At what point do we turn to the marketing overlords and say "Fuck you, you don't have a right to know my age or gender, as much as you think you might". Advertising has gone too far already with being microtargeted, someone has to draw the line.
YOU DON'T HAVE AN INALIENABLE RIGHT TO MARKET TO ME. Make money by doing something useful, not leeching off those who do.
There you go with your silly 'facts' again. Ironic, that the GP is proving the thesis that even when presented with a fact (that the initial post was sarcastic in nature) he/she/it continues to believe that it's an attack on his/her/its Lord and Savior Bill O'Reilly. Someone's awfully insecure in their beliefs, to protest this much.
This assumes that there was an actual problem with the gas pedals being used. It is also possible that the other manufacturers saw the huge PR hit (and subsequently, revenue hit) Toyota was taking and decided to recall the pedals proactively. Unlikely, I know, given the expense involved in a recall (and the total inability of big business to see beyond the ends of their noses) but possible. They may have run the numbers (a la the Pinto) and determined the recall was less expensive than 1) the wrongful death lawsuits that they would have to settle (even though it probably wasn't their fault) and 2) the revenue loss when people found out they used the same pedals.
you'll spend hundreds of dollars to replace all of the bulbs in your house
How big is your house, that you'd be buying 100 lightbulbs all at once? I think I might have 20 all together. You're also conveniently leaving out the fact that CFLs have a longer life than incandescents, saving you money on replacements as well.
and when push comes to shove the far left environmentalist position denies the poor folk $2.50 to spend on food.
[citation needed]
Are you serious? Do you know what a Prius costs in comparison to a cheap car?
Which is why I said:
drive in a more fuel-efficient manner (NOT buying a different car)
Also, your arguments are in terms of money. Maybe it's not about money? Maybe it's about changing your lifestyle to make your impact felt less, and if that saves you money, great. If it doesn't? Well, suck it up. Do what you CAN. You CAN drive more efficiently. You CAN shut off a light bulb. Can't afford to replace your bulbs? OK, fine, shut them off when you're not using them, or buy lower-wattage bulbs where you can. Can't afford a hybrid or another kind of more fuel-efficient car? OK, fine, drive more carefully.
But the furthest left environmentalists would make cheap incandescents and marginally less fuel-efficient cars illegal and push the cost onto the poor because they always assign a value of infinity to the smallest and most insignificant part of nature (of which man is obviously not a part) and assign next to nothing to the potential suffering of their fellow man.
Oh please. First of all, man is a part of ALL PARTS of nature, denying as such is factually incorrect. Potential suffering? It would kill you to turn off a light bulb? To drive 65 on the highway instead of 80? To consider fuel mileage when you purchase your next car? All of these would make you suffer?
I think you're confusing "minor inconvenience" and "a small amount of effort" with "suffering" and "lower quality of living". Will your efforts fix the environmental problem 100% and for all time? No. Will they help? Yes. I think the dissonance is where people disagree on what they CAN do. Usually it's more of a problem of what people WILL do, not what they CAN do.
Also, you keep talking about environmentalists like they're all terrorist organizations. Some of them are quite reasonable. Are there lunatics? Of course. Are there lunatics on the other side of the issue? You bet. Narrow your brush.
I think you're exaggerating what Greenpeace and the Sierra Club are aiming for. Can you cite official policy from either of those groups to back up your claim?
There's something I've never understood coming from critics of the environmentalist movement: Where do you get the idea that people want to drag down the standard of living? Does it come from the fact that you think most of the time making the 'environmentalist' choice (whether it be to recycle glass, or change a light bulb, etc) costs (most of the time, slightly) more money? And do those costs significantly affect people's standards of living? Really? Spending $3 on a light bulb will make me poor?
What exactly brings down my standard of living when I turn off a light when I leave a room? When I shut down my computer when I'm not using it? When I drive in a more fuel-efficient manner (NOT buying a different car)? All of these are 'environmentalist' choices, yet they cost nothing except the effort required to modify my behavior slightly. If you're so against changing a habit, to the point where you argue it damages your standard of living, I think you have other issues to be concerned about.
it took a miserable senior year to realize just how much I hated the prospect of working in the field.
Welcome to the real world, where people pay you to do things you'd rather not do, because if they were enjoyable, they or you would do them for free.
I wish I'd taken a lot more enjoyable classes, and a lot fewer of the ones that in retrospect feel like drudgery.
