I don't agree that non-competes are what is currently stopping employees from jumping ships. I know plenty of friends not under any contractual loyalty, that could easily switch companies for higher salaries, but never will.
We live in a much different world than 25 years ago.
In the past, when you wanted more money out of your career, you wanted that more money for something real. Maybe you wanted to pay for a boat. Or a car. Or a wife. Or a child.
But these days, most of what people want in their l life is pretty cheap. Watch movies from home. Music collections cost nothing. Good speakers cost little. Cars are way cheaper, and alternative transportation is too -- zipcars, scooters, bike rentals, ride-sharing. Houses are cheaper in that mortgage interest rates are a tenth of what they used to be. Air travel is way cheaper and more accessible. Vacations are cheaper, especially with airbnb options.
In short, going through the effort to change jobs, and the risk that the salary won't actually be higher, and the risk that there might be a week without pay between jobs, isn't worth the actual pay increase at the end of the day -- no one with an existing job is missing out on any popular cultural opportunity.
If you already have all the music in the world, all the movies you want, all the knowledge on the internet you want, all the transportation that you need, and can afford your mortgage payments, well then who really cares to put in the work to get more money? What you want is more time to enjoy your stuff.
Hey, I'm in that position in a very different way. I've owned and operated my own small business for those same 25 years. I've amassed enough hobbies to fill a full year. I'm not looking for more work to make more money. I'm not even working full-time on the work that I have now. I'm desperately searching for more time to enjoy the hobbies that I have waiting for me -- most of which cost nearly zero dollars at this point -- I already own the toys/cars/instruments/hammocks/gardens/tvisions/computers/games, and it costs almost nothing to play with them all; but it costs a lot of time to play with any of them.
The problem with the word "universal", is that it evokes a sense of outer space. The word "global" does a much better job of describing this planet.
It's better because instead of picturing black space and stars and radiation, one pictures water and trees and animals.
I think if one were to look at the cost of internet in any place that currently has internet access, one would discover that the monetary cost of that connection is enough to feed any place that currently does not have internet access.
For example, I pay about $80/month for incredible internet access at home. $80/month, as food, would easily feed a starving family in a third-world country.
But I think we've all watched the save-the-children-fund commercials for decades now. I think we all know that, as a people, they aren't savable by us. It's been decades, and they have more guns than seeds.
I think we, as wealthy societies, simply don't have a way to help them. Basic farming and basic living is a long-lost art to us. We call it "camping", and we bring a million dollars of technology with us -- the trailer, the water bottle, the stove, the match-stick, the roads to get there, and the ranger to call for help.
I'll happily pay to ship them as many seeds as they can plant, and ikea-style instructions on how to plant them. But I think we all know that isn't anywhere near enough. And I don't think we, here, have any clue why that doesn't work.
I think you'll find that if you hire a human assistant, and ask them to throw a party without explaining everything you do and don't want, and invite your boss, you'll lose your job.
Oh yeah, and if it doesn't require _you_ to teach your assistant what you want, then it isn't your assistant, you're it's assistant. By definition. Because it's telling you how to behave.
How about a protege? Oh wait, that's actually an assistant-in-training. ..for years.
Sorry friend, but you won't get anyone/anything/anybody to do what you want without telling them, showing them, and correcting them. And that takes time, by you.
It used to be free to bury your loved one. You'd grab a shovel, and walk into the forest. You'd re-plant a nearby sapling, and watch it grow strong.
Now, you purchase a plot decades before, and pay for it while they're still alive, plus tax then pay for a ceremony, and for the burial itself, plus tax then pay for the maintenance of the grave, plus tax but still, the composting was provided, free-of-charge, by mother nature, sans tax
And in the future, with this great technology, you're going to get to pay for the microbes, plus tax and for the composting time, plus tax
this is the usual kind of technological progress -- the progress of technology being able to gouge people for profit.
I'm so sorry, I forgot that you had to purchase the shovel, plus tax. Let's go one step further back: you'd float them out into the lake, on a "raft", and light them on fire.
bonus lesson: the only sure things in like are death and taxes. I had always assumed that taxes weren't also levied after death. My mistake I guess.
So tell me why it's illegal for me to bury my loved one under the tree in my backyard? I don't need fast-acting microbes. I have a few giant trees and a vegetable garden.
Not to get too morbid here, and this is certainly going to be border-line, but if my loved-one was killed when a tree branch snapped and fell, well, I think if my tree killed them, my tree should get to eat them. Isn't that only fair?
