The point is not so much why was 1080p taken over 1900x1200... the point is for most folks the step up from CRT monsters to thin, flat and comparatively light LCD/LEDs and from PAL/NTSC to "Full HD" was such an almost paradigm-shift that going up to 1900 or 4k is comparatively insignificant and I doubt anyone will see the point in it, it simply does not offer enough. Even the difference between 720p and 1080p probably does not matter that much to the average viewer beyond the numbers. Kinda like SACDs and all those other media that came after the CD and before the online music shops, they barely had anything to offer to begin with.
In my own (limited) experience, schooling says surprisingly little. I have an essentially phd colleague who repeatedly can literally not read an error message, the text/command he is trying to enter or the extremely clear step by step instructions presented to him. He is working in the general field of his IT degree, he was responsible for some systems for almost 10 years - but it is me and the guy with the music degree(!) who constantly have to help him out even when those systems he supposedly was responsible for are involved. He seems to be quick at making up convoluted theories and then gets stuck why the real world is not like his convoluted theories, except in every single case that has happened he started off of completely wrong foundations and totally wrong assumptions, then spun his crazy off of that.
Some people are just dumb and ignorant and you really wonder how they ever got their degree - but then again almost every education system can easily be bruteforced by learning everything by heart and throwing it up on the test and never be the wiser. Titles actually say shockingly little.
There are a lot of positive things to be had from going the route of education if you choose to actually take advantage of them but ultimately it depends on you, the student, and what you make of it all.
Some people believe in magic(k). So you find overqualified (on paper) people to pretend to be magicians and sell them snake oil and pixie dust.
While technically not wrong, there is an important detail to add here. Practically ALL these big-name consulting firms have two things in common: a big name which brings them clients which in turn translates into references to wow the next client - and they all got a HUGE collection of more or less industry specific data. What they are doing when they are sending young, empty suits to a customer is plug that empty suit into their knowledge system and chunk out pages of essentially industry-wide comparisons and boil it down into some "recommendations". So it is not the young, inexperienced empty suits coming up with all of that... they are just little monkeys strapped into a big ol' comparison machinery and they are shelling out nice looking pages and powerpoints. And the little monkeys get to feel good about themselves because they get to act important, wear a suit and big-name consulting sends them around in a poor man's jet-set lifestyle full of airport waiting and hotel rooms until they catch on to the fact that despite countless promotions they actually aren't really making more money than before and then they quit and go on a "self-discovery" trip to India or turn full on Patrick Bateman and somewhere down the line they get promoted again to middle management.
Another more or less important service they are actually providing is simply being able to off-load some work since most places are chronically under-staffed or they are bringing some difficult to dispute "facts" to the political backstabbing and trenches: if you get your organization to shell out tons of money on those suits and you are paying the suits, then surprise-surprise the suits find out the way YOU were trying to do something is the right-way(tm) then you have found a strong backing that your fellow backstabbers will find very difficult to challenge especially because the company just paid those consultants some six figures and who would question big-name-consulting? Kinda like nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.
Maybe I missed something here but this looks very much like kindergarten teachers giving "golden stars" to the eager beaver kids with the added edge that the overall scores are public and it is a work environment where "less golden stars" can quickly be perceived as (or abused as) a list of who will get fired first - which is the only reason anyone is doing it in the first place, not because it is "such a fun GAME" and not because the work culture and how fuck-ups are seen has actually changed.
They might as well have just told people it is mandatory or you can find a new job, because in effect that is all it looks like to me.
The more I keep reading about BurningMan, the more it seems that... a) for me as a regular guy, not artist trying to push what I am doing, this is the last place on earth I am wanted or welcome
b) holy crap it has turned into a HUGE festival type event with lots of money being made and
c) looking at it from afar the whole thing has never given off a friendly, welcoming, positive vibe - instead everyone who talks about it does so in a very berating way and how NOT to do it and how all sorts of people are doing it "wrong" when at the end of the day all I see is a gigantic festival with raves all over the place with lots and lots of sweaty people. Nobody ever talked about cool things they did there or anything positive or friendly.
Actually, seeing as I was quite literally almost run off the Autobahn in Germany I would say Germans are clearly FAR more aggressive with their cars than gun-educated gun nuts in the USA are about their guns. Oh and the reason was I was already going 145 in a 130 limit and did not instantly dissolve into thin air when that Audi appeared behind me, so of course when I did let him pass the next chance I got, he slammed on the brakes right in front of me for no other reason than to harass me. The Autobahn was quite full and no doubt this could have led to a fatal accident. And this is not an isolated case. As much as they are over-controlled and show tons of self-control, all of that is gone once Germans sit down inside their over-powered cars.
