So I ask you, when someone goes into that chapel, and they fall on their knees and they pray to God that their wife doesn't miscarry, or that their daughter doesn't bleed to death or that their mother doesn't suffer acute neural trauma from post operative shock, who do you think they're praying to? Now, go ahead and read your Bible, Dennis, and you go to your church, and with any luck you might win the Annual Raffle, but if you're looking for "God", he was in operating room #2 on November 7th, and he doesn't like to be second-guessed.
I think this article was referenced on slashdot a while ago.
The question is, how long until dynamic pricing permeates more of our markets? Dell tried this for a while with fluctuating prices on its website depending on the demand. People got pissed because they could buy a laptop one minute and the next it was $50 cheaper. Coke was thinking about the same thing, but got slammed by the public when it announced that it was investigating ways to "automatically raise prices for its drinks in hot weather." The article poses the question though: "Consider what the reaction might have been to this headline: "Coke testing machine that automatically discounts prices in cool weather.""
Being an Econ major I get frustrated with supply and demand curves because the truth is, they don't really exist... not in a measurable way at least. Its impossible for me to go out into the marketplace and know the exact equilibrium price for a given quantity supplied. However, we are closer now in history than ever before to being able to manage real time data, especially over the web, in order to dynamically change prices to reach these equilibrium prices. In many instances its just bringing the scalper's market straight to the distributor -- and while everyone complains when you pay $100 for a $50 concert ticket, few see the other side of the coin where you could pay $2 for a theater seat that will otherwise go unused -- however both are circumstances of the free market (surplus and shortage).
Ballmer has only dropped about 15% of his ownership in MS since his involvement with the company as compared to Gates and Allen who each own only 50% of their original stake.
Contrary to intution, MS shares actually rose as this occured, climbing 6 cents to close at 24.22 on Friday. MS had declined 7 of the last 9 trading sessions.
It seems that the public hasn't taken this as an indication that MS is going the way of the iLoo anytime soon.
Of course, obvious privacy comments aside, this would be interesting in coordination with this old slashdot article which called for real time map generation by having volunteers wear GPS devices. A system like this would be allow planners to construct reliable road and interstate systems based on actual volume of traffic instead of estimates.
Its the game. They enjoy what they do and just happen to be well compensated for it. What man wouldn't enjoy the power of being the head honcho of the biggest baddest software company in the world? Okay, maybe you wouldn't like the actual job, but you'd like the respect that comes with it.
Besides, what else are they going to do? Sit on the couch and watch soaps all day?
Middle class and Mid-Upper class work to live. Upper class live to work.
My notion of his IQ was based off of the post which I replied to:
"George W. Bush got a verbal score of 566 and a math score of 640, for a combined score of 1206. According to this site [members.shaw.ca], this means he has an IQ of approximately 129."
Personally, for my choice as president, I'll rather have a man with an IQ of 129 that has excellent intrapersonal/leadership skills and the abillity (and humillity) to suround himself with advisors smarter than him over an egotistical "I'll do it all myself" type with an IQ of 180.
Scoring well on the SAT, or any other standardized test does little more than to prove that you can do well on standardized tests.
I'm in college now, and did relatively well on my SAT, but I'm a slacker... especially when it comes to academics. Just a plain lazy bastard.
The thing is that I had alot of friends who didn't do so well on the SAT, but they got into their undergrad school and worked their butt off and are now on their way to Med school. Now granted, in order to get into a good one, you still have to go through a nasty little M-CAT, something I know nothing about.
It seems though that something like the SAT shows little more than how you prepare for a very specific test and how you perform on a very specific day. What it shows to a lesser degree is your level of persistence, self discipline and perhaps most notably, your common sense. I have alot of friends who are going to be sucessful at what they do someday, but just don't do well sitting in a room answering multiple choice questions for three hours.
Perhaps this is why its a blessing that your standardized test scores are not the only critieria for admitance into higher learning institutions.
As I can only assume that this page is going to be slashdotted in the next few minutes, I feel its important to share with everyone the best part of the page...
Premise -- dude tries really hard to do really bad on the exam, ends up by accident getting 2 questions right, and scores a 400 on the exam.
