:) With only a few exceptions, the best software designers I've worked have degrees in engineering, physics, or mathematics. It drives the people with C.S. degrees nuts.:)
Understood. I was kind of admiring of their guts at the time, but I wouldn't have done it for fear of reprimand. And they did get scolded for that incident.
The point was, it was a stupid stunt that shouldn't have been done, but they did not end up being labeled criminals for it.
And when my father was 15, he worked in a rock quarry -- he was the dynamite setter. Would drill the holes, use his own key to the dynamite shed to go fetch the dynamite, and set the charges. The master would be the one responsible for checking his work and actually initiating the blaster, but my dad did all the manual work.
There are people now that would throw an absolute hissy fit over a 15 year old being allowed to handle explosives.:) My dad learned very quickly not to wipe his forehead after handling dynamite. The leaking nitroglycerin gives massive headaches when absorbed through the skin.
Shoot. When I was in high school (in the very early 1980s), we made nitroglycerin and nitrogen triiodide as part of chemistry class.
The instructions for making nitroglycerin were in the high school chemistry text book, and it even helpfully explained how to improve the rate of the reaction for faster production.
The guys making nitrogen triiodide were doing so in the enclosed vent chamber, and they sternly warned the instructor not to throw open the door. He failed to heed their warnings, and it exploded and burned off his hair and eyebrows. There were no lectures or discipline -- he acknowledged that they had carefully warned him not to be careless.
What they did with the liquid suspension was rather creative.:) It's basically inert while in suspension, but very unstable when dry. So they took eye droppers and wandered the halls of the school, randomly dropping drops of it on the floor. It dried in time for classes to swich. Lots of little firecracker bangs as people walked down the hallway and activated the dried samples on the floor.:)
As a junior high student (and high school student), I used to go around the school demonstrating potassium permanganate and glycerin for various classes. It was a great way to get young minds interested in the sciences and fascinated with chemistry.
Now, all 4 of my children have had high school chemistry (youngest is just now finishing it up). There is NO experimentation or lab work -- they are not allowed to touch any chemicals. The teacher is not even allowed to do the potassium permanganate experiment -- it is deemed too likely to cause students to become terrorists. I'm thoroughly disgusted by what has happened to the educational process in this country.
My oldest is graduating college in 2 days. Over the last 4 years, he has brought home horror stories about the rigid mindset that he has experienced in the classroom. Nearly all the college instructors (and this is at a large public university) absolutely insist that their perspective be parroted back -- there is zero tolerance for discussion and debate. People with differing beliefs and perceptions are publicly ridiculed and humiliated.
When I was in college at Texas A&M, my philosophy prof was the faculty advisor for the Gay and Lesbian student association. Despite the fact that he and I shared very few common positions on the topics discussed and written about in class, we got along well. He commended me at the end of the class, saying that I had presented my positions with clarity and precision, and I achieved a high A in his class. Apparently, that experience would be rare now.
Actually, this was in SE Dallas -- Jim Miller south of I-30. The neighborhood was a formerly all-white one that was, at the time I moved in, pretty racially balanced by number. Lots of white senior citizens, and as they left or died, mostly younger black families moving in.
I had absolutely no idea there was that much hate existing anywhere outside of Los Angeles or Africa -- we were stunned. I seriously, even after all these years, do not understand how such hate was generated. There is no way those young teens had any personal experience with racism -- they had to learn it from their elders. I knew from the newspapers that Dallas had a race relations problem, but I just did not comprehend it still existed.
I absolutely agree that racism sucks, regardless of which group is on the giving and receiving end.
I know there is white racism -- I know live near where a KKK group has its headquarters. But this formerly fearsome group now has about 50 members spread across 7 states, according to a newspaper expose of the group. I remember, back when a lived in Texas, a black man being chained behind a pickup truck and being dragged to death. That was awful racism.
Other than those isolated things I've read about, I literally have not SEEN white on black racism acted out. What are the things that are commonly experienced by non-whites in the USA? When in Dallas, I heard about constant struggles between black, latino, and asian gangs, but I was never sure how much of that was racism and how much was gang dominance. As a manager in a hi-tech industry, we went through lots of training to ensure that there were no racial biases in our hiring, and we had a very diverse workforce. So, perhaps being educated is some kind of insulation from racism, or experiencing racism, but I truly have never personally seen racsm except as I previously described.