But really, this all comes down to peeing on a road trip. I get to wait another fifty miles for a bathroom, as I drive past thousands of square miles of forest wherein millions of animals pee constantly.
white men are the only beings capable of loving their children. white people are the only beings capable of loving their children. men are the only beings capable of loving their children. humans are the only beings capable of loving their children. no, wait, scratch that. only white arian humans. ok, it really needs to be all humans again. mammals are the only beings capable of loving their children (or feeling pain, for that matter). warm-blooded... vertebrates... animals... now plants.
Are plants really the big surprise? There are more leaves on Earth than there are stars in the galaxy. Trees out-live basically every other form of life that we recognize. Also, the biggest by far. They grow in vast populations that we call forests. They literally house a gargantuan proportion of the lives on this planet -- including us, by the way. They can be said to be the most successful beings to ever live.
Nah, they don't care for their children. I mean, that would be crazy!
Next up: planets support their moons, stars support their planets, and galaxies support their stars.
10'000 AD: okay, look, it would seem that any population or system that's survived for millions of years, takes care of its own. I think it's time for us to stop being surprised by it, and just start assuming that things don't survive by accident.
I'm really hoping that you meant "swaths" not "deaths" of viewers!
I think that my argument requires someone (of some kind of authority) to intentionally declare it as a christmas movie, but yes I would say that it has certainly crossed that marker.
Although I far prefer another's argument, in this thread, that "christmas" is a setting, not a genre, and that most certainly Die Hard is set during christmas, without any doubt. It is an action movie set during christmastime.
Dude (or dudette?) you are the most brilliant person I know. There are only two persons in my life who think this way -- one of them is myself, although I did not do so in this case.
So it comes down to your words "established Christmas setting". I love it. And I've now re-wired my brain in accordance. It was definitely Christmastime in Die Hard.
Alas, now I must challenge your wisdom, in order to bound it. So help me out here.
What of a hypothetical movie/story, taking place in a summer August, about a toy company's plans to design a christmas toy? It's not set during christmas, and there are no christmas decorations, no songs, no characters. But it does discuss christmas in every scene.
Now, that certainly covers your words "established" and "christmas", but does it satisfy your term "setting"?
Of course, if it does, then what of a movie/story about a toy company, designing toys, across an 18-month period, and one plot-significant scene includes mention of their accounting books across the holiday season?
I guess I'm asking you to show me the boundaries of what makes a "setting".
I think you've gone too far into fuzzy-logic territory, where, in my opinion, logic becomes meaningless.
Given a sad drama, with a single comedic joke to break the tension, is that a comedy movie because it has a comedy moment? I think you're saying it's a 3% comedy, 97% sad drama.
I don't accept categories being diluted like that. I think categories must be a threshold effect. Whether those thresholds are relative to each-other, or relative to the whole is another conversation, but at some level, 97% needs to washout 3%.
When it comes to recreational content -- and I think we're talking about purely recreational movies here -- I think the category needs to be based, not on content, but on over-all viewer experience/feeling. Perhaps that's at the end of the movie, or at the end of each act, or maybe at the end of each scene, but it's definitely at the end of some quanta.
I take the movie "Primary Colors" as my example. Decades ago, I rented a VHS tape (wow) of Primary Colors -- a politically-centred John Travolta movie -- from the "comedy" shelf at my local video store (wow again). I watched it. I returned it. I got my money back exclaiming that it isn't a comedy.
Sure, it had jokes. But at the end, when it was over, what I remembered about the movie wasn't funny. I remembered the drama. I remembered the politics. I did not remember the comedy. On that night, I wanted a comedy to cheer me up. Instead I got political drama.
I think I'm saying that the "lasting impression" is more important than the moment-to-moment content.
I think I'm saying that the memory is more important than the experience.
What you say is as general as any common error. If 99% of people make a mistake, it is still a mistake. "ain't" isn't a word, and there isn't a god, just because millions of people believe in them. "ain't" isn't a word, because it originated as a mis-spoken error -- like "mentee" -- unknown to the person speaking it. However, if 1 person intentionally coins a new word, that word is indeed a word. To that end, at some point, "ain't" became a word, because it was declared to be one as a result of too-much intent. And that's evolution of language. Common mistake is not evolution, it's simply cart before the horse.
So, to use your terminology, consensus that an error is a word is absolutely true. Because "consensus" includes "intent". Almost as much, "convention" also includes "intent". "Rules" has absolutely nothing to do with this conversation. I don't know why you brought it up. But "use" is where my sentiment does not allow for evolution. "Use" of a rock as a chair does not make it a chair. "Convention" does, and "consensus" certainly does. "Rule" certainly does not, as a nice rock may absolutely meet all of the rules of a chair (base, surface, structure, shape).
