I expect this thread will be diluged with posters claiming they can consistently win at Las Vegas (given the mathematical superiority of/.ers, perhaps there are some who can, but I fall back on "If you're so smart, how come you ain't rich?") The casino industry wouldn't be able to build those palaces of tacky splendor, keep the free drinks and cheap food coming and manage to pay out jackpots if the odds weren't firmly stacked in favor of the house.
The state I live in (no, it's not Utter Confusion) is getting ready to institute a lottery, and it's expected that the people who can least afford it will be pumping the most money into it each week in hopes of winning that pie in the sky. We've always had a pretty well-organized numbers racket in my town, centered on convenience markets - the same places that will be selling the lottery tickets. Every time they haul one of the numbers kingpins into court, they claim that the numbers game is just the poor man's stock market, and I'm starting to see the logic in that argument as well.
Well, there are a few hundred other occupational/geographical categories that women occupy besides model, actress or Soho socialite. You might try expanding your search.
Does offering Health Insurance imply that you are required to spend time each year in a hospital?
Only if you want to get your money's worth.
My shop used to have a sick leave benefit. They eliminated it because they claimed people were abusing it. Now if you get sick you get a write-up and it comes out of your vacation time. You can imagine how stressful this is. Oh yes, they have started offering us a "Wellness" benefit that includes yoga.
If my employer would allow me a few minutes to relax and clear my head, I'd be all for it, but I wouldn't want to be force-fed into some kind of group yoga class any more than I would want to be forced to recite Gregorian chants, handle snakes, wash someone's feet or take part in any other religious practices which may do wonders spiritually for the people who believe in them, but not much for people who prefer a rational approach to life.
I went to one yoga lesson once - actually I was unsuspectingly subjected to it at a friend's "party" and when they started talking about how your body has chakras and the energy flows up and down your spine, I had to suck in my cheeks to keep from laughing out loud.
I don't especially like the master-disciple approach either, be it yoga, karate, Zen, Catholic Church, etc.
If I want to say a prayer to the deity of my choice at work or at school, I already have the First Amendment right to bow my head (or assume whatever position I choose) and do so, but I'll be darned if I'm going to observe the rites of someone else's religion as part of some PHB's cost-cutting approach to reducing job sress. I think this mass approach would also cheapen the experience for those who sincerely believe in it.
BTW, Mr. Bray, I dig your column and I think you have a really cool name.
Imagine if the glue dude is kind of paranoid, wht kind of documents he could reconstruct. That guy in A Beautiful Mind had a whole garage full of this stuff.
When I was a child, we used to play with plastic dolls, and the the Ginny doll, the Vicki doll, the Barbie doll, the Madame Alexander doll, etc. I guess some of them were off-brand. One of my friends always referred to her doll as her "Pat Pending" doll!
(Now that I've picked myself up off the floor from laughing at your question...)
1. Say you have two kids. Now there are four people whose wants, needs and schedules have to be factored into every equation.
2. Two of those people can't drive, although they need to be taken lots of places.
3. They can't be left alone, so the two adults can't go anywhere together without them unless they hire a sitter. (Finding a teen-age girl to babysit your kids can be as hard as finding a date used to be.)
4. The kids don't earn any money, but they need a lot of goods and services. Ironically, the ability of at least one parent (usually the mom) to earn money is adversely affected by the demands of child care.
5. Non-parents don't have to worry much housekeeping, but when you have kids, (those very people who are going to make your house a wreck) suddenly you have to worry about cleanliness and sanitation to keep them healthy.
6. The larger the family, the more likely they are to live in a house with a yard instead of an apartment, entailing a mortgage, yardwork and home repairs.
7. The parents now have a great many more family-related tasks, obligation and financial responsibilities, but haven't lost their yearning for fun and leisure - yet there are only 24 hours in a day.
The same idiotic mindset that makes people feel the need to babble on and on about their life stories and personal problems to strangers they happen to sit beside on public conveyances.
And what are you supposed to say, "Thanks for sharing"?
Actually, I have a friend who could use the bear-tracking device. He's off hiking the Appalachian Trail, and his cellphone doesn't work in remote areas, but there are a lot of wild animals around. I think the loud noise might annoy the bears, though.
I think the biggest reason my mom hasn't gone online is that she never learned to type. She grew up at a time when some women intentionally didn't learn to type because they thought they would be stuck in secretarial jobs. She is a college graduate and could certainly take a typing class if she wanted to, but she is also kind of a Luddite. I wonder if the definition of illiteracy has expanded to include not being able to type.
If Ars Technica is so concerned about usability
on
A Better Finder?