Seriously, I am looking for details on other's experiences and perspectives.
BTW, I founds your first two paragraphs rather odd..."blacks are racist against whites tool"? More explanation? I understand it's meant to be offensive, but I didn't really grok it, sorry...
Perhaps not relevant to you, but it was certainly relevant to me and my wife.
Warning: anecdote.
In 1988 my wife and I bought a house in a "racially mixed" neighborhood. We (anglo saxons) were excited by the possibilities of building friendships and learning about the black culture. Instead we: 1) Were shunned by (all of) our black neighbors, who absolutely refused to say one word to us in the 7 years we lived there, despite our attempts to build relationships. 2) When we went to local stores, we were treated badly by employees. For example, at Walgreens, if we were in line at the checkout counter, the (black) clerk would take people from behind us and check them out, and refuse to serve us until there was no other black people in line. 3) I would always have to mow facing the street, because people passing by would attempt to hit me with beer bottles 4) Several times gangs of youth would stand in my yard and threaten me and curse me out, merely because I was white, and despite the fact that I had tutored several of them in subjects they needed help with in school 5) On the other side, one couple (he was an exec in the Dallas School District and she was a Dallas city councilwoman) were good friends, and we taught their children in Sunday School and had had them over to our house several times. But they were the only ones.
We eventually gave up and moved to a neighborhood that was not so threatening, but the experience left a bad impression with us for a number of years. I really wish that time had turned out differently -- it seemed like, except for the one couple, all we encountered was blind, unreasoning hate.
SWB gobbled some companies and renamed itself SBC. Then SBC gobbled some RBOCs. SBC had a joint venture with BellSouth called Cingular. Cingular gobbled ATT Wireless. Then SBC gobbled ATT and became "the New ATT". Then the New ATT gobbled BellSouth and renamed Cingular to ATT Mobility.
15 years later, it was kind of a blast from the past to walk into the employee cafeteria and encounter my high school math teacher, now a software developer for the same corporation.
Re:Had a personal experience on this one
on
How Doctors Die
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· Score: 1
Don't make the mistake of lumping all "religious"/believing people into one basket...
There are plenty of "religious" people who have nothing more than a habit, or label, or form, of belief. I know nothing about the first set of people referenced by the parent, but I can assure you they are not representative of the believing people I know.
When my wife's aunt, a believing Christian, was dying of old age, the aunt was upset because it was taking so long and she wanted to move on. We were all rejoicing when she passed.
When my grandfather, a believing Christian, was dying with an event that left him with no reasonable chance of recovery, the right amount of pain control eased his passing. We were sad not to have him with us, but glad for him. When Grandma followed him a year later, we were glad for her.
I don't believe in making people suffer when they are bound for some place they want to go.
Regardless of your belief set, I think we can agree that it's not good to make people suffer because we have trouble letting go of them.
I absolutely agree that tires make a huge difference, and I've always tried to buy the best traction all-weather tire I could.
I've found the Michelin HydroEdge to be a great tire for holding the road in dry and wet conditions. But they proved to be absolutely the worst tire I've ever used for snowy conditions. When I lived in the north, we'd switch from summer tires to snow tires when the first snow was forecast, but living here, where we may have snow on the ground for just a few days a year, it just doesn't make sense. The postal carriers put snow chains on their cars when it snows, but most folks just stay home until the roads are passable again.
The fun thing about Ozark roads is they're not straight or level, not for very long. Since we moved here 8 years ago, we've discovered that even the best 80K mile tire only lasts us 20K miles. It's totally fun to buy a brand new set of tires for each car EVERY YEAR. But I guess that's the price we pay for living someplace really peaceful (well, except for that blasted regional airport they built 3 miles from me two years ago). At least the wildlife doesn't seem to mind that much.
Certainly; we're in total agreement. I was merely responding to another poster who said that the south does not know how to deal RATIONALLY with significant amounts of snow.
It's rational to not purchase and maintain equipment that would get very little use, just as it is rational for the upper eastern seaboard to generally not worry about hurricanes.
