough to use my "main" private email account that was not previously recieving spam (apart from forwards from my friends). Now spam has escalated at an increasing rate, every week it seems my daily rate has incremented.
The humorus side to this is watching the evolution of those who were spamming me. First it was the headhunters and other job-search web sites (blocked some of them), then it sorta moved to "special offers" (ironic they buy their list from those who spam the unemployed); the "make money at home" came soon after that, followed by all the rest of the herbal viagra and diet pill "we spam anyone" stuff. Only now am I getting the good stuff, here's to hot young teen lesbian whores!
I haven't really dealt with GoldMine myself, but apparently we just like acquiring really fancy but utterly propetary software here, as we have threecustomer databases, each updated by a different department which is only responsible for keeping their database up to date. I heard several people before me have attempted to create a linking, but they don't want "bad data" from one database "infecting" the others, so no department will let you play with their database.
But then again, our IS department still swears by MS, even though they have to put all of their work on hold for a few weeks every time a new Outlook bug shows up. Someone get me outta here!
Or, for anyone who bit a while ago at that Apple handheld-like device, they could adopt Mac OS X. They already run a modified (stripped) version of it on the registers at brick & mortar Apple stores, and if Handspring/Palm were to combine what they have with some of the Newton technologies... I'm sure you'd have some very happy geeks. (Especially since the iPod already has a 5 Gig hard drive, the right form factor, and Firewire - that'd be what, the iSpring?)
Each of the examples you give is essentially a function (ok I'm not 100% familiar with everything you mention, but from what I know...). In OO design, each of these would be a discrete "building block", think of each as a specialized calculator. Now if you're just trying to solve a single equation, (in my opinion) yes it is too small for full blown OO.
However, if you have a function that say, needs to do many integration, derivation, or whatever steps, you can write an object instead of just doing a function. The advantage of writing a integration object instead of just a function is that you are forced to pass in all of your data, and thus the object is reusable (it in effect becomes a library). You could include in the same object many different types of integration, single, double, Legrande, although I would separate out derivatives.
I guess another (abstract) way to relate it is to buying a new computer. You can either go to Dell (or whomwever) and buy a new package every time and pay a premium, or you can just upgrade one module at a time - your hard drive isn't big enough, get a better one, not enough RAM, get some more, etc.
And if anyone wants to flame me about how this will lead to a legacy system let me point out that: a) Linux runs on a 486; b) it's just an abstraction!
I noticed that too, then again, almost all the news sites that have names the same as their titles are searched for. What I think is more funny is how many other sites that couldn't have been explained by people looking for cached versions of the site there are: nokia, sony, bmw... and Amazon for *'s sake! I guess it's good that people are using Google, but how stupid are they, really? And I didn't think bookmarks/shorcuts where that advanced of a concept.
"You can't use Technology to solve a Social Engineering problem"
I don't know who said it, but I heard it from a professor at college, and remembered it 'cause I realized it was one of those nuggets that should be remembered. Just because you can exchange that ugly sweater your mom got you doesn't mean you should.
From my experience school's interest is computers works like this:
Business - Teaching the MS way
Math - Making the churn of math easier, like graphing equations and solving systems of equations
Science - Reports, reading lab equipment, and calculations
English - Typing papers, internet for research
History - Typing papers, internet for research
Art - Using Photoshop (preferably on Macs)
CS (if they have one) - teaching whatever C++ compiler the teacher is most familiar with
Sorry if I've left some out, but you get the point. Since we've already had the discussion on how easy Linux is to a newbie, I'm more interested in what free software/OSes would fullfill each departments needs (kudos if you can satisfy business!). And remember, you're dealing with uninterested kids, so the software pretty much has to be point & click.
