And if one lightbulb were black, and the other one were yellow, instead of both of them being beige against a beige background, that would be even better. People with less-than-perfect vision have a hard time perceiving the imprints.
The biggest complaint I hear from people trying to use computers for the first time is, "I can't figure out how to turn the damn thing on." This doesn't say much for usability or intuitiveness. Maybe the people who build products with switches that say I/O instead of On/Off are the ones that need to be gathered together in a home where they can do no harm. For the rest of us, there's Oatfield Estates, the wired retirement home.
My personal favorite, at least this week, has to be famale on the Poll. Somewhere between female and family. Is being pregnant "being in the famale way?"
Yes, I majored in English, but HTML got me my job.
It's all about headcount. Your boss has been ordered to get rid of X number of employees. Begging for a lesser-paying job will only make you both feel like jerks and will not keep you on the payroll. GET OUT OF THERE. After I got downsized, I got a better-paying job in a different sector. I was getting two paychecks for a while till my severance pay ran out.
The single most dangerous thing you can do in politics is shut off information from people who don't agree with you. -- Molly Ivins
Only self-teaching has any lasting value
on
Sean In The Middle
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· Score: 1
It is absurd and anti-life to move from cell to cell at the sound of a gong for every day of your natural youth in an institution that allows you no privacy and even follows you into the sanctuary of your home demanding that you do its "homework".
The worst part is that for many people, this kind of life doesn't end when you leave high school. I know a lot of people who spend most of their waking hours attached to corporate networks and think they have flexibility. But if you teach yourself and create your own reality, you can go on doing it for the rest of your life.
Primitive people had lots of privacy. They weren't crowded into apartments and subways and cubicles. They could just go for a walk in the woods, or go out hunting and gathering and not have someone in their face all the time. They didn't have to worry about being photographed, fingerprinted, or having their DNA identified. They didn't have to memorize any passwords or Social Security numbers. Discretion is still the better part of valor. I don't want to know any more about my friends and neighbors' foibles than I do already, and I wouldn't especially want them to know any more about mine.
You don't have to wait for Xmas for new electronic toys. Check out Interactive Shelby, Tiger's new Furby-on-a-halfshell. ("My shell opens and closes especially if I'm scared or surprised")
NYTimes article has discovered a new toy shopping season:
advertisements for new toys in the spring could lead to demands not just for chocolate eggs and jelly beans but for electronic clams and robots as well.
Why reporters hate PR flacks so much they'd rather deal with lawyers:
1. PR flacks get in the way. I'd rather pick up the phone and talk directly to the subject of the story, not his flack, definitely not the flack's secretary, and absolutely not the flack's secretary's voice mail. I just want to ask a few questions. I don't need a scheduled appointment and a canned presentation.
2. Just because I drink your free beer doesn't mean we're buddies. You think you're going to shame me out of writing an expose on your client when it might be the best scoop I ever got?
3. In-house flacks are even worse than agencies. The minute they sense you're planning to do anything short of a glowing report on their boss, they do everything possible to shield him from you.
4. Flacks for government agencies are the worst of all. Nothing will get done the same day you request it. The worst I ever dealt with was a flack who controlled access to a lot of government officials. I learned later that her boss didn't like my publication and had instructed her to delay all my requests until my deadline had passed to make sure my competition got the story first.
5. Lawyers are quick-witted enough to realize that once a journalist has decided to do a story on a subject, there's no backing off. They'll give you a quote right off the cuff without worrying about some long-range "strategic marketing plan." Besides, it's easier to translate legalese than marketese.
(Note to Ybos: blueberry, lilac, honeydew? Is that anything like blue, purple, green? How about including some color swatches in your poll so we can see exactly what you're talking about?)
I lost it all in the tech wreck? I had great upside till I got downsized? There's no telling what I'll be telling my grandkids, if I ever have any. it'll all sound so horse-and-buggy to them anyway.
How come there's no copy editor Barbie doll?
Anyone living on a self-sufficient farm with their own water supply would be in fat city. The Third World would become the First World and vice versa. All that Cannibal Welfare Mutant stuff from Y2K scenarios would start to come true. Mankind would endure, but a different class of people would thrive. Eventually, the hustlers, evangelists, political opportunists and barons would elbow their way back to the top of the heap.
