Living a life full of worry that their machine is an accidental click away from hours of removing crap from their system, followed by weeks of wondering whether or not they got all the cancer out..
Yes, indeed. I spend my entire life in fear of my poor lil' Windows machine get 0wned...
Or perhaps...for most of us a computer is just a tool, a piece of machinery. And just like a lot of tools, some people know how to use it properly, and some folks get their brains bashed in or their fingers sawn off.
I'll admit that most tools don't have entire legions trying to hack them to get to your bank account though;-)
Start of situation: you have some money. End of situation: you have a lot of money and a bunch of people you don't give a flying fuck about anyway are in trouble.
You and I may agree that there is a greater good to consider. The kind of people that hang on the words of, say, a Glenn Beck firmly believe that every man is out for himself and that all those employees should just work harder if they want to make it.
Some people want a bigger piece of the pie. Others want to make the pie bigger. Yet another group feels it's unfair that more than half of the pie belongs to a tiny percentage of the population. All of them get to (buy) a vote.
Well, at least the rest of us don't have to keep a watchful eye towards the sky. We let 'merkins watch the sky, and we just check periodically if Washington and New York are still there.
Well, and Paris as well, I guess. Aliens seem to object to the phallic nature of the Eiffel tower for some reason. Either that, or it makes the deathbeam crackle just that little extra for effect.
The logical sequence of steps would be the following:
Alien Leader: what do the humans typically use to acquire information? Alien Lackey: well, they seem to be quite fond of this "wikipedia", and it's quite easy to access here from behind the biggest planet in the system. Alien Leader: Excellent, show me this wikipedia! * Alien Lackey puts wikipedia on the viewscreen and navigates through a number of subjects Alien Leader: Hold on, what is this "discussion" item I see popping up each time? Alien Lackey: I couldn't say Sir, let's have a look. Alien Leader: What in the universe? They're arguing over even the most basic facts? What kind of stupid race is this?! Entire bridge Crew: Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate! * Viewscreen changes to a shot of one of Jupiter's moons breaking from orbit and heading towards what seems to be the orbit of a green/blue planet in the distance
And now for the really good part...the GP AC is quite likely someone eligible to vote in the country with the most powerful military in the world...makes you feel good doesn't it?
Default settings *matter*. You know that old saying about never getting a second chance to make a first impression? When Vista first showed up it had just crapped its pants, there was still a bit of coke under 1 nostril and it had its fly unzipped. When I first installed 7...it worked and didn't give me any shit.
There was a time in my life when reinstalling an OS and getting it to work perfectly was fun. These days I simply don't have the time for that kind of crap and hence if it doesn't work out of the box...it goes back in the box.
Awww, shucks...I really wanted a clone that I could send off to work for me so he could...spend his time on Slashdot while I stay home...spending even more time on Slashdot.
But I'd be way more comfortable while reading Slashdot, honest!
That just shows that most high level managers and executives are dumbest mother fuckers to ever walk the earth.
Unfortunately not. It shows that companies rewards accomplishments in the now without much regard for what it means in the future. Top-level execs, mid-level execs, shareholders, all of them stand to gain from a short-term increase in profitability even if it means the company and all the people it employs goes tits-up a few years down the line.
Why care if you already cashed out anyway? Just move on and pull the same trick at the next place.
Agreed, 133ms is when you start to swear a bit when it happens bouncing a signal to an online server a few countries away and back. Not from the controller to a tv and then back to the eyeballs.
Why do people think that 16-17 year olds get a whole lot smarter when they turn 18? Or hell, even 30. You don't mature all that much from 16; if you're immature at 16 you'll be immature at 18, 25, 40...
Well, for one thing, because all the scientific research says so. For another, because we actually watched it happen to ourselves and people around us.
Looking back, I don't consider myself to have reached true maturity until round about the age of 25.
Intelligence is mostly a matter of genetics. Wisdom comes with time.
As someone who actually has children and remembers well growing up himself, I tell you: No child will engage in sexual intercourse if there is something else interesting to do.
Ehmm, you refer to yourself as "him" and state you remember well growing up...yet state as fact that provided enough distraction children(i'll presume you include teenagers in that group) will not have the urge to experiment with sex? Are you entirely sure you remember what it was like to be a 14 year old boy with the hormones raging around?