"This experiment grew on me as time passed by, and now I am thinking of other funny angles, like asking Princeton Review or Kaplan if they would be interested in being able to make the claim that a person who participated in their SAT preparation course improved his test score by 1200 points!" --------
Look boys and girls, if this sort of thing is exciting to you, then I'd highly recommend forgoing the 15 second ride and try something a little more exciting -- Sky Diving.
For about $150 or so you can do a tandem dive. It takes about 20 minutes or so for the plane ride to elevation. The whole time you're looking at your altimeter strapped to your chest thinking "For every notch this thing goes up... I have to fall that much further..." So you goof around in the plane, make silly conversation with the other guys... the pros, in a failed effort to prove that this thing isn't phasing you. You ain't scared... You've seen this on TV hundreds of times and it doesn't phase you... You crack jokes like "Hey, at least if the plane goes down we've got a parachute..." And then the guy on your back goes "Well... I've got one." Yeah, they know the truth. They know you're wondering why on earth you thought this would be fun and thinking "Maybe I should have written my mommy a letter to let her know how much I love her."
Then they open the door and cold air rushes in. Who'd have thought... 13,500 feet up and its cold even though its the middle of summer. And then, the strangest thing happens. Someone jumps. They don't make a big deal out of it... they just kind look out the door like, you know, it was a car window or something, and then poof... all you see is them falling... and falling... and falling. And fast too.
So after most of the pro's are out the door the big guy strapped to your back tells you its time and you two crawl out to the door. If you're really lucky you step outside the plane as he hangs on to a handle. And you're sitting there thinking "I am two and a half miles in the air... and just kinda... hanging out... Hey... that's a really nice wing... and look at that pretty rudder..."
And then, it happens. You know that feeling when you were 6 and you'd jump from the highest point on the playground... that part where your stomache shoots way up in your abdominal cavity? Its sorta like that... only it lasts quite a bit longer. Because, you see, every other time in your life that you've had this feeling, you've hit ground really quick and it was over... but not this time. Now, this time you have that feeling for a good 6-10 seconds and its stttrrrraaaange.
And then, you're flying. You're going 120 miles an hour... You don't feel like you're falling anymore because you're not longer accelerating. But damn, you're going fast. But you're not strapped into some car with a lap bar or something... you're free.... you are going faster than you have ever felt yourself go before. Its utterly amazing. And the thing is, it lasts for a good 60 seconds. I mean, there's actually time to get over the thought of "Holy Crap" and to actually process logical thoughts like "I wonder if I left my lights on in my car..."
I can't really explain it enough... I can just say that you need to do it at some point in your life. You'll look at things differently after that day. I mean, you want to talk about a leap of faith... about stepping out over the earth trusting that the guy on your back and the little piece of cloth on his are going to literally save your life.
"Congratulations... you've just had a near life experience..."
Man, I know how you feel. Whenever I catch "The A-Team" on TV now all I can think is "Man... for being so bad-ass.. the A-Team has terrible shooting accuracy..."
Seriously, the A-Team must have the worse shot-kill ratio in the history of television. They always just employ the "Shoot the ground until the guy run's, flips in the air to dodge the bullet, then knocks himself out" technique.
One of my favorite episodes is where Homer goes to work for Scorpio (Hank), the evil guy who's going to take over the world.
Anyway, there's this great moment that goes like this (Homer's holding a cup of coffee):
Homer: Uh... you have any sugar around here? Hank: Sugar? Sure. [fumbles in his pockets, takes out a few handfuls of sugar] There you go. Sorry it's not in packages.
Of course... in sindication they leave out the next line... which is one of my favorite Simpson's moments...
You know its funny... there are a bunch of starwars fanatics that were pissed after the previous Wookie "spolier" which was then followed by responses saying "Just change your preferences to block out all starwars posts."
Now those guys are going to miss out on their chance to actually be in the movie.:-)
Then again, I suppose being an extra in the film is the ultimate spolier.
Doesn't this eventually become paradoxical? If enough people listen to the underground music, it eventually catches radio play, becomes main-stream. Once this happens, are the same artists no longer 'pure' because they happen to have caught on with a larger percentage of the population?
It is sad sometimes though to see what happens to more independent artists once the labels and the money and fame get ahold of them... do you think its possible to make this jump without losing your roots?