Suppose you're a young adult whose parent begins to deteriorate mentally for no apparent reason. You seek many cures. H/she gradually goes insane, develops tremors and becomes uncoordinated. Finally a doctor suggests it may be HD, which is passed by a dominant gene. But there's no family history. One of his/her parents lived to be very old, and the other died of a heart attack at age 38. Other relatives died of TB or were killed in wars before they reached middle age. You can't find medical records on their grandparents. Your parent dies after many years of insanity and institutionalization, and finally a brain autopsy reveals that he/she had HD. By now you are married and have kids yourself. You have a job, you have insurance. Now you realize that you have a 50% chance of developing this disease yourself - and you may have already passed it on to your kids. You know from your parent's experience that it's a very slow death, and there is no cure. Most people who aren't faced with this decision might automatically say they would want to take the genetic test. That's because they are not at risk, and they imagine they would test negative. Could you face finding out that you will soon begin to lose your mind, personality and coordination - and you may have doomed your children as well? To make matters worse, you know if you flunk the test, your insurance could be cancelled, and you could lose your job, even though you haven't developed any symptoms. Not only would you be unable to support your family, but you could become a drag on them economically, emotionally and socially. All this happened to someone close to me. I wouldn't wish this disease on my worst enemy.
The rent-a-geek in the cube next to mine had a cellphone that played annoying music every time he got a call. I got a Taco Bell toy dog that sings the opening bars of "Chances are," and I squeezed it every time his phone rang. I acted like it was a Furby-like response that was picking up on his phone's frequency. His contract must have run out, because he disappeared. (Probably got a better job from one of those calls.)
Go to your local pub, club or street corner. Clap, cheer and throw some money into their guitar case. Why should the "recording industry" decide what everyone listens to?
Slashdot Mirror
That would be worth about $1.295 million U.S., at today's rate. At least somebody's getting some employment out of this. Kind of like Lawyers Find Profit in Dot-Com Disasters.
The single most dangerous thing you can do in politics is shut off information from people who don't agree with you. - Molly Ivins
You would have heard the same baloney and gotten the same results if you had worked at any one of these big corps. during the same time frame.
Just because you close your eyes, the world doesn't go away.
And if one lightbulb were black, and the other one were yellow, instead of both of them being beige against a beige background, that would be even better. People with less-than-perfect vision have a hard time perceiving the imprints.
The biggest complaint I hear from people trying to use computers for the first time is, "I can't figure out how to turn the damn thing on." This doesn't say much for usability or intuitiveness. Maybe the people who build products with switches that say I/O instead of On/Off are the ones that need to be gathered together in a home where they can do no harm. For the rest of us, there's Oatfield Estates, the wired retirement home.
My personal favorite, at least this week, has to be famale on the Poll. Somewhere between female and family. Is being pregnant "being in the famale way?"
Yes, I majored in English, but HTML got me my job.
...won't their clones be infertile, too? If a person with a faulty heart is cloned for spare parts, won't the clone have the same faulty heart?
It's all about headcount. Your boss has been ordered to get rid of X number of employees. Begging for a lesser-paying job will only make you both feel like jerks and will not keep you on the payroll. GET OUT OF THERE. After I got downsized, I got a better-paying job in a different sector. I was getting two paychecks for a while till my severance pay ran out.
The single most dangerous thing you can do in politics is shut off information from people who don't agree with you. -- Molly Ivins
Great speech by Gatto. Thanks rvr.
It is absurd and anti-life to move from cell to cell at the sound of a gong for every day of your natural youth in an institution that allows you no privacy and even follows you into the sanctuary of your home demanding that you do its "homework".
The worst part is that for many people, this kind of life doesn't end when you leave high school. I know a lot of people who spend most of their waking hours attached to corporate networks and think they have flexibility. But if you teach yourself and create your own reality, you can go on doing it for the rest of your life.
You can get a Mousepad from the Museum of E-Failure and look all you want.
Primitive people had lots of privacy. They weren't crowded into apartments and subways and cubicles. They could just go for a walk in the woods, or go out hunting and gathering and not have someone in their face all the time. They didn't have to worry about being photographed, fingerprinted, or having their DNA identified. They didn't have to memorize any passwords or Social Security numbers. Discretion is still the better part of valor. I don't want to know any more about my friends and neighbors' foibles than I do already, and I wouldn't especially want them to know any more about mine.