The urge to have sex is one of the strongest we humans have. Doesn't matter what the church or the teacher or daddy says, it will happen.
Afaik, any game can have ingame achievements and make use of the api to upload high scores etc.
The folks that run kong decide which games they want to give badges to however.
I was well on my way to earn lots of badges...and then I got somewhat distracted by the folks that suggested hooking up in meatspace and getting horribly drunk together;-)
You're in your thirties. Of course you had an active childhood! The alternative was somewhere between Pong, coin-op Space-Invaders and the fledgling Atari which you probably had to go over to a friend's house to play. There was no internet, no cell phones, and TV had a fraction of the influence it has today. And I bet both your grandfathers survived actual wars to your cub scouts. Essentially, you just made my point.
+3 insightful for a bunch of assumptions that are...completely wrong. Well done. As for the grandfather assumptions, one grandfather was dead and the other one never left the house when I was that age.
For the record, when I was 10 we had a 286 in the house and cable tv. Most of my friends had either an XT (yay for exchanging games on 360kB floppies) or a commodore 64 or such. The amount of time I was actually allowed to spend playing games or watching tv was limited by what my parents felt was appropriate, however. Watching the news and educational programs was encouraged(having an idea of what is going on in your country and worldwide is kinda a requirement for being able to function in society), mindless entertainment less so.
I have enough discipline to not own a TV at all, I don't have kids and you doth protest too much. See? Assumptions work both ways. Except mine are probably right.
Sorry, but you couldn't be farther off the mark. Good job on completely removing what is apparently a terrible temptation from your life though. So how's the watercooler talk at work going?
Unfortunately all too often the guys that put their blood, sweat and tears into a game don't end up owning anything and the IP ended up in the hands of distributor A that went tits up and was bought out by distributor B that merged with distributor C, the devil spawn of which is now owned by EA.
Trying doesn't hurt anyone though, just be prepared to play PI and be ready to get disappointed at ending up irrevocably lost in some corporate behemoth where noone gives a shit about games unless they bring in more bucks.
off of facebook, off of tweets, etc. when you want to socialize with them, socialize with them directly. make your emails and phone calls terse things to actually just arrange meet up times in which real socialization actually takes place
then you will know what it is like to actually have a friend
So in your view, the only true social interaction is that which takes place in meatspace?
Damn, I better tell those people in other countries I can't be their friend anymore because some guy on Slashdot said so. Same for the relatives, I guess.
Or maybe your entire rant is an opinion instead of fact and the rest of us will use this tool in whichever way we damn well please. Or the way we manage our friendships, for that matter.
In Fallout 2 it's the other way around. If you happen to run into some sort of uber-weapon early on (Lincoln's repeater, the plasma rifle you get from the android in Rivet City, etc.), you can spend quite a few levels running around one-shotting anything remotely humanoid.
Actually in Fallout 3 you don't want to go *anywhere* as a level 1 character, since you level up the moment you leave the vault;-) And at that point with the equipment you have most critters out there will tear you to tiny pieces...
rofl @ playing the guitar being a "useful, lifelong skill"
Playing an instrument is useless, if fun.
Counterargument: chicks dig guys that can play the guitar. Ergo: guitars lead to sex. Now whether or not you find that useful is up to you, but quite a large part of the male population seems to prioritize having sex quite highly.
Unless you happen to be of the female persuasion, in which case my point falls flat on its face;-)
Disclaimer: I do not typically refer to women of any age as "chicks" except in the context of existing expressions.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, yes, campaign music...
However, as awesome as this particular campaign song is, you have to see it including the clip. Right, Mrs. Clinton? ;-)
But without hollywood, would we have had...Uplink?
and the best part is that time actually caught up with the game ;-)
If you aren't angered by the summary, you have been here too long.
Either that, or you've simply worked in a larger company for a while and realized that schizophrenia is pretty much the ground state of being.
Living a life full of worry that their machine is an accidental click away from hours of removing crap from their system, followed by weeks of wondering whether or not they got all the cancer out..
Yes, indeed. I spend my entire life in fear of my poor lil' Windows machine get 0wned...