Now, I live about 600 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, so it would be rational for me not to worry about hurricanes. Nevertheless, we had the remains of a major gulf hurricane come through here about 5-6 years ago. Even though it had reduced to tropical storm intensity, it caused a significant amount of damage. When I built my house, I insisted on using hurricane clips for the roof, and metal straps from the foundation to the first floor walls and between floors of the house, not because I expected that to protect us from a tornado (it won't) but to protect us from the periodic high winds we get here. I've lived here 8 years now, and we've had 70+MPH straight line winds on numerous occasions.
I live in a rural area in the Ozarks of Arkansas. It is true that a very small amount of snow (to my upper midwest born/raised sensibilities) brings school to a crashing halt here. But it's not because people do not know how to deal rationally with snow. It's because there are no snow plows, no deicer, and, most importantly, no pavement.
When nearly every road has a significant slope and gravel only if you're very very fortunate, roads become nearly impassible with even a small amount of snow. At only two inches of snow, my neighbors (all of them) are unable to make it up the hill to the highway. When the school buses can not reach the students, and less than 10% of the students are in a position to get to school otherwise, there is just no point in holding school. So...my kids get far more snow days than they want. They've lost their Spring Break the last two years because of snow days...
BTW, did you know that the Honda Odyssey becomes a total sled with only two inches of snow? I've watched our Odyssey, parked on a relatively level spot on the driveway, decide to just slide of the drive SIDEWAYS, down the hill, and into the ditch. Then it's, "wait for the snow to melt" before working to get it unstuck.
There are many people who need background music to concentrate. In her case, she is blocking out distracting noise from her coworkers. Yes, she plays it softly enough that she is still able to hear the phone ring. She always picks up after the first ring.
When I was in college, I had a little 12in black&white TV on my desk playing MTV whenever I was studying. Now, I have a private office, and I keep it absolutely quiet (well, except for the hum of servers and the whoosh of the supplemental AC unit).
Everyone has different requirements for concentration.
How is it appropriate to redefine terms after agreement to a contract? Verizon understood the physics of wireless, and chose to offer an unlimited data plan, with the promise of access to media-rich applications, despite the fact that the available radio bandwidth could not sustain the traffic load as customer load increased, at least not without a significant investment in new towers and microcells.
Verizon, of their own free will, marketed an unlimited data plan. My wife accepted their offer. What other considerations are there? It's not like my wife is doing anything contrary to her contract, her Verizon-generated contract...
She owns an MP3 player; she has an iPod Touch. However, listening 8 hours per day while she works spreadsheets, she gets tired of listening to the same set of music over and over; hence Pandora. Since she listens to the music with a nice set of earphones, the sound quality is exactly equivalent to what she would get with an MP3 player, so quality is not an issue.
I understand the physics of bandwidth. However, Verizon sold an unlimited data plan, and advertised it as offering audio and video. If they are not going to give her what they sold her, they had better stop charging her $100/month for the privilege.
My wife purchased her Droid Incredible from Verizon last summer. She is totally thrilled with it and her unlimited data plan. With it, she is able to look up facts and answer questions where ever she is. It has proven to be a real assist.
She uses it to listen to Pandora while she is at work. Her employer allows 0 bandwidth for personal uses, so she spends the entire 8 hours per day listening to Pandora on 3G.
At 128Kbps, 8hours/day * 22 days per month works out to 10GB/month, and that is just listening to music, not watching any video or doing any web browsing.
2GB/month is totally inadequate for anything but browser lookups. It is not sufficient for any of the media-rich apps for which Verizon advertised the device.
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:) With only a few exceptions, the best software designers I've worked have degrees in engineering, physics, or mathematics. It drives the people with C.S. degrees nuts. :)
Understood. I was kind of admiring of their guts at the time, but I wouldn't have done it for fear of reprimand. And they did get scolded for that incident.
The point was, it was a stupid stunt that shouldn't have been done, but they did not end up being labeled criminals for it.
And when my father was 15, he worked in a rock quarry -- he was the dynamite setter. Would drill the holes, use his own key to the dynamite shed to go fetch the dynamite, and set the charges. The master would be the one responsible for checking his work and actually initiating the blaster, but my dad did all the manual work.