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· Score: 5, Insightful
...why is this article in white print on a black background?... There's a reason books and newspapers are printed in black print on a white background: IT'S EASIER TO READ.
A person who can't hold a job can always make a living as a career coach.
I'm always amazed at how many gizmos and services are sold on the premise that they will help you locate a restaurant when you're travelling. If you had enough sense to find your way to a strange city, doesn't it follow that you would manage to find food once you got there (and maybe even to avoid the kind of tourist trap that would advertise on such a service?)
I'm always amazed at the help-wanted ads that demand that you fax your resume. If you're unemployed, you probably don't have easy access to a fax machine. If you have a job, you probably share a fax machine and don't want your employer and co-workers to know you're looking elsewhere. So it's off to Kinko's you go - but happens if the recipient faxes you a reply - does it end up in the wastebasket at Kinko?
Wow, it was prescient for the late-1950s cartoon series Ruff and Ready to have robots from Munimula, which was aluminum spelled backwards. Now you've got me wondering why people call Reynolds Wrap tinfoil when it's really made out of aluminum. Was there an earlier product actually made out of tin?
* You may be a redneck if you put firemen's hats on the Three Wise Men in your outdoor nativity scene, "because it says in the Bible they came from a-fahr." *
Re:You can find kaleidoscopes everywhere
on
Low Tech Toys?
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· Score: 2
I'm still miffed that they don't make Mr. Potato Head components sharp enough to stick into a real potato (or a carrot or a sweet potato, etc) any more. Man, that was fun and a lot more creative. Now they're just little plastic pegs that will only fit into little plastic holes in the plastic potato that comes with it.
Actually, I believe it has three mirrors. We made kaleidoscopes at summer camp once. And you're right about the coverings to hold the broken glass. I have a pretty cool one at home that has little seashells instead of colored glass, also one that has no colored glass - you just look through it at various objects around you. I imagine it cost about a buck at some discount import or party-supply store.
Slashdot Mirror
is the part that says, "Even if passed by the House, the White House has promised a veto."
I thought your sig was funny. If you put it on a t-shirt, I would buy one.
And I'll just stay in my cave and try to extrapolate what's going on from the shadows on the wall.
It's all a tax on people who are bad at math.
/.ers, perhaps there are some who can, but I fall back on "If you're so smart, how come you ain't rich?") The casino industry wouldn't be able to build those palaces of tacky splendor, keep the free drinks and cheap food coming and manage to pay out jackpots if the odds weren't firmly stacked in favor of the house.
I expect this thread will be diluged with posters claiming they can consistently win at Las Vegas (given the mathematical superiority of
The state I live in (no, it's not Utter Confusion) is getting ready to institute a lottery, and it's expected that the people who can least afford it will be pumping the most money into it each week in hopes of winning that pie in the sky. We've always had a pretty well-organized numbers racket in my town, centered on convenience markets - the same places that will be selling the lottery tickets. Every time they haul one of the numbers kingpins into court, they claim that the numbers game is just the poor man's stock market, and I'm starting to see the logic in that argument as well.
Well, there are a few hundred other occupational/geographical categories that women occupy besides model, actress or Soho socialite. You might try expanding your search.
With the possible exception of culture by government fiat.
Does offering Health Insurance imply that you are required to spend time each year in a hospital?
Only if you want to get your money's worth.
My shop used to have a sick leave benefit. They eliminated it because they claimed people were abusing it. Now if you get sick you get a write-up and it comes out of your vacation time. You can imagine how stressful this is. Oh yes, they have started offering us a "Wellness" benefit that includes yoga.
If my employer would allow me a few minutes to relax and clear my head, I'd be all for it, but I wouldn't want to be force-fed into some kind of group yoga class any more than I would want to be forced to recite Gregorian chants, handle snakes, wash someone's feet or take part in any other religious practices which may do wonders spiritually for the people who believe in them, but not much for people who prefer a rational approach to life.
I went to one yoga lesson once - actually I was unsuspectingly subjected to it at a friend's "party" and when they started talking about how your body has chakras and the energy flows up and down your spine, I had to suck in my cheeks to keep from laughing out loud.
I don't especially like the master-disciple approach either, be it yoga, karate, Zen, Catholic Church, etc.
If I want to say a prayer to the deity of my choice at work or at school, I already have the First Amendment right to bow my head (or assume whatever position I choose) and do so, but I'll be darned if I'm going to observe the rites of someone else's religion as part of some PHB's cost-cutting approach to reducing job sress. I think this mass approach would also cheapen the experience for those who sincerely believe in it.