With the slashdotting MIT's getting right now, I'd say the 31337 h4x0rs from/. own joo, MIT.;-)
Re:A need for Distributed Content Storage
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Adcritic Shuts Down
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· Score: 1
You mean like what Akamai does? They even do it seamlessly. Of course, they're not free, and they don't do everything you want, but I'd say it's a good step, if I understand you correctly. (No, I have no relationship with them)
Wait, a site that was "All ads, all the time" became too popular? And advertisers could track which ads were more popular than others objectively and exactly? I've always said most marketeers wouldn't understand technology if it smacked them in the face. Guess I was right.
Damn, if they couldn't find funding, slashdot's fux0r'd.
Slashdot Mirror
"Quick! You have two minutes to name as many ways as possible to kill someone with a doorknob. Go."
(Give it a try, then read on...)
After a few seconds of silence and questioning looks (to which he just started looking at his watch) most people got going. It works great 'cause you don't hire the people that can't come up with any, and you have security escort out the ones that go for the whole two minutes.
I work for a company that makes software for companies that do a lot of scanning (industrial-strength OCR), and as we like to be able to test scanners to see if they have any issues with our software. We get new ones on a monthly cycle; it would seem that we rent them, but it also might just be some deal we have worked out. Even places like Kinko's might be able to set you up with a few-month rental - assuming you'll only need it for that period. And renting will save you some cash until you can afford a "real" one.
Because basically, it is - for them. They're making a bet that if they pay this fee, they can keep you for 3 years. And of course, if you take a good chunk of the 50k, it's going to make it that much harder for you to leave the company over the next 3 years, because I doubt they'd let you pay it back with a fair payment schedule and low interest rates. This actually might be illegal, especially because of all the ways they would be able to abuse you over the next few years - freeze your salary, trim benefits, make you work on unsavory projects. Of course, you should check on what happens if you're fired, and if they start abusing you, find a new job and then just stop coming in... that's a pretty good way to be fired.
Of course, this also might be a litmus test of your loyalty: how much of the training are you going to take indicating how likely you think you'll be there for the next 3 years. Ttraining is generally overpriced, as it's geared for a corporate budget, not a consumer's. My recommendation is: see if you can get some hardware with that training budget, at least if you walk, you've got something truly tangible. If you can handle being there for a bit, I'd say take a class or two on something that you really think would help you find a new job (since it sounds like you're already looking, or should be) and then do so.
Um hello to all the fuckheads at ABC: If the moon receives that much energy, and the Earth is 10x (or whatever) bigger than the moon, I'd bet it receives more energy from the sun (even accounting for all that is scattered by the atmosphere) and would be just a wee bit easier to capture. Let NASA spends it's billions (oh wait, Bush is in office...) on important stuff, like say that little project that is billions overbudget right now.
Well, it seems I need to check my facts before blabbing, huh?
Don't go for USB, it's not worth it. But do check eveything out before you start cutting, I spent 10+ hours of research and 4 hours of work for my simple mod.
I'm sorry this sounds bad, but if you haven't heard of xlr8yourmac.com, I have to doubt your skillz. Not that I can say anything, as the only mod I've done is to a B&W G3 (actually, it was also adding a CD-RW - in the zip drive slot), but that is significantly easier to work on that an iMac - remember that's not a full-size CD drive you've got there, it's one from a laptop, so you're probably going to have to cut/move some stuff. It might not even be possible without major EE-type stuff.
Not that you can't do it, but consider getting an external (Firewire!), that way you can burn CD-to-CD and rip even faster in iTunes. Plus, when you dump your iMac, you've still got a useful CD-RW - check out dealmac.com for good daily prices
As an employee of a company that does OCR (but not the type you're looking for - we do pre-defined form OCR only, like surveys) I can tell you you're going to spend a lot of time verifying that the software identified the letters of the manual properly. Even though we know exactly where the letters will be and of what type they are (alpha, numeric, other) it still can't get them right - yes even with machine print. And we actually have some of the best OCR for our industry; although we limit our processing to only about a second per page, because we're more volume-oriented. (I work on our other products) Basically, don't expect a miracle.