I took the enjoyable classes, and nearly starved after graduation. Enjoying your classes is overrated; eating once you're not being fed by the dorm is more important.
Sure, if you're taking something that seems particularly unlikely to lead to employment, it's worth branching out and picking up at least the basics in something else.
If you're studying something that seems particularly unlikely to lead to employment, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. IMHO most four year colleges shouldn't even bother with majors like "philosophy" or "sociology" or "fashion marketing". (No kidding, that was an actual major where I went to school. I always thought it should be re-titled "blowing your way to a paycheck".) And can anyone tell me what basis in reality a "communications" major has? I've never understood what the point was; it just seems like that's what people studied if they couldn't be arsed to study something else.
I have personally found being "well rounded" to make me both a better person and better employee.
Neither of which will help you put food on the table. "Better person" is completely useless, and "better employee" just means you're willing to eat more shit than the next guy. (Which I guess will actually make it easier to be employed, since you're more willing to be taken advantage of.)
Take what you're interested in and forget about the job.
BULL. SHIT.
I took that advice when I was in college, and it resulted in my being unemployable for years. I finally had to start teaching myself an entirely different set of skills so I didn't have to flip burgers. Complete waste of tens of thousands of dollars.
Major in what will get you a job. Period. You might not be as interested in it as, say, legitimate study and research into the role of women in todays society (just to pick something out of the air), but starving sucks much worse than a job you may not consider your dream job.
Colleges are way too focused on producing "well rounded" graduates that are qualified, skill set wise, to hand out towels at a health club. If it doesn't pay off after graduation, an education is a very poor investment indeed. All you've gotten for your money is four years of exams, parties, and sloth.
You forgot the part where people give a shit about their fellow countrymen, and realize that helping other people (yes, even the ones who don't "deserve" the help, in your opinion) is in your own interest.
Everyone focuses on the 'welfare queen'. Nobody focuses on the 999 other cases where someone legitimately needs the help.
The problem is that liberals don't want any energy production at all.
You're going to need to cite a source on that. I consider myself liberal, and I like having energy to use, thank you, and I also realize that nothing is perfect. Try a smaller brush next time.
Then they should LEARN what BCC and CC are, or they can get a new fucking job. This is not rocket science. It takes approximately ten seconds to thoroughly learn the difference. Asking this of someone with an eighth grade education is not unreasonable.
To be fair, AT cars are not as significantly less efficient as they used to be. Five-gear automatic transmissions are now commonplace, and the difference in mileage has become so small as to become negligible.
I wouldn't drive an AT by choice, but my family is approaching "minivan" territory, and according to the research I've done, they don't sell MT minivans at all in this country.
(OT: How do they refer to what we in the US call 'mileage' in other countries? Kilometerage?)
You're absolutely right. You also have the right to get ejected from your car in a minor accident and meet a tractor trailer going the opposite way at 50 mph.
Idiot. Assholes like you are why there are seat belt laws. You wouldn't do the right thing, so now you've lost any choice you might have had. And that won't stop you from bitching, I'm sure.
Yes, if all you want for your son is a trade education so he can have a job, send him to CC. If you want him to have an education, send him to a Uni so he can take a few classes in english that teach him how to enjoy reading some of the classic literature more, maybe an art class so he appreciates what goes into a painting and it's not just a thing hanging on the wall that "looks nice".
The reason we go to college is not to become a 'well rounded' person, we go to college so we can get better paying jobs. And my quibble with core classes is that students have NO CHOICE but to take them, even though they may have ZERO interest in the subject, and taking the class makes them no more marketable after they graduate and start to have to pay back those loans.
I made the mistake of studying something that interested me, not something that would enable me to get a job. I ended up taking an EMT training class my last semester of college so I could have a job when I graduated. (I got paid less than the current minimum wage. That's right, I had lives in my hands and got $6.75 an hour.) It took me twelve years and a complete career path change before I "made it" into a job that feeds my family and provides me with sufficiently valuable experience that makes me more marketable the longer I work here. (That's the real value in staying in a job, because FSM knows you won't ever get a raise better than the COL increase, IF that, each year. Switching jobs is pretty much the only way to get a raise of any consequence these days.)
Taking freshman English, a gym class, or a "diversity" class may have been interesting, and I might have even enjoyed them, but paying full university tuition to take them, and not getting squat for the investment, is a waste of money. You can talk about 'well rounded' all you want, that and $1.50 will get you a cup of coffee, and lousy coffee at that.