Simply put, does having christmas content, make a movie a christmas movie?
Having a seat does not make a bicycle a chair.
Sitting on a rock, similarly, does not make that rock into a chair.
There must be more. Something of design intent. That intent may be in-advance (such as carving a rock into a chair), or subsequently, such as denoting a rock to be a chair.
However, the fact remains; without intent, a rock is never ever ever a chair.
I thusly claim that Die Hard is only a christmas movie, if it was intended to be a christmas movie, or if later it has become deemed a christmas movie by some form of intent (and obviously, here, we mean more than just one viewer's opinion).
Data sucks. You can read anything into it. We already have astrology. We have numerology. We have angels and demons and miracles and curses. Logic can be used to explain anything, that's its power. Logic is not reason. Data is not logic.
Left-handed sports players are often better. It's not because being left handed is better. It's because most opposing players will be right-handed, and hence a left-handed player has more experience against right-handed players, than right-handed players have experience against left-handed players.
It's called a "dominant minority", where the benefits of a mutation come from that mutation being a minority. And it's interesting because most advantages become majorities. But in a world where 50% of players are left-handed, there would be zero benefit in either direction.
We don't just work five-day weeks. We all work the same five-days every week. This means that during business hours, you can communicate with other businesses. This means suppliers, customers, affiliates, regulators. That's good for business.
Working only 4 of those 5 days is awesome when you're the only one in your circle doing it. During your business hours, you can still communicate with everyone, because they are working too. And on your day off, you can go shopping because everyone else is still working.
That's awesome.
But if everyone in your circle works 4 days instead of 5, you run into the very usual set of problems.
On your day off, everything is closed. So you can't go shopping.
On your day on, you can't communicate with other businesses that have the day off. So that screws every business schedule and deadline that you have.
I'm happy to work less. I'm happy to work more. The idea of a work-week is that we all work at the same time.
Last I checked, it's very illegal for one road vehicle to pass another in the way that you're suggesting. No one's going to prosecute an individual on a bicycle, but everyone will prosecute a commercial business procedure doing the same thing for profit. Especially with cargo involved.
We've "taken into account" and "controlled for" these dozens of factors. After we make everything the same, lo and behold, the new generation is the same as the old.
Shock of a lifetime!
"Average age, average income, and a wide range of demographics" -- are drastically different.
So answer the question the way it's asked. If I walk up to a random twenty-year old this afternoon, will he buy things like I did when I was twenty, or not?
Of course if he's impoverished, he won't. Of course if he's dead he won't. Of course if he's chosen to live as a hermit he won't. But isn't that the point?
The question wasn't "why". The question is "whether".
...and by guarantee, I mean your satisfaction, you don't pay until after you're happy, every time.
I've been working this way for 25 years. I come with references, both male and female, micro, small, and medium businesses.
I'm in the Greater Toronto Area.
I have no problem keeping windows 10's update system out of someone's way. It's not difficult. Been dodging it since Vista. Maybe it takes 25 years of experience to learn how to configure windows update. It isn't a challenge.
I quoted "rural" because my idea of rural, and the article's idea or rural are two very different things.
I live just a short ways west of you. I don't consider Kingston to be "rural". And in all of the times that I've driven to and through Kingston, on Hwy 2S for example (great hot dog guy at the Cornwall end), I've never experienced one blip of cellular problems.
Are you saying that Kingston, and west of Kingston (Port Hope?) has connectivity issues or lacks high speed bandwidth?
First off, in Canada, the vast vast vast majority of the population is fully high-speed, fully cellular phone, fully wired, fully connected in every way.
Second, the vast majority of rural communities are just as well connected.
Third, our idea of "high speed" is, well to be polite, leaps and bounds above what the USA thinks is "high speed". Simply put, our low-end is above the USA average.
Fourth, and this is no joke, the reason that all of your cellular providers advertise "the best network" is because all of the USA networks are just plain horrible. I've never traveled to the USA, for a day or for a week, roaming or on a local sim, without poor reception and dropped calls. When cellular providers advertise in Canada, it's just funny because all of the big carriers are exactly the same -- superb. Years between dropped calls; seriously.
The "rural" neighbourhoods being discussed here are a collection of places that meet the following descriptions:
- fewer than ten humans for hundreds of miles, or were during the last construction phase
- refused construction of any infrastructure before, and are now changing their minds
- have chosen to live so far from others that they don't ever have paved roads
What you may not realize is that these "rural" communities want billion dollar infrastructure for a million dollar market. It would be cheaper for my tax dollars to buy them a house in the city. -- think of the expense of physically wiring them without roads for the equipment transport
DST is a royal pain for most people twice a year. I get that. We like to remove pain. I get that too.