When I was in the States, no gun-nut pulled on me...
I got to chime in on this. I have never had to deal with Linux kernel folks, I once briefly dealt with samba folks and that was quite disappointing, for what that is worth. Then I had an issue with openBSD on PPC (kernel panic) and reported it and despite not having a lot of knowledge kernel-wise, I found clear instructions on what to do, how to report it and the dev who ended up dealing with me wasn't overly friendly but professional and not once offensive, though he probably didn't enjoy dealing with a "noob". Ultimately I found it easy to test the patch he provided and even got some help when I fucked up, so I gladly did my best to help test it. I left with a good impression of openbsd.
Let's take a step back for a second and just accept that other countries have different cultures and in the case of Thailand, the monarchy is actually very respected by a large portion of the population because the king, unlike many other monarchs, is not only quite well educated but really did a lot for his country and his people. Not only has Thailand never been a Western colony, they only started to open more towards the West and Western culture at around the turn of the 20th century. To top that off, "democracy" has so far been more of a process in Thailand for a lot of reasons.
What you are seeing now and saw a few years back in the riots and rapid changes of government is essentially a struggle between the old and dying benevolent constitutional monarchy which still had a lot of power and the new ultra-capitalistic push for power of none other than Thaksin Shinawatra; he has been challenging the king these last years, something that has pretty much not happened before. Thaksin likes to present himself as a "humble" down-to-earth man, yet he is by far the richest and one of the most powerful man of the country and it is safe to assume he did not get to that height without bodies in his cellar; some of those he was convicted for and had to stay in exile.
There were no wrong-doings by the monarchy prior to the military coup but Thaksin was pushing for power with TRT to grow his huge business empire at that time and buying voters and that's when through the monarch the military put a foot down and he was trialed for nepotism and corruption amongst others.
Now I know, you are going to argue these were wrong allegations and he is pretty much a "saint" trying to bring freedom to the population against an oppressive regime. The reason you are saying so is because this is the picture Thaksin's followers were very busy painting for the international media throughout the military coups. It is essentially a calculated way of presenting the Western media with an image everyone here can easily understand - the oppressed farmers fighting against their oppressors. Yet, in the case of Thailand this just is not true. Thailand clearly has a lot of issues but it is wrong to blame the king and the monarchy for that and the people in Thailand are not oppressed, they are somewhere stuck between the old ways of the monarchy and moving toward bona-fide western democracy, they just are not there yet. Like I said, democracy is not yet 100% there in Thailand and it is going to take them a while longer... much like what you saw as outcomes of the "Arab spring". You don't drop the democracy bomb and everything is going to be great and wholesome in a week.
And before you argue in favor of the rebels and Thaksin voters, consider the fact that a huge portion of the votes were just bought from poor farmers. That's what I mean, that's how Thaksin is challenging the monarchy. He presents a new feeding hand and asks absolute loyalty in return. For nothing but his own gain in power and to grow his businesses and influence. Imagine Larry Ellison buying the presidency. This is not democracy either, yet with a huge part of the population being poor you will find it hard to establish a real democracy because starving people want food and they don't care who gives them bread.
So don't be too quick to side against the king and the monarchy and for Thaksin and his henchmen just because the romantic Western idea of oppressed people fighting against an abusive state feels good in your rebellious first world tummies.
As ridiculous as what they are doing may seem to you, essentially they are pushing back against what Thaksin and his henchmen have been doing ever since the riots. Thaksin has grown huge in media, he knows how to influence the international opinion and how to twist things the right way. You are getting front row seats to an internal political power struggle, that's all this is. There is no "good" and "evil" side, if anything it is the conservative and well educated against the poor under the leadership of greed
There is a HUGE difference between unconsciously and unquestioningly applying whatever religious rituals were passed down to you and discovering the psychological science behind or at least scientific proof for what is actually going on. For example, the latter is typically far less connected to centuries of cruelties against people who happen to follow different rituals.
This is an interesting idea and also an incredibly stupid one.
First, WoW does not have any "different paths" to offer you to make leveling again and again really interesting... slightly different surroundings and slightly different colors when pressing 1-2-3 are not interesting, different paths. They would have to fundamentally change the game to the point it becomes a different game.