Probably will be modded as "redundant" or "off-topic" however, as its been said many times before in the last few days, Google's C&D letter was more a necessity to insure the protection of their own trademark. They're just playing the game, jumping through the hoops. I mean, in all seriousness, don't you think that a company would be pleased to have their name worked into everyday conversation... people pay millions for that same type of name recognition through marketing. If you read the C&D letter, it merely asked that the site make note of the trademarked nature of the name. The C&D was to cease and desist using our name without noting trademark, not necessarily C&D use of the name all together.
Google didn't make the rules, but in order to conduct business, in order to make a living doing what you enjoy, in order to prosper in the type of economy that is the foundation for this nation, you have to play by the rules. They're not the bad guys here... they're just being smart.
Sure, but the point is as others have already said, that if those miners had died instantly in the collapse then there wouldn't have been much of story. It was the fact that it was a drama that kept the public interested.
This in now way detracts from the tragedy of what happened, and although you can villianify the news by saying that they use the inherent drama in such stories to create high ratings television, I think the problem goes deeper to the inherent perspective of all humans. We are exposed to tragedy on the news every day - drive by's, car accidents, house fires - but our own mind weighs more heavily some more than others. I don't know that its necessarily a "fault", its just human nature.
I really hope the "extras" include a new commentary track. Have you guys ever sat through the commentary that comes on the DVD. It is a *painful* experience. Its such a great great movie that its sad to see such monotonous commentary. Carrie Moss has some interesting and funny comments, but honestly she just isn't present enough throughout the track. Instead its two of the "geeks" that helped put the movie together ( one was in charge of visual effects). Although some of the technical insight is interesting -- for the most part you find them talking through the best parts of the movie about totally unrelated subjects, or extending valid points way too far. Maybe I'm being a little too critical on something that's supposed to be off the cuff, but it just seemed like the techinical guys didn't have a clue as to how to make the commentary interesting for your average viewer. However, geeks never have been great at stimulating conversation for the masses for minutes, let alone hours.
I love listening to the commentary tracks on DVDs -- Fight Club and Training Day being two of my favorites -- as they offer insight into the movie's themes and motif's and new perspectives on something you may have taken for granted after 5-10 viewings. After so many years and so many viewings, I'd love to finally know what the brother's think of their creation or hear more from Laurence or Hugo (probably not Keanu though:-) ).
This type of project seems like it would be an ideal canidate for a "Slashdot-esque" website utilizing either the original Slashcode or a port of it (I've been playing with PHP Slash and have been very impressed.)
Its relatively easy to set up (less than an hour if you know what you're doing) and wouldn't require nearly as much maintenence as Slashdot as you would have quite a few less submissions.
When I was at space camp some 11 years ago I remember them talking about the Apollo program and all the machinery that goes into it. They made the comment that there are over 10 Million components involved in the launch of an Apollo Capsule, so even with 99.9% accuracy, there are still 10,000 things that can go wrong.
That being said, any time you wanna talk about the 13 men, I got your back.
Actually, Nick Cage was the bad guy... its just that he was wearing Travolta's face when he came home to meet the fam.
Been a while since you've seen this cinematic masterpiece?
Why don't we live our life this way?
on
Virtual Simerica
·
· Score: 0
The sims is interesting in that a large amount of people spend a large amount of time getting their imaginary people to live "the best life possible" -- always going for that next promotion, always seeking out new people to interact with, always going for the optimum level of hapiness.
Why is it that those who play the Sims (myself included) don't 'play' with their own lives in the same way? Why is it so many of us are living what Thoreau called the "lives of quiet desperation" and are content to reach a plateau of happiness and stay there; to get stuck on a happiness plateau and be content to stay there?
We get pissed at our Sims when they get exhausted and want to go to sleep instead of reading a book or practicing a speech or working out, but we are often content to stay in bed for that extra hour instead of improving ourselves.
If we could approach our own lives and our own self-improvement with the same level of detachment as we do with our Sims, if we could expect to eek out every minute of every day of our lives as we do with our imaginary creations, in what ways do you think we would excel past what we currently acheieve? Would it be worth it?
Slashdot Mirror
So I ask you, when someone goes into that chapel, and they fall on their knees and they pray to God that their wife doesn't miscarry, or that their daughter doesn't bleed to death or that their mother doesn't suffer acute neural trauma from post operative shock, who do you think they're praying to? Now, go ahead and read your Bible, Dennis, and you go to your church, and with any luck you might win the Annual Raffle, but if you're looking for "God", he was in operating room #2 on November 7th, and he doesn't like to be second-guessed.