Does anyone remember why we have DST in the first place? Can anyone imagine what New York would be like without DST?
I suspect that we're going to find out. And I'll wager that DST will return to New York within three years of being removed.
I'm sure L.A. doesn't have the same needs as does New York. New York is a business city, whereby most people work in offices and in general business schedules. Let's say most business people leave the house no later than 8am, and return home no earlier than 6pm. Standard 9to5 day.
In the winter, sunrise is what, 7:30am? And that's just barely, and on a sunny day. It's 8am before a human being would call it daylight. And it's 10am before a human being would call it daylight on a cloudy day. And don't forget, New York City has tall buildings. The reverse produces a 5pm or 4:30pm sunset.
Without DST, there's simply no way for an office-worker to ever see the sun between december and march. Given that to be an unacceptable scenario, for health and wellness and mental and family reasons, DST to the rescue.
DST doesn't solve the problem. DST reduces the problem. Instead of three months of hell. DST reduces the hell to only two days.
Alas, it would seem that humans have forgotten the benefits of DST -- because there aren't any "benefits", there are simply far fewer negatives.
I live farther north than New York. For me, daylight from december through march would be 10am to 3pm on cloudy days. 9am to 4pm on fully sunny days.
I work from home. Technically, I don't care. But when it comes to the 10 million people who use my city every day, I'd suspect that morning rush-hour might benefit from some celestial illumination.
I very very long time ago -- twenty, thirty years ago -- I read a book on the human art of spying. There was a lengthy discussion about evading capture when spying in enemy territory.
A few pages discussed the concept that when someone is following you, on-foot, through a busy shopping mall, you ought to alter your gait, since that's a very easy way that human eyes track human prey.
The chapter ended with a simple, and straight-forward comment to the effect of: nothing is better than simply placing a small pebble in one of your shoes.
First, straight-up, you've listed at least three different job roles. Independent of the amount of your, or of your capacity, dealing with end-user service tickets is customer service, upgrading existing servers is maintenance work, and deploying new servers is design work. Sure there's overlap in reality, but that overlap is across three persons, not just three tasks.
So yes, you've been tasked with too "many" things, where "many" is three, and "things" is completely different roles. Outside of an entrepreneur of a small company, what you've described really should be three independent "departments" of one or more persons.
Second, and this is what happens when the above goes haywire, it would seem to me that you're being directed in an every-more-complicating spiral of complexity.
These days, there is a big glorious solution, managed, well-designed, SaaS, IaaS, perfect solution to each and every problem you can have. And even better, they now fit together way better than they ever used to, so you can chain dozens of big glorious systems together. That means the solution to any problem is easily deployed.
But you need to have someone keeping track of the now many big glorious solutions.
It would seem to me that whomever is telling you what to do next is forgetting that the system-of-components is now so many components that the maintenance of those components and the procedures of those systems is adding serious weight.
I think you need(ed) someone to notice that there are simply too many big glorious systems being used, and instead would choose which basic problems are actually easier to manage than to solve.
Big glorious systems are big and glorious, but they ain't ever slick and elegant. That's the hard work these days.
I think your efforts are the solution to someone else's problem, instead of you being the solution provider.
It looks like someone wearing a Harrison Ford mask. It shows, very clearly, just how good Harrison Ford is as an actor.
This is certainly his face, but it isn't his facial expressions. It isn't his smile. It isn't his brow furl. Those aren't the way that his eyes widen.
Simply put, it doesn't move correctly.
And that means that the mechanisms by which Harrison Ford's face is attached to his head are betrayed. Dimples might be there, but they don't restrict the skin's movement.
It's awesome, in terms of technology, and it's certainly enough to make a casual viewer believe that this is Harrison Ford. But it's also enough to make an expert acting coach believe that Harrison Ford is a terrible actor.
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I don't agree that non-competes are what is currently stopping employees from jumping ships. I know plenty of friends not under any contractual loyalty, that could easily switch companies for higher salaries, but never will.
We live in a much different world than 25 years ago.
In the past, when you wanted more money out of your career, you wanted that more money for something real. Maybe you wanted to pay for a boat. Or a car. Or a wife. Or a child.
But these days, most of what people want in their l life is pretty cheap. Watch movies from home. Music collections cost nothing. Good speakers cost little. Cars are way cheaper, and alternative transportation is too -- zipcars, scooters, bike rentals, ride-sharing. Houses are cheaper in that mortgage interest rates are a tenth of what they used to be. Air travel is way cheaper and more accessible. Vacations are cheaper, especially with airbnb options.