You don't have to wait for Xmas for new electronic toys. Check out Interactive Shelby, Tiger's new Furby-on-a-halfshell. ("My shell opens and closes especially if I'm scared or surprised")
NYTimes article has discovered a new toy shopping season: advertisements for new toys in the spring could lead to demands not just for chocolate eggs and jelly beans but for electronic clams and robots as well.
Only one more shopping day till Easter.
Why reporters hate PR flacks so much they'd rather deal with lawyers:
1. PR flacks get in the way. I'd rather pick up the phone and talk directly to the subject of the story, not his flack, definitely not the flack's secretary, and absolutely not the flack's secretary's voice mail. I just want to ask a few questions. I don't need a scheduled appointment and a canned presentation.
2. Just because I drink your free beer doesn't mean we're buddies. You think you're going to shame me out of writing an expose on your client when it might be the best scoop I ever got?
3. In-house flacks are even worse than agencies. The minute they sense you're planning to do anything short of a glowing report on their boss, they do everything possible to shield him from you.
4. Flacks for government agencies are the worst of all. Nothing will get done the same day you request it. The worst I ever dealt with was a flack who controlled access to a lot of government officials. I learned later that her boss didn't like my publication and had instructed her to delay all my requests until my deadline had passed to make sure my competition got the story first.
5. Lawyers are quick-witted enough to realize that once a journalist has decided to do a story on a subject, there's no backing off. They'll give you a quote right off the cuff without worrying about some long-range "strategic marketing plan." Besides, it's easier to translate legalese than marketese.
(Note to Ybos: blueberry, lilac, honeydew? Is that anything like blue, purple, green? How about including some color swatches in your poll so we can see exactly what you're talking about?)
I lost it all in the tech wreck? I had great upside till I got downsized? There's no telling what I'll be telling my grandkids, if I ever have any. it'll all sound so horse-and-buggy to them anyway. How come there's no copy editor Barbie doll?
Anyone living on a self-sufficient farm with their own water supply would be in fat city. The Third World would become the First World and vice versa. All that Cannibal Welfare Mutant stuff from Y2K scenarios would start to come true. Mankind would endure, but a different class of people would thrive. Eventually, the hustlers, evangelists, political opportunists and barons would elbow their way back to the top of the heap.
Suppose you're a young adult whose parent begins to deteriorate mentally for no apparent reason. You seek many cures. H/she gradually goes insane, develops tremors and becomes uncoordinated. Finally a doctor suggests it may be HD, which is passed by a dominant gene. But there's no family history. One of his/her parents lived to be very old, and the other died of a heart attack at age 38. Other relatives died of TB or were killed in wars before they reached middle age. You can't find medical records on their grandparents. Your parent dies after many years of insanity and institutionalization, and finally a brain autopsy reveals that he/she had HD. By now you are married and have kids yourself. You have a job, you have insurance. Now you realize that you have a 50% chance of developing this disease yourself - and you may have already passed it on to your kids. You know from your parent's experience that it's a very slow death, and there is no cure. Most people who aren't faced with this decision might automatically say they would want to take the genetic test. That's because they are not at risk, and they imagine they would test negative. Could you face finding out that you will soon begin to lose your mind, personality and coordination - and you may have doomed your children as well? To make matters worse, you know if you flunk the test, your insurance could be cancelled, and you could lose your job, even though you haven't developed any symptoms. Not only would you be unable to support your family, but you could become a drag on them economically, emotionally and socially.
All this happened to someone close to me. I wouldn't wish this disease on my worst enemy.
Cheapest: Yoda Furby
Not-so-cheap: Sapphire ring
Unlimited: Trip to Barbados
YOU DON'T HAVE TO SPELL gamecube IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS JUST BECAUSE SOME marketing guy SAYS SO.
You've come a long way from Hope College baby! A school whose basketball sked includes Hope vs. Calvin. The theological implications are chilling.
The rent-a-geek in the cube next to mine had a cellphone that played annoying music every time he got a call. I got a Taco Bell toy dog that sings the opening bars of "Chances are," and I squeezed it every time his phone rang. I acted like it was a Furby-like response that was picking up on his phone's frequency. His contract must have run out, because he disappeared. (Probably got a better job from one of those calls.)
More like singed around the edges. It's still standing, dude.
Go to your local pub, club or street corner. Clap, cheer and throw some money into their guitar case. Why should the "recording industry" decide what everyone listens to?