There are people now that would throw an absolute hissy fit over a 15 year old being allowed to handle explosives. :) My dad learned very quickly not to wipe his forehead after handling dynamite. The leaking nitroglycerin gives massive headaches when absorbed through the skin.
Shoot. When I was in high school (in the very early 1980s), we made nitroglycerin and nitrogen triiodide as part of chemistry class.
The instructions for making nitroglycerin were in the high school chemistry text book, and it even helpfully explained how to improve the rate of the reaction for faster production.
The guys making nitrogen triiodide were doing so in the enclosed vent chamber, and they sternly warned the instructor not to throw open the door. He failed to heed their warnings, and it exploded and burned off his hair and eyebrows. There were no lectures or discipline -- he acknowledged that they had carefully warned him not to be careless.
What they did with the liquid suspension was rather creative. :) It's basically inert while in suspension, but very unstable when dry. So they took eye droppers and wandered the halls of the school, randomly dropping drops of it on the floor. It dried in time for classes to swich. Lots of little firecracker bangs as people walked down the hallway and activated the dried samples on the floor. :)
As a junior high student (and high school student), I used to go around the school demonstrating potassium permanganate and glycerin for various classes. It was a great way to get young minds interested in the sciences and fascinated with chemistry.
Now, all 4 of my children have had high school chemistry (youngest is just now finishing it up). There is NO experimentation or lab work -- they are not allowed to touch any chemicals. The teacher is not even allowed to do the potassium permanganate experiment -- it is deemed too likely to cause students to become terrorists. I'm thoroughly disgusted by what has happened to the educational process in this country.
My oldest is graduating college in 2 days. Over the last 4 years, he has brought home horror stories about the rigid mindset that he has experienced in the classroom. Nearly all the college instructors (and this is at a large public university) absolutely insist that their perspective be parroted back -- there is zero tolerance for discussion and debate. People with differing beliefs and perceptions are publicly ridiculed and humiliated.
When I was in college at Texas A&M, my philosophy prof was the faculty advisor for the Gay and Lesbian student association. Despite the fact that he and I shared very few common positions on the topics discussed and written about in class, we got along well. He commended me at the end of the class, saying that I had presented my positions with clarity and precision, and I achieved a high A in his class. Apparently, that experience would be rare now.
I was a hiring manager in the late 90s. Newgrad CS salaries of $70K were common.
How times have changed.
Oh, and that $70K? With inflation, it's equivalent to $97K now.
Wow, you have slow digestion.
My evening meal reappears the next morning...
Physically, it was a lovely area. Attractive, spacious homes, nice park, nice library.
Actually, this was in SE Dallas -- Jim Miller south of I-30. The neighborhood was a formerly all-white one that was, at the time I moved in, pretty racially balanced by number. Lots of white senior citizens, and as they left or died, mostly younger black families moving in.
I had absolutely no idea there was that much hate existing anywhere outside of Los Angeles or Africa -- we were stunned. I seriously, even after all these years, do not understand how such hate was generated. There is no way those young teens had any personal experience with racism -- they had to learn it from their elders. I knew from the newspapers that Dallas had a race relations problem, but I just did not comprehend it still existed.
:) I'm very glad you never have had one flung at your head. Tends to make one feel very unsafe on his own property.
I'm happy to report that the various burglars at my house were a racially diverse group - 1 black, 2 hispanic, and 1 white. :)
I absolutely agree that racism sucks, regardless of which group is on the giving and receiving end.
I know there is white racism -- I know live near where a KKK group has its headquarters. But this formerly fearsome group now has about 50 members spread across 7 states, according to a newspaper expose of the group. I remember, back when a lived in Texas, a black man being chained behind a pickup truck and being dragged to death. That was awful racism.
Other than those isolated things I've read about, I literally have not SEEN white on black racism acted out. What are the things that are commonly experienced by non-whites in the USA? When in Dallas, I heard about constant struggles between black, latino, and asian gangs, but I was never sure how much of that was racism and how much was gang dominance. As a manager in a hi-tech industry, we went through lots of training to ensure that there were no racial biases in our hiring, and we had a very diverse workforce. So, perhaps being educated is some kind of insulation from racism, or experiencing racism, but I truly have never personally seen racsm except as I previously described.
