...The other alternative seems to be to go all the way in the other direction: all our luggage gets checked into an ultra-secure compartment, and we have to turn in our clothes at the security checkpoint and be issued uniform form-fitting clothes that can't be used to conceal anything in.
Indeed. I remember having my first Geocities site back in 1998, and using a 36.6 K modem to get online.
I also remember playing around with Java applets, and learning Java, HTML and Javascript along the way. Somewhere there, I found that things such as ray-tracing and fractals existed, which completely fascinated me.
Many a good hour was spent playing around with graphics, rendering cool things etc. I remember putting up C/C++ and Asm code for various programs, writing my own screensaver, putting up my first page on Linux with information on using XF86config and XF86Setup to get Windowmaker up and running, lyrics and chords to some heavy metal and hard rock songs and so on.
In fact, I'd written a 'search engine' using Javascript that caught the attention of someone and they offered me a job at a startup, fresh out of highschool. It helped me pay my way through college doing some AI stuff during the dotcom boom.
It was a coming of age experience, and I will always look to that era with a sense of nostalgia - and a smile.
As someone with an engineering (ECE) background, let me ask you this -- what is preventing you from gluing it to a close-to-perpendicular angled surface of the car? I said surface, not horizontal surface.
But in India, education is also highly subsidized and in a lot of universities, the fee structure is merit-based (i.e. your ranking in your entrance examinations determine which stratum you fall under).
You want to know who works these 60 hour weeks? People who work for crappy managers at bottom of the line companies that are poorly managed. People who have no spine to stand up for themselves.
Yeah? I work with people who do 60-80 hours a week on a regular basis. Hell, last week was a 70 hour week for me, not including travel. And I can assure you that it is not owing to poor management or because I'm at the bottom of the line, or because I can't stand up for myself. It is because the work culture in the US has made it necessary to do so in certain industries and at certain levels.
Look, you may have a job where you don't need to do that. Excellent. I'm happy for you (sort of). However, that in no way means that people with different work hours than you are there for the idiotic reasons that you cited.
Contrary to popular belief, the more educated and the higher you go in the food chain, the harder it becomes for you to find a job that meets your criteria. You can flip burgers anywhere; however, you can only do pharmaceutical research in cardiovascular diseases or decision sciences for airline operations in a handful of places (just giving a couple of examples).
Re: your comments on the goodwill of the corporations, what a slew of rubbish. Just look at historic numbers for how the American consumer was manipulated - from about 80% personal savings and 20% corporate savings, s/he is now in the net negative, with the companies making money off of individuals. The average American was investing less than 5% in the stock market in the 80s, but thanks to Greenspan, Reagan and the others, that trend shifted completely, resulting in the mess that we're in. But I digress.
Your argument on taxation is also untrue. In the salary range + bonus that I make, I would be taxed less in Europe and have more perks than I am in the US. Hell, my bonuses get taxed so highly that it makes me cringe. Hell, my company provides full free unlimited healthcare for me - however, the moment I add my fiancé to the plan, the government decides to tax that as a perk (which comes to about a couple of grand in taxes a month). I would much rather have social, free healthcare like in Europe than this bullshit that the US has.
And in case you are wondering, the only reason I'm still in the US is because my fiancé is still in school - the moment she gets out, I will be more than happy to go to a country where I can actually enjoy life, rather than work it all away.
Most people dress for work in ways that they shouldn't ever be caught in at home, leave alone a professional environment.
I'm sorry, but having worked in well dressed and sloppy environments, I can tell you that working in the former is at the very least a lot more aesthetically pleasing (i.e. I do not want to see a fat person's jelly rolls or someone's dirty feet or smell their sweat at work).
I'm not talking about something draconian, but how hard is business casual, really? Slacks, a dress shirt, decent shoes and basic grooming - is it really that hard for people?
Completely untrue. I know several people who write exactly as in the document shown, and it is closer to cursive than calligraphy.
Hell, writing without any spelling or grammatical errors in itself is a skill -- it makes sure that you think through what you're planning on writing before putting it down on paper. But hey, no need to bother with that today, given with our ADD ridden society.
Developing good handwriting skills is part of basic communication - after all, we still take notes in notebooks, write on whiteboards and scrawl on post-its.
My Mom has beautiful handwriting, and I was taught calligraphy when I was younger. So, I grew up enjoying writing, and to this day, I find writing on paper with a fountain pen to be a pleasurable activity. Along the way, I was also taught the value of writing to people, sending greeting cards and personally marking all invitations (and responses).
The result is that when I send my clients, friends or family hand-written notes for Christmas or New Year's, it is greatly appreciated. There is something about sending a personal note with an RSVP, or sending someone a gift for their baby shower with a handwritten note.
Here's my take on folks that hate handwriting - most of them have pretty horrible penmanship themselves (in my personal experience) and therefore consider penmanship as a useless, overrated skill. Just like how people consider painting, playing an instrument or just about every other artistic skill as being overrated because they are not good at it.