Of course, it might be easier just to find the original source (be it MS Word or whatever) and find software to convert that. Even if you have to get on the phone and track some people down it would be easier than re-proofing and re-tweaking.
Who remembers CD caddies? And how much you hated them? Why would you want to go back to that?
And for non-technical people (the ones that can't set the time on their VCR), they're not going to be able to figure out how to use the adapter and will likely end up destroying their CD players, particularly if they try it with a slot-loading one.
Sure, it will be great for people who like the CD inserts in magazines, and may be the best thing in the world for them, but I've yet to find an insert that would make me want to keep around an extra caddy just so I could play it. But then again, it would be nice to be able to fold up a CD and stick in an envelope instead of buying the special CD protective packages, so it might work.
Oh, and what do those naked men have to do with CDs?
Actually, it's more parabola-shaped (bowl-shaped).
As I said, you sleep the least when you have the most demands on your time. People in retirement have less demands on their time, and can thus afford to sleep more.
Sure, you may be old, but I was talking generally about other people.
I agree completely with roffe.
Think about it, who do you know that sleeps 8+ hours a day, other than the elderly and sick (both groups who at more likely to die than the average person)? And from my experience, the "average person" generally has more important things to do than spend 8+ hours a day sleeping. So as roffe said, sleeping 8+ hours a day is more likely a symptom of someone trying to maintain their health, because they are in danger of dying.
To put it another way, when I had mono I was sleeping 12 hours a day, and the hours I was awake, it felt like I was dying. And it wasn't like I had to force myself to sleep, my body was naturally making me sleep longer so I wouldn't end up dying. And gee, would you guess what? When I got better, I went back to my normal 6-7 hours of sleeping!
Does anyone want to fund my study? I'm going to see if age has anything to do with death.
First, I could/would never do this, so congratulations. However, it does sound (I know, your microphone sucks) like there is a lot of the normal whirring and clicking of a hard drive laid over the music. Have you given any thought to cancelling this noise out, by perhaps writing something that would play a constant (or variable with rotation speed) noise opposite the humming?
I got my brother some AIWA headphones at Fry's for about $50, he's used them on several plane flights and says that he can no longer hear the engines, but can still hear the flight attendants when they ask what beverage he'd like.
Don't know if you're trying to get rid of all sound, but they do a pretty good job of reducing backgroud noise. He's sworn he's never going back to non-noise cancelling headphones.
I think that's what we used. You'd have to talk to the person in charge of the lab (go to www.cec.wustl.edu/news) and click on that email link - she's an administrator (as in she shuffles paperwork), but she's in charge and can point you to who you need to talk to. I think we use lpquota (Wash U doesn't enforce the limits - see below) and we run it off UNIX, but that's as much as I know.
You also might want to be sure that this is a good idea, like I said, we run lpquota, but don't enforce it 'cause it's not worth the time to track down and add a $.50 charge to someone's transcript, have them raise hell 'cause they didn't know there was a printer limit, and then ultimately get someone to remove it. Not to mention then getting your ass chewed after this happens enough times.
If you actually want to affect the people who print out large numbers of pages, screen out any print jobs larger than 50 pages (not file size) - it's amazing how many people view something a few pagedowns into a really long (poorly segmented) webpage, and then click pring, expecting only that page to show up, and then not realize that it comes out as 104 pages take the 1 they want and throw the rest away (ignoring the bright blue recycle bin). If people complain to your lab admins or whoever, it's an excellent chance to teach them the wonders of how to choose exactly which pages (ie, pages 3-4) they actually want.
Yes this happened to me. I was stupid enough to use my "main" private email account that was not previously recieving spam (apart from forwards from my friends). Now spam has escalated at an increasing rate, every week it seems my daily rate has incremented.
The humorus side to this is watching the evolution of those who were spamming me. First it was the headhunters and other job-search web sites (blocked some of them), then it sorta moved to "special offers" (ironic they buy their list from those who spam the unemployed); the "make money at home" came soon after that, followed by all the rest of the herbal viagra and diet pill "we spam anyone" stuff. Only now am I getting the good stuff, here's to hot young teen lesbian whores!