Second, any sort of perma-death or real consequences in the game like you see implemented extremely well in "EVE Online" make the game much less simple-fun and much more of an actual, real-world-like challenge. What I mean by that is, you cannot just play "end-game" EVE without giving a single frakk because any and all of your actions can have very dire consequences and the typical EVE-player probably enjoys that in a masochistic way - but the typical WoW raid and battleground zerg will very likely not enjoy this AT ALL. And these kind of consequences are pretty rare in most popular video games, for a good reason. A lot of players just want to play and relax and NOT worry about actually losing things they put a lot of time into. You have enough consequences and serious things to worry about in daily life, video games should offer you a different world and a temporary escape, much like books and movies.
The fundamental problem is that typically you write software for the customer and then it belongs to your customer and not to you - so one way or another you have to involve your customer in this decision.
A colleague of mine used to work for a company where he would be criticized for not staying late with the others when deadlines were looming, even though he had already finished his part long before.
To be honest, I can understand that. Nothing is worse than working on a project with a looming deadline and then one guy in the team decides to just frakk off because he finished his part and he doesn't give a damn about anything else. It might not have been integrated yet, there might be other issues and they might need him or he should just support his colleagues. It really damages the team-spirit because it shows how he only cares about his work and nothing or nobody else. And I am saying this as someone who has first handedly experienced a "colleague" who would do the bare minimum and then just go home, leaving others to sort out his shit and fix mistakes. It ultimately showed very clearly he is not committed and does not care about anyone but himself. He quickly lost all respect in the team for a lot of reasons but that was a big one. You don't just leave your buddies until the job is done.
Oh and the same goes for the boss even more so! As the boss you absolutely HAVE to stay and don't disturb anyone, just make sure there is pizza, soda and whatever else becomes necessary. It is your obligation to stay, even if all you do is sit quietly in your office and surf the web - but at least you are there in case anyone needs you and you show your support.
First lesson: never EVER give a number unless you know you can make it. Rather tell them you will get back at them in with an estimation or tell them why you think it is complicated but never EVER give out some random number - because no matter what you were thinking when you gave out the number, they will hold you responsible for that number as soon as it is on the table. Making you spill the beans is management's way of coercing you into commitment and responsibility because then they will always hold that number over your head.
Very likely NO on the Cisco certification. I was a lot into networking during university and ultimately did a lowly CCNA on the side and I can guarantee you that no training but a Cisco-specific, if not CCNA-specific training will get you through even those entry level certifications.
While the networking theory alone should be enough, the cisco, router and IOS specific questions will break your back if you haven't prepared well for them. e.g. expect to be asked situational, specific IOS commands in multiple choice questions.
Euro-land checking in! They were trying to teach us some computer basics but the teachers were mostly the PE+geography type and did not have much of a clue at all, so I wasn't really taught much.
But I learned a lot about computers and internet from my friends in school! We hacked (well, script-kiddy-exploited) the school's unix mail server, ran xdcc downloads in the background, had a lot of fun with BO on student AND teacher PCs oh and I really learned to circle-strafe because we would mostly play quake during computer classes!
I also think it has to do with seeing others do it or becoming a victim of rudeness yourself - so you get the impression it is ok or want to retaliate.
Slashdot Mirror
The point is not so much why was 1080p taken over 1900x1200... the point is for most folks the step up from CRT monsters to thin, flat and comparatively light LCD/LEDs and from PAL/NTSC to "Full HD" was such an almost paradigm-shift that going up to 1900 or 4k is comparatively insignificant and I doubt anyone will see the point in it, it simply does not offer enough. Even the difference between 720p and 1080p probably does not matter that much to the average viewer beyond the numbers. Kinda like SACDs and all those other media that came after the CD and before the online music shops, they barely had anything to offer to begin with.
Remember when they switched to basically blocking all non-signed certificates? And quite a few more terrible decisions where those came from.
Hello Jen!
In my own (limited) experience, schooling says surprisingly little. I have an essentially phd colleague who repeatedly can literally not read an error message, the text/command he is trying to enter or the extremely clear step by step instructions presented to him. He is working in the general field of his IT degree, he was responsible for some systems for almost 10 years - but it is me and the guy with the music degree(!) who constantly have to help him out even when those systems he supposedly was responsible for are involved. He seems to be quick at making up convoluted theories and then gets stuck why the real world is not like his convoluted theories, except in every single case that has happened he started off of completely wrong foundations and totally wrong assumptions, then spun his crazy off of that.
Some people are just dumb and ignorant and you really wonder how they ever got their degree - but then again almost every education system can easily be bruteforced by learning everything by heart and throwing it up on the test and never be the wiser. Titles actually say shockingly little.
There are a lot of positive things to be had from going the route of education if you choose to actually take advantage of them but ultimately it depends on you, the student, and what you make of it all.