Your question assumes that the course in question is attended mostly by students whose major/course of study would be aided by that knowledge. If, on the other hand, students are in that class to fill some fucking "core requirement", then give them the tools they need to pass the exam and leave them the hell alone.
For example: There were three levels of physics courses that freshmen and sophomores took at my university. One was "Physics for Poets", taken by students seeking to fill a general education (core) requirement, one was for science majors to fill a requirement of their major, and one was for Physics majors specifically. To make the gen ed students sit through 15 pages of background material when all they need to pass the class is F=ma is a giant waste of their time, and that time could be better used to cover additional (basic-level) material.
Of course, a better solution would be to remove all the useless gut courses that everyone is FORCED to take, and replace them with classes that are actually relevant to the student's major. I know when my son goes to college (if he chooses to) I'll be damned if I'm paying $50k for him to yawn his way through eight different versions of "English for Idiots". Community college, here he comes.
call yourself a Christian and people assume you're a bible thumping redneck who voted for Bush.
If that's really not the case, next Sunday after church, find the "bible thumping rednecks" (there's probably at least a couple) and let them know, in no uncertain terms, that they're ruining it for the rest of you by acting like total idiots.
And vote for whoever you want, just make sure you're doing it for the right reasons, and not just because Jesus told you to.
I'll probably get troll-modded for this. I'm ok with that. If I were, I wouldn't put my handle on it.
OP isn't suggesting that the users understand the errors, just that they read them and remember the words so that the help desk can assist them. Anyone with a third-grade education should be able (and expected) to do this.
I've done desktop support. The only thing I really took away from it is that people are stupid until forced to be otherwise. The only solution I ever came up with was this: Get the CEO/head honcho/big cheese on board. Explain to him/her that support can only work with the users' help, otherwise they're wasting money. Establish a policy thus: When you call the help desk, if you do not have the error message you received, you will be directed to call back when the error occurs again. Allow for an alternate method of assistance (ticket/email/so forth) but if they want to speak to someone on the phone, they need to be ready to help themselves.
Of course what will happen here is that the users will stop calling, and then complain that the help desk doesn't do anything to help them. At that point, you can point at the fact that they were never contacted in the first place (because all calls/tickets/emails are logged.) Eventually the users should realize that they can't do their jobs without the help desk's support, and they'll start playing by the rules, or get fired for incompetence.
This is why you need the CEO on board, and probably will need a few people to be fired over it before things start changing.
These are, of course, drastic measures, but considering the drastically bad level of staffing/support that help desks receive today,they seem appropriate.
Slashdot Mirror
At what point do we turn to the marketing overlords and say "Fuck you, you don't have a right to know my age or gender, as much as you think you might". Advertising has gone too far already with being microtargeted, someone has to draw the line.
YOU DON'T HAVE AN INALIENABLE RIGHT TO MARKET TO ME. Make money by doing something useful, not leeching off those who do.
There you go with your silly 'facts' again. Ironic, that the GP is proving the thesis that even when presented with a fact (that the initial post was sarcastic in nature) he/she/it continues to believe that it's an attack on his/her/its Lord and Savior Bill O'Reilly. Someone's awfully insecure in their beliefs, to protest this much.
This assumes that there was an actual problem with the gas pedals being used. It is also possible that the other manufacturers saw the huge PR hit (and subsequently, revenue hit) Toyota was taking and decided to recall the pedals proactively. Unlikely, I know, given the expense involved in a recall (and the total inability of big business to see beyond the ends of their noses) but possible. They may have run the numbers (a la the Pinto) and determined the recall was less expensive than 1) the wrongful death lawsuits that they would have to settle (even though it probably wasn't their fault) and 2) the revenue loss when people found out they used the same pedals.
How big is your house, that you'd be buying 100 lightbulbs all at once? I think I might have 20 all together. You're also conveniently leaving out the fact that CFLs have a longer life than incandescents, saving you money on replacements as well.
[citation needed]
Which is why I said:
Also, your arguments are in terms of money. Maybe it's not about money? Maybe it's about changing your lifestyle to make your impact felt less, and if that saves you money, great. If it doesn't? Well, suck it up. Do what you CAN. You CAN drive more efficiently. You CAN shut off a light bulb. Can't afford to replace your bulbs? OK, fine, shut them off when you're not using them, or buy lower-wattage bulbs where you can. Can't afford a hybrid or another kind of more fuel-efficient car? OK, fine, drive more carefully.