Same here
I haven't really dealt with GoldMine myself, but apparently we just like acquiring really fancy but utterly propetary software here, as we have three customer databases, each updated by a different department which is only responsible for keeping their database up to date. I heard several people before me have attempted to create a linking, but they don't want "bad data" from one database "infecting" the others, so no department will let you play with their database.
But then again, our IS department still swears by MS, even though they have to put all of their work on hold for a few weeks every time a new Outlook bug shows up. Someone get me outta here!
Or, for anyone who bit a while ago at that Apple handheld-like device, they could adopt Mac OS X. They already run a modified (stripped) version of it on the registers at brick & mortar Apple stores, and if Handspring/Palm were to combine what they have with some of the Newton technologies... I'm sure you'd have some very happy geeks. (Especially since the iPod already has a 5 Gig hard drive, the right form factor, and Firewire - that'd be what, the iSpring?)
Each of the examples you give is essentially a function (ok I'm not 100% familiar with everything you mention, but from what I know...). In OO design, each of these would be a discrete "building block", think of each as a specialized calculator. Now if you're just trying to solve a single equation, (in my opinion) yes it is too small for full blown OO.
However, if you have a function that say, needs to do many integration, derivation, or whatever steps, you can write an object instead of just doing a function. The advantage of writing a integration object instead of just a function is that you are forced to pass in all of your data, and thus the object is reusable (it in effect becomes a library). You could include in the same object many different types of integration, single, double, Legrande, although I would separate out derivatives.
I guess another (abstract) way to relate it is to buying a new computer. You can either go to Dell (or whomwever) and buy a new package every time and pay a premium, or you can just upgrade one module at a time - your hard drive isn't big enough, get a better one, not enough RAM, get some more, etc.
And if anyone wants to flame me about how this will lead to a legacy system let me point out that: a) Linux runs on a 486; b) it's just an abstraction!
I noticed that too, then again, almost all the news sites that have names the same as their titles are searched for. What I think is more funny is how many other sites that couldn't have been explained by people looking for cached versions of the site there are: nokia, sony, bmw... and Amazon for *'s sake! I guess it's good that people are using Google, but how stupid are they, really? And I didn't think bookmarks/shorcuts where that advanced of a concept.
"You can't use Technology to solve a Social Engineering problem"
I don't know who said it, but I heard it from a professor at college, and remembered it 'cause I realized it was one of those nuggets that should be remembered. Just because you can exchange that ugly sweater your mom got you doesn't mean you should.
Ok, this is slightly offtopic, but...
From my experience school's interest is computers works like this:
Business - Teaching the MS way
Math - Making the churn of math easier, like graphing equations and solving systems of equations
Science - Reports, reading lab equipment, and calculations
English - Typing papers, internet for research
History - Typing papers, internet for research
Art - Using Photoshop (preferably on Macs)
CS (if they have one) - teaching whatever C++ compiler the teacher is most familiar with
Sorry if I've left some out, but you get the point. Since we've already had the discussion on how easy Linux is to a newbie, I'm more interested in what free software/OSes would fullfill each departments needs (kudos if you can satisfy business!). And remember, you're dealing with uninterested kids, so the software pretty much has to be point & click.
With the slashdotting MIT's getting right now, I'd say the 31337 h4x0rs from /. own joo, MIT. ;-)
You mean like what Akamai does? They even do it seamlessly. Of course, they're not free, and they don't do everything you want, but I'd say it's a good step, if I understand you correctly. (No, I have no relationship with them)
Wait, a site that was "All ads, all the time" became too popular? And advertisers could track which ads were more popular than others objectively and exactly? I've always said most marketeers wouldn't understand technology if it smacked them in the face. Guess I was right.
Damn, if they couldn't find funding, slashdot's fux0r'd.