You ask me if I have a "god-complex"?
Let me tell you something: I am God.
I think this article was referenced on slashdot a while ago.
The question is, how long until dynamic pricing permeates more of our markets? Dell tried this for a while with fluctuating prices on its website depending on the demand. People got pissed because they could buy a laptop one minute and the next it was $50 cheaper. Coke was thinking about the same thing, but got slammed by the public when it announced that it was investigating ways to "automatically raise prices for its drinks in hot weather." The article poses the question though: "Consider what the reaction might have been to this headline: "Coke testing machine that automatically discounts prices in cool weather.""
Being an Econ major I get frustrated with supply and demand curves because the truth is, they don't really exist... not in a measurable way at least. Its impossible for me to go out into the marketplace and know the exact equilibrium price for a given quantity supplied. However, we are closer now in history than ever before to being able to manage real time data, especially over the web, in order to dynamically change prices to reach these equilibrium prices. In many instances its just bringing the scalper's market straight to the distributor -- and while everyone complains when you pay $100 for a $50 concert ticket, few see the other side of the coin where you could pay $2 for a theater seat that will otherwise go unused -- however both are circumstances of the free market (surplus and shortage).
Some interesting tidbits from a parallel article.
Ballmer has only dropped about 15% of his ownership in MS since his involvement with the company as compared to Gates and Allen who each own only 50% of their original stake.
Contrary to intution, MS shares actually rose as this occured, climbing 6 cents to close at 24.22 on Friday. MS had declined 7 of the last 9 trading sessions.
It seems that the public hasn't taken this as an indication that MS is going the way of the iLoo anytime soon.
There's a bit of a surprise conclusion at the end!
He is Tyler Durden.
(Or Keyser Soze... take your pick)
Of course, obvious privacy comments aside, this would be interesting in coordination with this old slashdot article which called for real time map generation by having volunteers wear GPS devices. A system like this would be allow planners to construct reliable road and interstate systems based on actual volume of traffic instead of estimates.
Yeah yeah yeah... I didn't even see what article I'm replying too. Let's talk about what everyone wants to talk about.
How 'bout that Matrix?
Its the game. They enjoy what they do and just happen to be well compensated for it. What man wouldn't enjoy the power of being the head honcho of the biggest baddest software company in the world? Okay, maybe you wouldn't like the actual job, but you'd like the respect that comes with it.
Besides, what else are they going to do? Sit on the couch and watch soaps all day?
Middle class and Mid-Upper class work to live. Upper class live to work.
My notion of his IQ was based off of the post which I replied to:
"George W. Bush got a verbal score of 566 and a math score of 640, for a combined score of 1206. According to this site [members.shaw.ca], this means he has an IQ of approximately 129."
Personally, for my choice as president, I'll rather have a man with an IQ of 129 that has excellent intrapersonal/leadership skills and the abillity (and humillity) to suround himself with advisors smarter than him over an egotistical "I'll do it all myself" type with an IQ of 180.
Scoring well on the SAT, or any other standardized test does little more than to prove that you can do well on standardized tests.
I'm in college now, and did relatively well on my SAT, but I'm a slacker... especially when it comes to academics. Just a plain lazy bastard.
The thing is that I had alot of friends who didn't do so well on the SAT, but they got into their undergrad school and worked their butt off and are now on their way to Med school. Now granted, in order to get into a good one, you still have to go through a nasty little M-CAT, something I know nothing about.
It seems though that something like the SAT shows little more than how you prepare for a very specific test and how you perform on a very specific day. What it shows to a lesser degree is your level of persistence, self discipline and perhaps most notably, your common sense. I have alot of friends who are going to be sucessful at what they do someday, but just don't do well sitting in a room answering multiple choice questions for three hours.
Perhaps this is why its a blessing that your standardized test scores are not the only critieria for admitance into higher learning institutions.
As I can only assume that this page is going to be slashdotted in the next few minutes, I feel its important to share with everyone the best part of the page...
Premise -- dude tries really hard to do really bad on the exam, ends up by accident getting 2 questions right, and scores a 400 on the exam.