Oh please. First of all, man is a part of ALL PARTS of nature, denying as such is factually incorrect. Potential suffering? It would kill you to turn off a light bulb? To drive 65 on the highway instead of 80? To consider fuel mileage when you purchase your next car? All of these would make you suffer?
I think you're confusing "minor inconvenience" and "a small amount of effort" with "suffering" and "lower quality of living". Will your efforts fix the environmental problem 100% and for all time? No. Will they help? Yes. I think the dissonance is where people disagree on what they CAN do. Usually it's more of a problem of what people WILL do, not what they CAN do.
Also, you keep talking about environmentalists like they're all terrorist organizations. Some of them are quite reasonable. Are there lunatics? Of course. Are there lunatics on the other side of the issue? You bet. Narrow your brush.
I think you're exaggerating what Greenpeace and the Sierra Club are aiming for. Can you cite official policy from either of those groups to back up your claim?
There's something I've never understood coming from critics of the environmentalist movement: Where do you get the idea that people want to drag down the standard of living? Does it come from the fact that you think most of the time making the 'environmentalist' choice (whether it be to recycle glass, or change a light bulb, etc) costs (most of the time, slightly) more money? And do those costs significantly affect people's standards of living? Really? Spending $3 on a light bulb will make me poor?
What exactly brings down my standard of living when I turn off a light when I leave a room? When I shut down my computer when I'm not using it? When I drive in a more fuel-efficient manner (NOT buying a different car)? All of these are 'environmentalist' choices, yet they cost nothing except the effort required to modify my behavior slightly. If you're so against changing a habit, to the point where you argue it damages your standard of living, I think you have other issues to be concerned about.
Who says they need a reason to complain?
Lots and lots of people. People shop at Walmart, for crying out loud.
Welcome to the real world, where people pay you to do things you'd rather not do, because if they were enjoyable, they or you would do them for free.
I took the enjoyable classes, and nearly starved after graduation. Enjoying your classes is overrated; eating once you're not being fed by the dorm is more important.
If you're studying something that seems particularly unlikely to lead to employment, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. IMHO most four year colleges shouldn't even bother with majors like "philosophy" or "sociology" or "fashion marketing". (No kidding, that was an actual major where I went to school. I always thought it should be re-titled "blowing your way to a paycheck".) And can anyone tell me what basis in reality a "communications" major has? I've never understood what the point was; it just seems like that's what people studied if they couldn't be arsed to study something else.
Neither of which will help you put food on the table. "Better person" is completely useless, and "better employee" just means you're willing to eat more shit than the next guy. (Which I guess will actually make it easier to be employed, since you're more willing to be taken advantage of.)
BULL. SHIT.
I took that advice when I was in college, and it resulted in my being unemployable for years. I finally had to start teaching myself an entirely different set of skills so I didn't have to flip burgers. Complete waste of tens of thousands of dollars.
Major in what will get you a job. Period. You might not be as interested in it as, say, legitimate study and research into the role of women in todays society (just to pick something out of the air), but starving sucks much worse than a job you may not consider your dream job.
Colleges are way too focused on producing "well rounded" graduates that are qualified, skill set wise, to hand out towels at a health club. If it doesn't pay off after graduation, an education is a very poor investment indeed. All you've gotten for your money is four years of exams, parties, and sloth.
Don't mess with porn, it's the only thing keeping some people sane.
Yes, because as we all know, the only value of something is how much money it's worth.
You forgot the part where people give a shit about their fellow countrymen, and realize that helping other people (yes, even the ones who don't "deserve" the help, in your opinion) is in your own interest.
Everyone focuses on the 'welfare queen'. Nobody focuses on the 999 other cases where someone legitimately needs the help.
Shut up, Glenn.
You're going to need to cite a source on that. I consider myself liberal, and I like having energy to use, thank you, and I also realize that nothing is perfect. Try a smaller brush next time.
Then they should LEARN what BCC and CC are, or they can get a new fucking job. This is not rocket science. It takes approximately ten seconds to thoroughly learn the difference. Asking this of someone with an eighth grade education is not unreasonable.
Unless your name is Glenn Beck, you won't reach this one. Don't waste the effort.
Can't wait to see how people blame the victim on this one.