In short, going through the effort to change jobs, and the risk that the salary won't actually be higher, and the risk that there might be a week without pay between jobs, isn't worth the actual pay increase at the end of the day -- no one with an existing job is missing out on any popular cultural opportunity.
If you already have all the music in the world, all the movies you want, all the knowledge on the internet you want, all the transportation that you need, and can afford your mortgage payments, well then who really cares to put in the work to get more money? What you want is more time to enjoy your stuff.
Hey, I'm in that position in a very different way. I've owned and operated my own small business for those same 25 years. I've amassed enough hobbies to fill a full year. I'm not looking for more work to make more money. I'm not even working full-time on the work that I have now. I'm desperately searching for more time to enjoy the hobbies that I have waiting for me -- most of which cost nearly zero dollars at this point -- I already own the toys/cars/instruments/hammocks/gardens/tvisions/computers/games, and it costs almost nothing to play with them all; but it costs a lot of time to play with any of them.
Actually, this is pretty much required. You'd need to have some pretty special cases for a judge to enforce a non-compete that lacks compensation.
As such, non-competes are actually very good for the employees -- they are golden handcuffs.
The problem with the word "universal", is that it evokes a sense of outer space. The word "global" does a much better job of describing this planet.
It's better because instead of picturing black space and stars and radiation, one pictures water and trees and animals.
I think if one were to look at the cost of internet in any place that currently has internet access, one would discover that the monetary cost of that connection is enough to feed any place that currently does not have internet access.
For example, I pay about $80/month for incredible internet access at home. $80/month, as food, would easily feed a starving family in a third-world country.
But I think we've all watched the save-the-children-fund commercials for decades now. I think we all know that, as a people, they aren't savable by us. It's been decades, and they have more guns than seeds.
I think we, as wealthy societies, simply don't have a way to help them. Basic farming and basic living is a long-lost art to us. We call it "camping", and we bring a million dollars of technology with us -- the trailer, the water bottle, the stove, the match-stick, the roads to get there, and the ranger to call for help.
I'll happily pay to ship them as many seeds as they can plant, and ikea-style instructions on how to plant them. But I think we all know that isn't anywhere near enough. And I don't think we, here, have any clue why that doesn't work.
I think you'll find that if you hire a human assistant, and ask them to throw a party without explaining everything you do and don't want, and invite your boss, you'll lose your job.
Oh yeah, and if it doesn't require _you_ to teach your assistant what you want, then it isn't your assistant, you're it's assistant. By definition. Because it's telling you how to behave.
Ever met an assistant that didn't need a year of training? Any assistant anywhere?
Assistant coach, executive assistant, teacher's assistant, lab assistant?
How about a protege? Oh wait, that's actually an assistant-in-training. . .for years.
Sorry friend, but you won't get anyone/anything/anybody to do what you want without telling them, showing them, and correcting them. And that takes time, by you.
Tough.
...and the downward spiral pattern continues.
It used to be free to bury your loved one.
You'd grab a shovel, and walk into the forest.
You'd re-plant a nearby sapling, and watch it grow strong.
Now, you purchase a plot decades before,
and pay for it while they're still alive, plus tax
then pay for a ceremony, and for the burial itself, plus tax
then pay for the maintenance of the grave, plus tax
but still, the composting was provided, free-of-charge, by mother nature, sans tax
And in the future, with this great technology,
you're going to get to pay for the microbes, plus tax
and for the composting time, plus tax
this is the usual kind of technological progress -- the progress of technology being able to gouge people for profit.
I'm so sorry, I forgot that you had to purchase the shovel, plus tax. Let's go one step further back: you'd float them out into the lake, on a "raft", and light them on fire.
bonus lesson: the only sure things in like are death and taxes. I had always assumed that taxes weren't also levied after death. My mistake I guess.
So tell me why it's illegal for me to bury my loved one under the tree in my backyard? I don't need fast-acting microbes. I have a few giant trees and a vegetable garden.
Not to get too morbid here, and this is certainly going to be border-line, but if my loved-one was killed when a tree branch snapped and fell, well, I think if my tree killed them, my tree should get to eat them. Isn't that only fair?
But really, this all comes down to peeing on a road trip. I get to wait another fifty miles for a bathroom, as I drive past thousands of square miles of forest wherein millions of animals pee constantly.
always remember:
white men are the only beings capable of loving their children.
white people are the only beings capable of loving their children.
men are the only beings capable of loving their children.
humans are the only beings capable of loving their children.
no, wait, scratch that. only white arian humans.
ok, it really needs to be all humans again.
mammals are the only beings capable of loving their children (or feeling pain, for that matter).
warm-blooded...
vertebrates...
animals...
now plants.