Seriously, I am looking for details on other's experiences and perspectives.
BTW, I founds your first two paragraphs rather odd..."blacks are racist against whites tool"? More explanation? I understand it's meant to be offensive, but I didn't really grok it, sorry...
Perhaps not relevant to you, but it was certainly relevant to me and my wife.
Warning: anecdote.
In 1988 my wife and I bought a house in a "racially mixed" neighborhood. We (anglo saxons) were excited by the possibilities of building friendships and learning about the black culture. Instead we:
1) Were shunned by (all of) our black neighbors, who absolutely refused to say one word to us in the 7 years we lived there, despite our attempts to build relationships.
2) When we went to local stores, we were treated badly by employees. For example, at Walgreens, if we were in line at the checkout counter, the (black) clerk would take people from behind us and check them out, and refuse to serve us until there was no other black people in line.
3) I would always have to mow facing the street, because people passing by would attempt to hit me with beer bottles
4) Several times gangs of youth would stand in my yard and threaten me and curse me out, merely because I was white, and despite the fact that I had tutored several of them in subjects they needed help with in school
5) On the other side, one couple (he was an exec in the Dallas School District and she was a Dallas city councilwoman) were good friends, and we taught their children in Sunday School and had had them over to our house several times. But they were the only ones.
We eventually gave up and moved to a neighborhood that was not so threatening, but the experience left a bad impression with us for a number of years. I really wish that time had turned out differently -- it seemed like, except for the one couple, all we encountered was blind, unreasoning hate.
Just telling you what I've observed at my local store and have heard from other people in the area about their local stores.
There have been no greeters at our local Walmart for many months now. Video surveillance and in-store security appear to be handling the shoplifting.
Walmart greeter was my retirement plan as well, but Walmart is phasing out their greeter position.
Which leads us to Star Trek III:
"The needs of the one...outweigh the needs of the many"
Asimov did study this scenario, and it led to the zeroth law, basically known only to the robots.
0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
As in Star Trek, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or the one"
Umm...I think you have that backwards.
SWB gobbled some companies and renamed itself SBC. Then SBC gobbled some RBOCs. SBC had a joint venture with BellSouth called Cingular. Cingular gobbled ATT Wireless. Then SBC gobbled ATT and became "the New ATT". Then the New ATT gobbled BellSouth and renamed Cingular to ATT Mobility.
I had a great math teacher in high school.
15 years later, it was kind of a blast from the past to walk into the employee cafeteria and encounter my high school math teacher, now a software developer for the same corporation.
Don't make the mistake of lumping all "religious"/believing people into one basket...
There are plenty of "religious" people who have nothing more than a habit, or label, or form, of belief. I know nothing about the first set of people referenced by the parent, but I can assure you they are not representative of the believing people I know.
When my wife's aunt, a believing Christian, was dying of old age, the aunt was upset because it was taking so long and she wanted to move on. We were all rejoicing when she passed.
When my grandfather, a believing Christian, was dying with an event that left him with no reasonable chance of recovery, the right amount of pain control eased his passing. We were sad not to have him with us, but glad for him. When Grandma followed him a year later, we were glad for her.
I don't believe in making people suffer when they are bound for some place they want to go.
Regardless of your belief set, I think we can agree that it's not good to make people suffer because we have trouble letting go of them.
I absolutely agree that tires make a huge difference, and I've always tried to buy the best traction all-weather tire I could.
I've found the Michelin HydroEdge to be a great tire for holding the road in dry and wet conditions. But they proved to be absolutely the worst tire I've ever used for snowy conditions. When I lived in the north, we'd switch from summer tires to snow tires when the first snow was forecast, but living here, where we may have snow on the ground for just a few days a year, it just doesn't make sense. The postal carriers put snow chains on their cars when it snows, but most folks just stay home until the roads are passable again.