I know you were being flip. However, in economics, a liberal is usually someone who supports free market economics - something that's typically considered a conservative view point in the US.
According to Star Trek, there are many alien races populated with creatures who would like to have sex with humans. This would open up a lot of anatomical possibilities, but imagine the confusion. It's hard enough to have sex with human beings, much less humanoids. One wrong move and you're suddenly transported naked to the Gamma Quadrant to stand trial for who-knows-what. This could only add to performance anxiety. You would never be quite sure what moves would be sensual and what moves would be a galactic-sized mistake.
Me Trying to Have Sex with an Alien
Me: May I touch that?
Alien: That is not an erogenous zone. It is a separate corporeal being that has been attached to my body for six hundred years.
Me: It's cute. I wonder if it would let me have sex with it.
Alien: That's exactly what I said six hundred years ago.
Usually, once a month, my girlfriend and I go to the local Lego store and get a few things that interest us and build some cool, fun things. Hell, she even has built things to be used around the house in Lego (e.g. mail holders, spatula containers, the giant Lego cookie jar etc).
Well, yes. I discovered the Wheel of Time just before high school, and hoped that the series would be over when I got to high school. No luck.
I got to high school, I finished high school, I went to college, to grad school, got my first job (and subsequent jobs), met the woman of my dreams, started grad school the second time around - and in all this while, the man still hadn't finished the series.
And then he died. While I do feel bad for his family, I certainly wasn't pleased as a reader. I had spent countless hours reading the series, and years (17, to be exact) awaiting the conclusion of his books.
Now while I am unsure of the quality of Sanderson's writing, I do not imagine that it would be much worse than Jordan's spin - what Jordan had in the past 11 books could have been compressed in about 4. In either case, I'm just waiting for someone to finish the ending and be done with it.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I usually carry a spare battery and an additional laptop when I travel, and so far I've not had any problems whatosever.
The times I've had any problems, I've told them that I travel a lot and spend a lot of time flying (or stranded) and joke about it (which is true).
I've never really tried checking anything in, though.
Spandex? :-\
Exactly. I remember when Geocities did not have a visual editor, and first introduced one.
I was rather unhappy because my pages didn't quite appear the same, so I ended up going with hand-coded HTML anyway.
Indeed. I remember having my first Geocities site back in 1998, and using a 36.6 K modem to get online.
I also remember playing around with Java applets, and learning Java, HTML and Javascript along the way. Somewhere there, I found that things such as ray-tracing and fractals existed, which completely fascinated me.
Many a good hour was spent playing around with graphics, rendering cool things etc. I remember putting up C/C++ and Asm code for various programs, writing my own screensaver, putting up my first page on Linux with information on using XF86config and XF86Setup to get Windowmaker up and running, lyrics and chords to some heavy metal and hard rock songs and so on.
In fact, I'd written a 'search engine' using Javascript that caught the attention of someone and they offered me a job at a startup, fresh out of highschool. It helped me pay my way through college doing some AI stuff during the dotcom boom.
It was a coming of age experience, and I will always look to that era with a sense of nostalgia - and a smile.
As someone with an engineering (ECE) background, let me ask you this -- what is preventing you from gluing it to a close-to-perpendicular angled surface of the car? I said surface, not horizontal surface.
Umm, glue it/tape it to the surface of the vehicle. Who said an antenna has to stand upright?
But in India, education is also highly subsidized and in a lot of universities, the fee structure is merit-based (i.e. your ranking in your entrance examinations determine which stratum you fall under).
Yeah? I work with people who do 60-80 hours a week on a regular basis. Hell, last week was a 70 hour week for me, not including travel. And I can assure you that it is not owing to poor management or because I'm at the bottom of the line, or because I can't stand up for myself. It is because the work culture in the US has made it necessary to do so in certain industries and at certain levels.
Look, you may have a job where you don't need to do that. Excellent. I'm happy for you (sort of). However, that in no way means that people with different work hours than you are there for the idiotic reasons that you cited.
Contrary to popular belief, the more educated and the higher you go in the food chain, the harder it becomes for you to find a job that meets your criteria. You can flip burgers anywhere; however, you can only do pharmaceutical research in cardiovascular diseases or decision sciences for airline operations in a handful of places (just giving a couple of examples).
Re: your comments on the goodwill of the corporations, what a slew of rubbish. Just look at historic numbers for how the American consumer was manipulated - from about 80% personal savings and 20% corporate savings, s/he is now in the net negative, with the companies making money off of individuals. The average American was investing less than 5% in the stock market in the 80s, but thanks to Greenspan, Reagan and the others, that trend shifted completely, resulting in the mess that we're in. But I digress.
Your argument on taxation is also untrue. In the salary range + bonus that I make, I would be taxed less in Europe and have more perks than I am in the US. Hell, my bonuses get taxed so highly that it makes me cringe. Hell, my company provides full free unlimited healthcare for me - however, the moment I add my fiancé to the plan, the government decides to tax that as a perk (which comes to about a couple of grand in taxes a month). I would much rather have social, free healthcare like in Europe than this bullshit that the US has.