Or perhaps...for most of us a computer is just a tool, a piece of machinery. And just like a lot of tools, some people know how to use it properly, and some folks get their brains bashed in or their fingers sawn off.
I'll admit that most tools don't have entire legions trying to hack them to get to your bank account though ;-)
Who cares? What's important is that for some reason the latin language had built in plural Jesuses?
What did the Romans know that we don't?
Start of situation: you have some money.
End of situation: you have a lot of money and a bunch of people you don't give a flying fuck about anyway are in trouble.
You and I may agree that there is a greater good to consider. The kind of people that hang on the words of, say, a Glenn Beck firmly believe that every man is out for himself and that all those employees should just work harder if they want to make it.
Some people want a bigger piece of the pie. Others want to make the pie bigger. Yet another group feels it's unfair that more than half of the pie belongs to a tiny percentage of the population. All of them get to (buy) a vote.
Well, at least the rest of us don't have to keep a watchful eye towards the sky. We let 'merkins watch the sky, and we just check periodically if Washington and New York are still there.
Well, and Paris as well, I guess. Aliens seem to object to the phallic nature of the Eiffel tower for some reason. Either that, or it makes the deathbeam crackle just that little extra for effect.
The logical sequence of steps would be the following:
Alien Leader: what do the humans typically use to acquire information?
Alien Lackey: well, they seem to be quite fond of this "wikipedia", and it's quite easy to access here from behind the biggest planet in the system.
Alien Leader: Excellent, show me this wikipedia!
* Alien Lackey puts wikipedia on the viewscreen and navigates through a number of subjects
Alien Leader: Hold on, what is this "discussion" item I see popping up each time?
Alien Lackey: I couldn't say Sir, let's have a look.
Alien Leader: What in the universe? They're arguing over even the most basic facts? What kind of stupid race is this?!
Entire bridge Crew: Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!
* Viewscreen changes to a shot of one of Jupiter's moons breaking from orbit and heading towards what seems to be the orbit of a green/blue planet in the distance
And now for the really good part...the GP AC is quite likely someone eligible to vote in the country with the most powerful military in the world...makes you feel good doesn't it?
Yes, you are. While I strongly dislike the foreign policy of the US, Switzerland's xenophobia is an embarrassment for all of western Europe.
Compared to the bastions of friendliness to foreigners that say, Austria, the UK and the Netherlands are becoming lately?
Plenty of embarassment to go around...
Default settings *matter*. You know that old saying about never getting a second chance to make a first impression? When Vista first showed up it had just crapped its pants, there was still a bit of coke under 1 nostril and it had its fly unzipped. When I first installed 7...it worked and didn't give me any shit.
There was a time in my life when reinstalling an OS and getting it to work perfectly was fun. These days I simply don't have the time for that kind of crap and hence if it doesn't work out of the box...it goes back in the box.
Oh, a kingdom for the option to mod a post ironic, no matter how irrelevant it may be.
Awww, shucks...I really wanted a clone that I could send off to work for me so he could...spend his time on Slashdot while I stay home...spending even more time on Slashdot.
But I'd be way more comfortable while reading Slashdot, honest!
That just shows that most high level managers and executives are dumbest mother fuckers to ever walk the earth.
Unfortunately not. It shows that companies rewards accomplishments in the now without much regard for what it means in the future. Top-level execs, mid-level execs, shareholders, all of them stand to gain from a short-term increase in profitability even if it means the company and all the people it employs goes tits-up a few years down the line.
Why care if you already cashed out anyway? Just move on and pull the same trick at the next place.
Agreed, 133ms is when you start to swear a bit when it happens bouncing a signal to an online server a few countries away and back. Not from the controller to a tv and then back to the eyeballs.
It would be inefficient in principle but HUGELY efficient in practice since it would be using energy that is otherwise WASTED.
Even better, in many cases said noise is undesirable and needs to be blocked or deflected as it is. Using it to generate hydrogen instead = win/win?
This was after we had dated for a long time and could be quite sure that neither one didn't have STD or anything else for that matter.
"quite sure"...?
If there's doubt, why not just get tested? Or doesn't the american health care system cover that either?
Why do people think that 16-17 year olds get a whole lot smarter when they turn 18? Or hell, even 30. You don't mature all that much from 16; if you're immature at 16 you'll be immature at 18, 25, 40...