BTW, Mr. Bray, I dig your column and I think you have a really cool name.
Imagine if the glue dude is kind of paranoid, wht kind of documents he could reconstruct. That guy in A Beautiful Mind had a whole garage full of this stuff.
When I was a child, we used to play with plastic dolls, and the the Ginny doll, the Vicki doll, the Barbie doll, the Madame Alexander doll, etc. I guess some of them were off-brand. One of my friends always referred to her doll as her "Pat Pending" doll!
...with their primitive catapults, rolling logs, and hmmm, did they have any box cutters?
(Now that I've picked myself up off the floor from laughing at your question ...)
1. Say you have two kids. Now there are four people whose wants, needs and schedules have to be factored into every equation.
2. Two of those people can't drive, although they need to be taken lots of places.
3. They can't be left alone, so the two adults can't go anywhere together without them unless they hire a sitter. (Finding a teen-age girl to babysit your kids can be as hard as finding a date used to be.)
4. The kids don't earn any money, but they need a lot of goods and services. Ironically, the ability of at least one parent (usually the mom) to earn money is adversely affected by the demands of child care.
5. Non-parents don't have to worry much housekeeping, but when you have kids, (those very people who are going to make your house a wreck) suddenly you have to worry about cleanliness and sanitation to keep them healthy.
6. The larger the family, the more likely they are to live in a house with a yard instead of an apartment, entailing a mortgage, yardwork and home repairs.
7. The parents now have a great many more family-related tasks, obligation and financial responsibilities, but haven't lost their yearning for fun and leisure - yet there are only 24 hours in a day.
You do the math.
I would tell it a very poignant story.
And lets not forget the waste of time having to read every story more than once...
A fan once gushed to Dorothy Parker "I read your column over and over today."
"What's the matter," she replied, "didn't you get it the first time?"
What compels someone to do this??
The same idiotic mindset that makes people feel the need to babble on and on about their life stories and personal problems to strangers they happen to sit beside on public conveyances.
And what are you supposed to say, "Thanks for sharing"?
Actually, I have a friend who could use the bear-tracking device. He's off hiking the Appalachian Trail, and his cellphone doesn't work in remote areas, but there are a lot of wild animals around. I think the loud noise might annoy the bears, though.
I think the biggest reason my mom hasn't gone online is that she never learned to type. She grew up at a time when some women intentionally didn't learn to type because they thought they would be stuck in secretarial jobs. She is a college graduate and could certainly take a typing class if she wanted to, but she is also kind of a Luddite. I wonder if the definition of illiteracy has expanded to include not being able to type.
...why is this article in white print on a black background? ... There's a reason books and newspapers are printed in black print on a white background: IT'S EASIER TO READ.
A person who can't hold a job can always make a living as a career coach.
I'm always amazed at how many gizmos and services are sold on the premise that they will help you locate a restaurant when you're travelling. If you had enough sense to find your way to a strange city, doesn't it follow that you would manage to find food once you got there (and maybe even to avoid the kind of tourist trap that would advertise on such a service?)
I think I'll just listen to the voices in my head until they get this thing straightened out.
There's always one other way to do something - your way. -- Waylon Jennings (1937-2002)
I'm always amazed at the help-wanted ads that demand that you fax your resume. If you're unemployed, you probably don't have easy access to a fax machine. If you have a job, you probably share a fax machine and don't want your employer and co-workers to know you're looking elsewhere. So it's off to Kinko's you go - but happens if the recipient faxes you a reply - does it end up in the wastebasket at Kinko?
Wow, it was prescient for the late-1950s cartoon series Ruff and Ready to have robots from Munimula, which was aluminum spelled backwards. Now you've got me wondering why people call Reynolds Wrap tinfoil when it's really made out of aluminum. Was there an earlier product actually made out of tin?
Even smoke signals could be seen from afar.
* You may be a redneck if you put firemen's hats on the Three Wise Men in your outdoor nativity scene, "because it says in the Bible they came from a-fahr." *
I'm still miffed that they don't make Mr. Potato Head components sharp enough to stick into a real potato (or a carrot or a sweet potato, etc) any more. Man, that was fun and a lot more creative. Now they're just little plastic pegs that will only fit into little plastic holes in the plastic potato that comes with it.
Actually, I believe it has three mirrors. We made kaleidoscopes at summer camp once. And you're right about the coverings to hold the broken glass. I have a pretty cool one at home that has little seashells instead of colored glass, also one that has no colored glass - you just look through it at various objects around you. I imagine it cost about a buck at some discount import or party-supply store.