Are plants really the big surprise? There are more leaves on Earth than there are stars in the galaxy. Trees out-live basically every other form of life that we recognize. Also, the biggest by far. They grow in vast populations that we call forests. They literally house a gargantuan proportion of the lives on this planet -- including us, by the way. They can be said to be the most successful beings to ever live.
Nah, they don't care for their children. I mean, that would be crazy!
Next up: planets support their moons, stars support their planets, and galaxies support their stars.
10'000 AD: okay, look, it would seem that any population or system that's survived for millions of years, takes care of its own. I think it's time for us to stop being surprised by it, and just start assuming that things don't survive by accident.
Because we don't teach people, in kindergarten, not to give out their personal information to anyone who asks for it.
Oh wait, we do. We say: "don't talk to strangers" and we say "don't put your name on your backpack" and we say "don't tell strangers where you live".
okay, let's rephrase:
Because we don't teach adults to remember what they learned in kindergarten.
Oh wait, we do. We say: "everything important, I learned in kindergarten".
okay, let's rephrase:
because people are idiots. I blame radio shack. they're the one's that started all of this.
so the solution is the same as it's always been. we get to wait until the problem is big enough, and then we get to regulate. yay!
hey marriott, you aren't allowed to hold any customer data for more than a week past the end of their stay. you don't need it.
I'm really hoping that you meant "swaths" not "deaths" of viewers!
I think that my argument requires someone (of some kind of authority) to intentionally declare it as a christmas movie, but yes I would say that it has certainly crossed that marker.
Although I far prefer another's argument, in this thread, that "christmas" is a setting, not a genre, and that most certainly Die Hard is set during christmas, without any doubt. It is an action movie set during christmastime.
Dude (or dudette?) you are the most brilliant person I know. There are only two persons in my life who think this way -- one of them is myself, although I did not do so in this case.
So it comes down to your words "established Christmas setting". I love it. And I've now re-wired my brain in accordance. It was definitely Christmastime in Die Hard.
Alas, now I must challenge your wisdom, in order to bound it. So help me out here.
What of a hypothetical movie/story, taking place in a summer August, about a toy company's plans to design a christmas toy? It's not set during christmas, and there are no christmas decorations, no songs, no characters. But it does discuss christmas in every scene.
Now, that certainly covers your words "established" and "christmas", but does it satisfy your term "setting"?
Of course, if it does, then what of a movie/story about a toy company, designing toys, across an 18-month period, and one plot-significant scene includes mention of their accounting books across the holiday season?
I guess I'm asking you to show me the boundaries of what makes a "setting".
I think you've gone too far into fuzzy-logic territory, where, in my opinion, logic becomes meaningless.
Given a sad drama, with a single comedic joke to break the tension, is that a comedy movie because it has a comedy moment? I think you're saying it's a 3% comedy, 97% sad drama.
I don't accept categories being diluted like that. I think categories must be a threshold effect. Whether those thresholds are relative to each-other, or relative to the whole is another conversation, but at some level, 97% needs to washout 3%.
When it comes to recreational content -- and I think we're talking about purely recreational movies here -- I think the category needs to be based, not on content, but on over-all viewer experience/feeling. Perhaps that's at the end of the movie, or at the end of each act, or maybe at the end of each scene, but it's definitely at the end of some quanta.
I take the movie "Primary Colors" as my example. Decades ago, I rented a VHS tape (wow) of Primary Colors -- a politically-centred John Travolta movie -- from the "comedy" shelf at my local video store (wow again). I watched it. I returned it. I got my money back exclaiming that it isn't a comedy.
Sure, it had jokes. But at the end, when it was over, what I remembered about the movie wasn't funny. I remembered the drama. I remembered the politics. I did not remember the comedy. On that night, I wanted a comedy to cheer me up. Instead I got political drama.
I think I'm saying that the "lasting impression" is more important than the moment-to-moment content.
I think I'm saying that the memory is more important than the experience.
I think that's wise.
What you say is as general as any common error. If 99% of people make a mistake, it is still a mistake. "ain't" isn't a word, and there isn't a god, just because millions of people believe in them. "ain't" isn't a word, because it originated as a mis-spoken error -- like "mentee" -- unknown to the person speaking it. However, if 1 person intentionally coins a new word, that word is indeed a word. To that end, at some point, "ain't" became a word, because it was declared to be one as a result of too-much intent. And that's evolution of language. Common mistake is not evolution, it's simply cart before the horse.