The fun thing about Ozark roads is they're not straight or level, not for very long. Since we moved here 8 years ago, we've discovered that even the best 80K mile tire only lasts us 20K miles. It's totally fun to buy a brand new set of tires for each car EVERY YEAR. But I guess that's the price we pay for living someplace really peaceful (well, except for that blasted regional airport they built 3 miles from me two years ago). At least the wildlife doesn't seem to mind that much.
Certainly; we're in total agreement. I was merely responding to another poster who said that the south does not know how to deal RATIONALLY with significant amounts of snow.
It's rational to not purchase and maintain equipment that would get very little use, just as it is rational for the upper eastern seaboard to generally not worry about hurricanes.
Now, I live about 600 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, so it would be rational for me not to worry about hurricanes. Nevertheless, we had the remains of a major gulf hurricane come through here about 5-6 years ago. Even though it had reduced to tropical storm intensity, it caused a significant amount of damage. When I built my house, I insisted on using hurricane clips for the roof, and metal straps from the foundation to the first floor walls and between floors of the house, not because I expected that to protect us from a tornado (it won't) but to protect us from the periodic high winds we get here. I've lived here 8 years now, and we've had 70+MPH straight line winds on numerous occasions.
The hurricane clips were cheap insurance.
I live in a rural area in the Ozarks of Arkansas. It is true that a very small amount of snow (to my upper midwest born/raised sensibilities) brings school to a crashing halt here. But it's not because people do not know how to deal rationally with snow. It's because there are no snow plows, no deicer, and, most importantly, no pavement.
When nearly every road has a significant slope and gravel only if you're very very fortunate, roads become nearly impassible with even a small amount of snow. At only two inches of snow, my neighbors (all of them) are unable to make it up the hill to the highway. When the school buses can not reach the students, and less than 10% of the students are in a position to get to school otherwise, there is just no point in holding school. So...my kids get far more snow days than they want. They've lost their Spring Break the last two years because of snow days...
BTW, did you know that the Honda Odyssey becomes a total sled with only two inches of snow? I've watched our Odyssey, parked on a relatively level spot on the driveway, decide to just slide of the drive SIDEWAYS, down the hill, and into the ditch. Then it's, "wait for the snow to melt" before working to get it unstuck.
There are many people who need background music to concentrate. In her case, she is blocking out distracting noise from her coworkers. Yes, she plays it softly enough that she is still able to hear the phone ring. She always picks up after the first ring.
When I was in college, I had a little 12in black&white TV on my desk playing MTV whenever I was studying. Now, I have a private office, and I keep it absolutely quiet (well, except for the hum of servers and the whoosh of the supplemental AC unit).
Everyone has different requirements for concentration.
How is it appropriate to redefine terms after agreement to a contract? Verizon understood the physics of wireless, and chose to offer an unlimited data plan, with the promise of access to media-rich applications, despite the fact that the available radio bandwidth could not sustain the traffic load as customer load increased, at least not without a significant investment in new towers and microcells.
Verizon, of their own free will, marketed an unlimited data plan. My wife accepted their offer. What other considerations are there? It's not like my wife is doing anything contrary to her contract, her Verizon-generated contract...
Interesting perspective.
She owns an MP3 player; she has an iPod Touch. However, listening 8 hours per day while she works spreadsheets, she gets tired of listening to the same set of music over and over; hence Pandora. Since she listens to the music with a nice set of earphones, the sound quality is exactly equivalent to what she would get with an MP3 player, so quality is not an issue.
I understand the physics of bandwidth. However, Verizon sold an unlimited data plan, and advertised it as offering audio and video. If they are not going to give her what they sold her, they had better stop charging her $100/month for the privilege.
My wife purchased her Droid Incredible from Verizon last summer. She is totally thrilled with it and her unlimited data plan. With it, she is able to look up facts and answer questions where ever she is. It has proven to be a real assist.
She uses it to listen to Pandora while she is at work. Her employer allows 0 bandwidth for personal uses, so she spends the entire 8 hours per day listening to Pandora on 3G.
At 128Kbps, 8hours/day * 22 days per month works out to 10GB/month, and that is just listening to music, not watching any video or doing any web browsing.
2GB/month is totally inadequate for anything but browser lookups. It is not sufficient for any of the media-rich apps for which Verizon advertised the device.