To be fair, AT cars are not as significantly less efficient as they used to be. Five-gear automatic transmissions are now commonplace, and the difference in mileage has become so small as to become negligible.
I wouldn't drive an AT by choice, but my family is approaching "minivan" territory, and according to the research I've done, they don't sell MT minivans at all in this country.
(OT: How do they refer to what we in the US call 'mileage' in other countries? Kilometerage?)
But will it include minor expectations like a choice in carriers, or a bloody Flash plugin? Fix those before you add gadgets.
You're absolutely right. You also have the right to get ejected from your car in a minor accident and meet a tractor trailer going the opposite way at 50 mph.
Idiot. Assholes like you are why there are seat belt laws. You wouldn't do the right thing, so now you've lost any choice you might have had. And that won't stop you from bitching, I'm sure.
The reason we go to college is not to become a 'well rounded' person, we go to college so we can get better paying jobs. And my quibble with core classes is that students have NO CHOICE but to take them, even though they may have ZERO interest in the subject, and taking the class makes them no more marketable after they graduate and start to have to pay back those loans.
I made the mistake of studying something that interested me, not something that would enable me to get a job. I ended up taking an EMT training class my last semester of college so I could have a job when I graduated. (I got paid less than the current minimum wage. That's right, I had lives in my hands and got $6.75 an hour.) It took me twelve years and a complete career path change before I "made it" into a job that feeds my family and provides me with sufficiently valuable experience that makes me more marketable the longer I work here. (That's the real value in staying in a job, because FSM knows you won't ever get a raise better than the COL increase, IF that, each year. Switching jobs is pretty much the only way to get a raise of any consequence these days.)
Taking freshman English, a gym class, or a "diversity" class may have been interesting, and I might have even enjoyed them, but paying full university tuition to take them, and not getting squat for the investment, is a waste of money. You can talk about 'well rounded' all you want, that and $1.50 will get you a cup of coffee, and lousy coffee at that.
Your question assumes that the course in question is attended mostly by students whose major/course of study would be aided by that knowledge. If, on the other hand, students are in that class to fill some fucking "core requirement", then give them the tools they need to pass the exam and leave them the hell alone.
For example: There were three levels of physics courses that freshmen and sophomores took at my university. One was "Physics for Poets", taken by students seeking to fill a general education (core) requirement, one was for science majors to fill a requirement of their major, and one was for Physics majors specifically. To make the gen ed students sit through 15 pages of background material when all they need to pass the class is F=ma is a giant waste of their time, and that time could be better used to cover additional (basic-level) material.
Of course, a better solution would be to remove all the useless gut courses that everyone is FORCED to take, and replace them with classes that are actually relevant to the student's major. I know when my son goes to college (if he chooses to) I'll be damned if I'm paying $50k for him to yawn his way through eight different versions of "English for Idiots". Community college, here he comes.
If that's really not the case, next Sunday after church, find the "bible thumping rednecks" (there's probably at least a couple) and let them know, in no uncertain terms, that they're ruining it for the rest of you by acting like total idiots.
And vote for whoever you want, just make sure you're doing it for the right reasons, and not just because Jesus told you to.
I'll probably get troll-modded for this. I'm ok with that. If I were, I wouldn't put my handle on it.
OP isn't suggesting that the users understand the errors, just that they read them and remember the words so that the help desk can assist them. Anyone with a third-grade education should be able (and expected) to do this.
I've done desktop support. The only thing I really took away from it is that people are stupid until forced to be otherwise. The only solution I ever came up with was this: Get the CEO/head honcho/big cheese on board. Explain to him/her that support can only work with the users' help, otherwise they're wasting money. Establish a policy thus: When you call the help desk, if you do not have the error message you received, you will be directed to call back when the error occurs again. Allow for an alternate method of assistance (ticket/email/so forth) but if they want to speak to someone on the phone, they need to be ready to help themselves.
Of course what will happen here is that the users will stop calling, and then complain that the help desk doesn't do anything to help them. At that point, you can point at the fact that they were never contacted in the first place (because all calls/tickets/emails are logged.) Eventually the users should realize that they can't do their jobs without the help desk's support, and they'll start playing by the rules, or get fired for incompetence.
This is why you need the CEO on board, and probably will need a few people to be fired over it before things start changing.
These are, of course, drastic measures, but considering the drastically bad level of staffing/support that help desks receive today,they seem appropriate.