And in case you are wondering, the only reason I'm still in the US is because my fiancé is still in school - the moment she gets out, I will be more than happy to go to a country where I can actually enjoy life, rather than work it all away.
Until the smart dolphins who've already left shake their heads at mankind (and their stupid brethren) that stayed behind.
That long?!
> Good luck moving up in your company, then (unless you're in design or something).
Really? Because most marketing (branding) folks that I've worked with who do design are fairly well dressed.
Eh, I *wish* more companies had a dress code.
Most people dress for work in ways that they shouldn't ever be caught in at home, leave alone a professional environment.
I'm sorry, but having worked in well dressed and sloppy environments, I can tell you that working in the former is at the very least a lot more aesthetically pleasing (i.e. I do not want to see a fat person's jelly rolls or someone's dirty feet or smell their sweat at work).
I'm not talking about something draconian, but how hard is business casual, really? Slacks, a dress shirt, decent shoes and basic grooming - is it really that hard for people?
Also, that number is not necessarily all for IT. Other areas (e.g. Chemical Engineering, Accounting, Finance, Management) also hire H1Bs.
Says who? Anyone who's done any kind of signal processing can tell you that there are any number of noise functions that can be periodic in nature.
Screw cookies and milk - give me titties and beer.
Completely untrue. I know several people who write exactly as in the document shown, and it is closer to cursive than calligraphy.
Hell, writing without any spelling or grammatical errors in itself is a skill -- it makes sure that you think through what you're planning on writing before putting it down on paper. But hey, no need to bother with that today, given with our ADD ridden society.
Developing good handwriting skills is part of basic communication - after all, we still take notes in notebooks, write on whiteboards and scrawl on post-its.
+1.
Well said.
My Mom has beautiful handwriting, and I was taught calligraphy when I was younger. So, I grew up enjoying writing, and to this day, I find writing on paper with a fountain pen to be a pleasurable activity. Along the way, I was also taught the value of writing to people, sending greeting cards and personally marking all invitations (and responses).
The result is that when I send my clients, friends or family hand-written notes for Christmas or New Year's, it is greatly appreciated. There is something about sending a personal note with an RSVP, or sending someone a gift for their baby shower with a handwritten note.
Here's my take on folks that hate handwriting - most of them have pretty horrible penmanship themselves (in my personal experience) and therefore consider penmanship as a useless, overrated skill. Just like how people consider painting, playing an instrument or just about every other artistic skill as being overrated because they are not good at it.
So, I can safely say that your sister has no penis at all, yes?
My thoughts exactly! Cheers, mate.
*hic*
I know you were being flip. However, in economics, a liberal is usually someone who supports free market economics - something that's typically considered a conservative view point in the US.
I believe that it's originally from Scott Adam's piece - "Life will NOT be like Star Trek".
The original goes like this:
Sex with Aliens
According to Star Trek, there are many alien races populated with creatures who would like to have sex with humans. This would open up a lot of anatomical possibilities, but imagine the confusion. It's hard enough to have sex with human beings, much less humanoids. One wrong move and you're suddenly transported naked to the Gamma Quadrant to stand trial for who-knows-what. This could only add to performance anxiety. You would never be quite sure what moves would be sensual and what moves would be a galactic-sized mistake.
Me Trying to Have Sex with an Alien
Me: May I touch that?
Alien: That is not an erogenous zone. It is a separate corporeal being that has been attached to my body for six hundred years.
Me: It's cute. I wonder if it would let me have sex with it.
Alien: That's exactly what I said six hundred years ago.
That's nonsense.
Usually, once a month, my girlfriend and I go to the local Lego store and get a few things that interest us and build some cool, fun things. Hell, she even has built things to be used around the house in Lego (e.g. mail holders, spatula containers, the giant Lego cookie jar etc).
Someone else mentioned Mindstorms, and they are also a great deal of fun. I also love the larger Lego sets - Death Star, VW Bug or the Motorized Walking AT or even the Millenium Falcon.
It's fun, it's simple and it's not something that you usually get bored of. Besides, a Taj Mahal or an Eiffel Tower is a great show piece.
Exactly.
I had a Lego police van (Technic line, I think) from the 80s that had a screw as one of its components.
My, the snark.
Conclusions are certainly part of it, yes. One can only read a cliffhanger for so long. 17 years is pushing it.
Well, yes. I discovered the Wheel of Time just before high school, and hoped that the series would be over when I got to high school. No luck.
I got to high school, I finished high school, I went to college, to grad school, got my first job (and subsequent jobs), met the woman of my dreams, started grad school the second time around - and in all this while, the man still hadn't finished the series.
And then he died. While I do feel bad for his family, I certainly wasn't pleased as a reader. I had spent countless hours reading the series, and years (17, to be exact) awaiting the conclusion of his books.
Now while I am unsure of the quality of Sanderson's writing, I do not imagine that it would be much worse than Jordan's spin - what Jordan had in the past 11 books could have been compressed in about 4. In either case, I'm just waiting for someone to finish the ending and be done with it.