"This experiment grew on me as time passed by, and now I am thinking of other
funny angles, like asking Princeton Review or Kaplan if they would be interested
in being able to make the claim that a person who participated in their SAT
preparation course improved his test score by 1200 points!"
--------
Look boys and girls, if this sort of thing is exciting to you, then I'd highly recommend forgoing the 15 second ride and try something a little more exciting -- Sky Diving.
For about $150 or so you can do a tandem dive. It takes about 20 minutes or so for the plane ride to elevation. The whole time you're looking at your altimeter strapped to your chest thinking "For every notch this thing goes up... I have to fall that much further..." So you goof around in the plane, make silly conversation with the other guys... the pros, in a failed effort to prove that this thing isn't phasing you. You ain't scared... You've seen this on TV hundreds of times and it doesn't phase you... You crack jokes like "Hey, at least if the plane goes down we've got a parachute..." And then the guy on your back goes "Well... I've got one." Yeah, they know the truth. They know you're wondering why on earth you thought this would be fun and thinking "Maybe I should have written my mommy a letter to let her know how much I love her."
Then they open the door and cold air rushes in. Who'd have thought... 13,500 feet up and its cold even though its the middle of summer. And then, the strangest thing happens. Someone jumps. They don't make a big deal out of it... they just kind look out the door like, you know, it was a car window or something, and then poof... all you see is them falling... and falling... and falling. And fast too.
So after most of the pro's are out the door the big guy strapped to your back tells you its time and you two crawl out to the door. If you're really lucky you step outside the plane as he hangs on to a handle. And you're sitting there thinking "I am two and a half miles in the air... and just kinda... hanging out... Hey... that's a really nice wing... and look at that pretty rudder..."
And then, it happens. You know that feeling when you were 6 and you'd jump from the highest point on the playground... that part where your stomache shoots way up in your abdominal cavity? Its sorta like that... only it lasts quite a bit longer. Because, you see, every other time in your life that you've had this feeling, you've hit ground really quick and it was over... but not this time. Now, this time you have that feeling for a good 6-10 seconds and its stttrrrraaaange.
And then, you're flying. You're going 120 miles an hour... You don't feel like you're falling anymore because you're not longer accelerating. But damn, you're going fast. But you're not strapped into some car with a lap bar or something... you're free.... you are going faster than you have ever felt yourself go before. Its utterly amazing. And the thing is, it lasts for a good 60 seconds. I mean, there's actually time to get over the thought of "Holy Crap" and to actually process logical thoughts like "I wonder if I left my lights on in my car..."
I can't really explain it enough... I can just say that you need to do it at some point in your life. You'll look at things differently after that day. I mean, you want to talk about a leap of faith... about stepping out over the earth trusting that the guy on your back and the little piece of cloth on his are going to literally save your life.
"Congratulations... you've just had a near life experience..."
Man, I know how you feel. Whenever I catch "The A-Team" on TV now all I can think is "Man... for being so bad-ass.. the A-Team has terrible shooting accuracy..."
Seriously, the A-Team must have the worse shot-kill ratio in the history of television. They always just employ the "Shoot the ground until the guy run's, flips in the air to dodge the bullet, then knocks himself out" technique.
One of my favorite episodes is where Homer goes to work for Scorpio (Hank), the evil guy who's going to take over the world.
Anyway, there's this great moment that goes like this (Homer's holding a cup of coffee):
Homer: Uh... you have any sugar around here?
Hank: Sugar? Sure. [fumbles in his pockets, takes out a few handfuls of sugar] There you go. Sorry it's not in packages.
Of course... in sindication they leave out the next line... which is one of my favorite Simpson's moments...
Hank: Want some cream?
Homer: I--uh... no.
I think we was just saying "Cypher" is the last two syllables of "Lu-Cifer"
Greg
You know its funny... there are a bunch of starwars fanatics that were pissed after the previous Wookie "spolier" which was then followed by responses saying "Just change your preferences to block out all starwars posts."
:-)
Now those guys are going to miss out on their chance to actually be in the movie.
Then again, I suppose being an extra in the film is the ultimate spolier.
Doesn't this eventually become paradoxical? If enough people listen to the underground music, it eventually catches radio play, becomes main-stream. Once this happens, are the same artists no longer 'pure' because they happen to have caught on with a larger percentage of the population?