So, to use your terminology, consensus that an error is a word is absolutely true. Because "consensus" includes "intent". Almost as much, "convention" also includes "intent". "Rules" has absolutely nothing to do with this conversation. I don't know why you brought it up. But "use" is where my sentiment does not allow for evolution. "Use" of a rock as a chair does not make it a chair. "Convention" does, and "consensus" certainly does. "Rule" certainly does not, as a nice rock may absolutely meet all of the rules of a chair (base, surface, structure, shape).
So there.
Simply put, does having christmas content, make a movie a christmas movie?
Having a seat does not make a bicycle a chair.
Sitting on a rock, similarly, does not make that rock into a chair.
There must be more. Something of design intent. That intent may be in-advance (such as carving a rock into a chair), or subsequently, such as denoting a rock to be a chair.
However, the fact remains; without intent, a rock is never ever ever a chair.
I thusly claim that Die Hard is only a christmas movie, if it was intended to be a christmas movie, or if later it has become deemed a christmas movie by some form of intent (and obviously, here, we mean more than just one viewer's opinion).
Data sucks. You can read anything into it. We already have astrology. We have numerology. We have angels and demons and miracles and curses. Logic can be used to explain anything, that's its power. Logic is not reason. Data is not logic.
Left-handed sports players are often better. It's not because being left handed is better. It's because most opposing players will be right-handed, and hence a left-handed player has more experience against right-handed players, than right-handed players have experience against left-handed players.
It's called a "dominant minority", where the benefits of a mutation come from that mutation being a minority. And it's interesting because most advantages become majorities. But in a world where 50% of players are left-handed, there would be zero benefit in either direction.
We don't just work five-day weeks. We all work the same five-days every week. This means that during business hours, you can communicate with other businesses. This means suppliers, customers, affiliates, regulators. That's good for business.
Working only 4 of those 5 days is awesome when you're the only one in your circle doing it. During your business hours, you can still communicate with everyone, because they are working too. And on your day off, you can go shopping because everyone else is still working.
That's awesome.
But if everyone in your circle works 4 days instead of 5, you run into the very usual set of problems.
On your day off, everything is closed.
So you can't go shopping.
On your day on, you can't communicate with other businesses that have the day off.
So that screws every business schedule and deadline that you have.
I'm happy to work less. I'm happy to work more. The idea of a work-week is that we all work at the same time.
Last I checked, it's very illegal for one road vehicle to pass another in the way that you're suggesting. No one's going to prosecute an individual on a bicycle, but everyone will prosecute a commercial business procedure doing the same thing for profit. Especially with cargo involved.
We've "taken into account" and "controlled for" these dozens of factors. After we make everything the same, lo and behold, the new generation is the same as the old.
Shock of a lifetime!
"Average age, average income, and a wide range of demographics" -- are drastically different.
So answer the question the way it's asked. If I walk up to a random twenty-year old this afternoon, will he buy things like I did when I was twenty, or not?
Of course if he's impoverished, he won't. Of course if he's dead he won't. Of course if he's chosen to live as a hermit he won't. But isn't that the point?
The question wasn't "why". The question is "whether".
...and by guarantee, I mean your satisfaction, you don't pay until after you're happy, every time.
I've been working this way for 25 years.
I come with references, both male and female, micro, small, and medium businesses.
I'm in the Greater Toronto Area.
I have no problem keeping windows 10's update system out of someone's way. It's not difficult. Been dodging it since Vista. Maybe it takes 25 years of experience to learn how to configure windows update. It isn't a challenge.
I quoted "rural" because my idea of rural, and the article's idea or rural are two very different things.
I live just a short ways west of you. I don't consider Kingston to be "rural". And in all of the times that I've driven to and through Kingston, on Hwy 2S for example (great hot dog guy at the Cornwall end), I've never experienced one blip of cellular problems.
Are you saying that Kingston, and west of Kingston (Port Hope?) has connectivity issues or lacks high speed bandwidth?
(I'm Canadian, in a megalopolis suburb.)
First off, in Canada, the vast vast vast majority of the population is fully high-speed, fully cellular phone, fully wired, fully connected in every way.
Second, the vast majority of rural communities are just as well connected.
Third, our idea of "high speed" is, well to be polite, leaps and bounds above what the USA thinks is "high speed". Simply put, our low-end is above the USA average.
Fourth, and this is no joke, the reason that all of your cellular providers advertise "the best network" is because all of the USA networks are just plain horrible. I've never traveled to the USA, for a day or for a week, roaming or on a local sim, without poor reception and dropped calls. When cellular providers advertise in Canada, it's just funny because all of the big carriers are exactly the same -- superb. Years between dropped calls; seriously.