Well, for one thing, because all the scientific research says so. For another, because we actually watched it happen to ourselves and people around us.
Looking back, I don't consider myself to have reached true maturity until round about the age of 25.
Intelligence is mostly a matter of genetics. Wisdom comes with time.
As someone who actually has children and remembers well growing up himself, I tell you: No child will engage in sexual intercourse if there is something else interesting to do.
Ehmm, you refer to yourself as "him" and state you remember well growing up...yet state as fact that provided enough distraction children(i'll presume you include teenagers in that group) will not have the urge to experiment with sex? Are you entirely sure you remember what it was like to be a 14 year old boy with the hormones raging around?
The urge to have sex is one of the strongest we humans have. Doesn't matter what the church or the teacher or daddy says, it will happen.
Afaik, any game can have ingame achievements and make use of the api to upload high scores etc.
The folks that run kong decide which games they want to give badges to however.
I was well on my way to earn lots of badges...and then I got somewhat distracted by the folks that suggested hooking up in meatspace and getting horribly drunk together ;-)
You're in your thirties. Of course you had an active childhood! The alternative was somewhere between Pong, coin-op Space-Invaders and the fledgling Atari which you probably had to go over to a friend's house to play. There was no internet, no cell phones, and TV had a fraction of the influence it has today. And I bet both your grandfathers survived actual wars to your cub scouts. Essentially, you just made my point.
+3 insightful for a bunch of assumptions that are...completely wrong. Well done. As for the grandfather assumptions, one grandfather was dead and the other one never left the house when I was that age.
For the record, when I was 10 we had a 286 in the house and cable tv. Most of my friends had either an XT (yay for exchanging games on 360kB floppies) or a commodore 64 or such. The amount of time I was actually allowed to spend playing games or watching tv was limited by what my parents felt was appropriate, however. Watching the news and educational programs was encouraged(having an idea of what is going on in your country and worldwide is kinda a requirement for being able to function in society), mindless entertainment less so.
I have enough discipline to not own a TV at all, I don't have kids and you doth protest too much. See? Assumptions work both ways. Except mine are probably right.
Sorry, but you couldn't be farther off the mark. Good job on completely removing what is apparently a terrible temptation from your life though. So how's the watercooler talk at work going?
Unfortunately all too often the guys that put their blood, sweat and tears into a game don't end up owning anything and the IP ended up in the hands of distributor A that went tits up and was bought out by distributor B that merged with distributor C, the devil spawn of which is now owned by EA.
Trying doesn't hurt anyone though, just be prepared to play PI and be ready to get disappointed at ending up irrevocably lost in some corporate behemoth where noone gives a shit about games unless they bring in more bucks.
off of facebook, off of tweets, etc. when you want to socialize with them, socialize with them directly. make your emails and phone calls terse things to actually just arrange meet up times in which real socialization actually takes place
then you will know what it is like to actually have a friend
So in your view, the only true social interaction is that which takes place in meatspace?
Damn, I better tell those people in other countries I can't be their friend anymore because some guy on Slashdot said so. Same for the relatives, I guess.
Or maybe your entire rant is an opinion instead of fact and the rest of us will use this tool in whichever way we damn well please. Or the way we manage our friendships, for that matter.
In Fallout 2 it's the other way around. If you happen to run into some sort of uber-weapon early on (Lincoln's repeater, the plasma rifle you get from the android in Rivet City, etc.), you can spend quite a few levels running around one-shotting anything remotely humanoid.
Actually in Fallout 3 you don't want to go *anywhere* as a level 1 character, since you level up the moment you leave the vault ;-) And at that point with the equipment you have most critters out there will tear you to tiny pieces...
rofl @ playing the guitar being a "useful, lifelong skill"
Playing an instrument is useless, if fun.
Counterargument: chicks dig guys that can play the guitar. Ergo: guitars lead to sex. Now whether or not you find that useful is up to you, but quite a large part of the male population seems to prioritize having sex quite highly.
Unless you happen to be of the female persuasion, in which case my point falls flat on its face ;-)
Disclaimer: I do not typically refer to women of any age as "chicks" except in the context of existing expressions.