It is sad sometimes though to see what happens to more independent artists once the labels and the money and fame get ahold of them... do you think its possible to make this jump without losing your roots?
Probably will be modded as "redundant" or "off-topic" however, as its been said many times before in the last few days, Google's C&D letter was more a necessity to insure the protection of their own trademark. They're just playing the game, jumping through the hoops. I mean, in all seriousness, don't you think that a company would be pleased to have their name worked into everyday conversation... people pay millions for that same type of name recognition through marketing. If you read the C&D letter, it merely asked that the site make note of the trademarked nature of the name. The C&D was to cease and desist using our name without noting trademark, not necessarily C&D use of the name all together.
Google didn't make the rules, but in order to conduct business, in order to make a living doing what you enjoy, in order to prosper in the type of economy that is the foundation for this nation, you have to play by the rules. They're not the bad guys here... they're just being smart.
Sure, but the point is as others have already said, that if those miners had died instantly in the collapse then there wouldn't have been much of story. It was the fact that it was a drama that kept the public interested.
This in now way detracts from the tragedy of what happened, and although you can villianify the news by saying that they use the inherent drama in such stories to create high ratings television, I think the problem goes deeper to the inherent perspective of all humans. We are exposed to tragedy on the news every day - drive by's, car accidents, house fires - but our own mind weighs more heavily some more than others. I don't know that its necessarily a "fault", its just human nature.
I really hope the "extras" include a new commentary track. Have you guys ever sat through the commentary that comes on the DVD. It is a *painful* experience. Its such a great great movie that its sad to see such monotonous commentary. Carrie Moss has some interesting and funny comments, but honestly she just isn't present enough throughout the track. Instead its two of the "geeks" that helped put the movie together ( one was in charge of visual effects). Although some of the technical insight is interesting -- for the most part you find them talking through the best parts of the movie about totally unrelated subjects, or extending valid points way too far. Maybe I'm being a little too critical on something that's supposed to be off the cuff, but it just seemed like the techinical guys didn't have a clue as to how to make the commentary interesting for your average viewer. However, geeks never have been great at stimulating conversation for the masses for minutes, let alone hours.
:-) ).
I love listening to the commentary tracks on DVDs -- Fight Club and Training Day being two of my favorites -- as they offer insight into the movie's themes and motif's and new perspectives on something you may have taken for granted after 5-10 viewings. After so many years and so many viewings, I'd love to finally know what the brother's think of their creation or hear more from Laurence or Hugo (probably not Keanu though
This type of project seems like it would be an ideal canidate for a "Slashdot-esque" website utilizing either the original Slashcode or a port of it (I've been playing with PHP Slash and have been very impressed.)
Its relatively easy to set up (less than an hour if you know what you're doing) and wouldn't require nearly as much maintenence as Slashdot as you would have quite a few less submissions.
When I was at space camp some 11 years ago I remember them talking about the Apollo program and all the machinery that goes into it. They made the comment that there are over 10 Million components involved in the launch of an Apollo Capsule, so even with 99.9% accuracy, there are still 10,000 things that can go wrong.
That being said, any time you wanna talk about the 13 men, I got your back.
Greg
Actually, Nick Cage was the bad guy... its just that he was wearing Travolta's face when he came home to meet the fam.
Been a while since you've seen this cinematic masterpiece?
The sims is interesting in that a large amount of people spend a large amount of time getting their imaginary people to live "the best life possible" -- always going for that next promotion, always seeking out new people to interact with, always going for the optimum level of hapiness.
Why is it that those who play the Sims (myself included) don't 'play' with their own lives in the same way? Why is it so many of us are living what Thoreau called the "lives of quiet desperation" and are content to reach a plateau of happiness and stay there; to get stuck on a happiness plateau and be content to stay there?
We get pissed at our Sims when they get exhausted and want to go to sleep instead of reading a book or practicing a speech or working out, but we are often content to stay in bed for that extra hour instead of improving ourselves.
If we could approach our own lives and our own self-improvement with the same level of detachment as we do with our Sims, if we could expect to eek out every minute of every day of our lives as we do with our imaginary creations, in what ways do you think we would excel past what we currently acheieve? Would it be worth it?
Greg
A Schwety Ball Sack?