The "rural" neighbourhoods being discussed here are a collection of places that meet the following descriptions:
- fewer than ten humans for hundreds of miles, or were during the last construction phase
- refused construction of any infrastructure before, and are now changing their minds
- have chosen to live so far from others that they don't ever have paved roads
What you may not realize is that these "rural" communities want billion dollar infrastructure for a million dollar market. It would be cheaper for my tax dollars to buy them a house in the city. -- think of the expense of physically wiring them without roads for the equipment transport
DST is a royal pain for most people twice a year. I get that.
We like to remove pain. I get that too.
Does anyone remember why we have DST in the first place?
Can anyone imagine what New York would be like without DST?
I suspect that we're going to find out.
And I'll wager that DST will return to New York within three years of being removed.
I'm sure L.A. doesn't have the same needs as does New York.
New York is a business city, whereby most people work in offices and in general business schedules.
Let's say most business people leave the house no later than 8am, and return home no earlier than 6pm.
Standard 9to5 day.
In the winter, sunrise is what, 7:30am?
And that's just barely, and on a sunny day.
It's 8am before a human being would call it daylight.
And it's 10am before a human being would call it daylight on a cloudy day.
And don't forget, New York City has tall buildings.
The reverse produces a 5pm or 4:30pm sunset.
Without DST, there's simply no way for an office-worker to ever see the sun between december and march.
Given that to be an unacceptable scenario, for health and wellness and mental and family reasons, DST to the rescue.
DST doesn't solve the problem.
DST reduces the problem.
Instead of three months of hell.
DST reduces the hell to only two days.
Alas, it would seem that humans have forgotten the benefits of DST -- because there aren't any "benefits", there are simply far fewer negatives.
I live farther north than New York. For me, daylight from december through march would be 10am to 3pm on cloudy days. 9am to 4pm on fully sunny days.
I work from home. Technically, I don't care. But when it comes to the 10 million people who use my city every day, I'd suspect that morning rush-hour might benefit from some celestial illumination.
Good luck.
I very very long time ago -- twenty, thirty years ago -- I read a book on the human art of spying. There was a lengthy discussion about evading capture when spying in enemy territory.
A few pages discussed the concept that when someone is following you, on-foot, through a busy shopping mall, you ought to alter your gait, since that's a very easy way that human eyes track human prey.
The chapter ended with a simple, and straight-forward comment to the effect of: nothing is better than simply placing a small pebble in one of your shoes.
First, straight-up, you've listed at least three different job roles. Independent of the amount of your, or of your capacity, dealing with end-user service tickets is customer service, upgrading existing servers is maintenance work, and deploying new servers is design work. Sure there's overlap in reality, but that overlap is across three persons, not just three tasks.
So yes, you've been tasked with too "many" things, where "many" is three, and "things" is completely different roles. Outside of an entrepreneur of a small company, what you've described really should be three independent "departments" of one or more persons.
Second, and this is what happens when the above goes haywire, it would seem to me that you're being directed in an every-more-complicating spiral of complexity.
These days, there is a big glorious solution, managed, well-designed, SaaS, IaaS, perfect solution to each and every problem you can have. And even better, they now fit together way better than they ever used to, so you can chain dozens of big glorious systems together. That means the solution to any problem is easily deployed.
But you need to have someone keeping track of the now many big glorious solutions.
It would seem to me that whomever is telling you what to do next is forgetting that the system-of-components is now so many components that the maintenance of those components and the procedures of those systems is adding serious weight.
I think you need(ed) someone to notice that there are simply too many big glorious systems being used, and instead would choose which basic problems are actually easier to manage than to solve.
Big glorious systems are big and glorious, but they ain't ever slick and elegant. That's the hard work these days.
I think your efforts are the solution to someone else's problem, instead of you being the solution provider.
So, anyone who shows me the photo gets my password? Sounds like every phisher's dream.
Last I checked, access credentials need to be deniable -- no, you can't have my password/key/handshake. It's a secret.
It looks like someone wearing a Harrison Ford mask. It shows, very clearly, just how good Harrison Ford is as an actor.
This is certainly his face, but it isn't his facial expressions. It isn't his smile. It isn't his brow furl. Those aren't the way that his eyes widen.
Simply put, it doesn't move correctly.
And that means that the mechanisms by which Harrison Ford's face is attached to his head are betrayed. Dimples might be there, but they don't restrict the skin's movement.
It's awesome, in terms of technology, and it's certainly enough to make a casual viewer believe that this is Harrison Ford. But it's also enough to make an expert acting coach believe that Harrison Ford is a terrible actor.