Some people believe in magic(k). So you find overqualified (on paper) people to pretend to be magicians and sell them snake oil and pixie dust.
While technically not wrong, there is an important detail to add here. Practically ALL these big-name consulting firms have two things in common: a big name which brings them clients which in turn translates into references to wow the next client - and they all got a HUGE collection of more or less industry specific data. What they are doing when they are sending young, empty suits to a customer is plug that empty suit into their knowledge system and chunk out pages of essentially industry-wide comparisons and boil it down into some "recommendations". So it is not the young, inexperienced empty suits coming up with all of that... they are just little monkeys strapped into a big ol' comparison machinery and they are shelling out nice looking pages and powerpoints. And the little monkeys get to feel good about themselves because they get to act important, wear a suit and big-name consulting sends them around in a poor man's jet-set lifestyle full of airport waiting and hotel rooms until they catch on to the fact that despite countless promotions they actually aren't really making more money than before and then they quit and go on a "self-discovery" trip to India or turn full on Patrick Bateman and somewhere down the line they get promoted again to middle management.
Another more or less important service they are actually providing is simply being able to off-load some work since most places are chronically under-staffed or they are bringing some difficult to dispute "facts" to the political backstabbing and trenches: if you get your organization to shell out tons of money on those suits and you are paying the suits, then surprise-surprise the suits find out the way YOU were trying to do something is the right-way(tm) then you have found a strong backing that your fellow backstabbers will find very difficult to challenge especially because the company just paid those consultants some six figures and who would question big-name-consulting? Kinda like nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.
Maybe I missed something here but this looks very much like kindergarten teachers giving "golden stars" to the eager beaver kids with the added edge that the overall scores are public and it is a work environment where "less golden stars" can quickly be perceived as (or abused as) a list of who will get fired first - which is the only reason anyone is doing it in the first place, not because it is "such a fun GAME" and not because the work culture and how fuck-ups are seen has actually changed.
They might as well have just told people it is mandatory or you can find a new job, because in effect that is all it looks like to me.
The more I keep reading about BurningMan, the more it seems that...
a) for me as a regular guy, not artist trying to push what I am doing, this is the last place on earth I am wanted or welcome
b) holy crap it has turned into a HUGE festival type event with lots of money being made and
c) looking at it from afar the whole thing has never given off a friendly, welcoming, positive vibe - instead everyone who talks about it does so in a very berating way and how NOT to do it and how all sorts of people are doing it "wrong" when at the end of the day all I see is a gigantic festival with raves all over the place with lots and lots of sweaty people. Nobody ever talked about cool things they did there or anything positive or friendly.
Well, wouldn't they have lots and lots of your prints ALL over the iPhone?
Often times I find tiny micro-freezes during animations when switching apps or scrolling... it is horrible.
I am sure the important question here is... how many stars did they get for that???
Actually, seeing as I was quite literally almost run off the Autobahn in Germany I would say Germans are clearly FAR more aggressive with their cars than gun-educated gun nuts in the USA are about their guns. Oh and the reason was I was already going 145 in a 130 limit and did not instantly dissolve into thin air when that Audi appeared behind me, so of course when I did let him pass the next chance I got, he slammed on the brakes right in front of me for no other reason than to harass me. The Autobahn was quite full and no doubt this could have led to a fatal accident. And this is not an isolated case. As much as they are over-controlled and show tons of self-control, all of that is gone once Germans sit down inside their over-powered cars.
When I was in the States, no gun-nut pulled on me...
I got to chime in on this. I have never had to deal with Linux kernel folks, I once briefly dealt with samba folks and that was quite disappointing, for what that is worth. Then I had an issue with openBSD on PPC (kernel panic) and reported it and despite not having a lot of knowledge kernel-wise, I found clear instructions on what to do, how to report it and the dev who ended up dealing with me wasn't overly friendly but professional and not once offensive, though he probably didn't enjoy dealing with a "noob". Ultimately I found it easy to test the patch he provided and even got some help when I fucked up, so I gladly did my best to help test it. I left with a good impression of openbsd.
Let's take a step back for a second and just accept that other countries have different cultures and in the case of Thailand, the monarchy is actually very respected by a large portion of the population because the king, unlike many other monarchs, is not only quite well educated but really did a lot for his country and his people. Not only has Thailand never been a Western colony, they only started to open more towards the West and Western culture at around the turn of the 20th century. To top that off, "democracy" has so far been more of a process in Thailand for a lot of reasons.
What you are seeing now and saw a few years back in the riots and rapid changes of government is essentially a struggle between the old and dying benevolent constitutional monarchy which still had a lot of power and the new ultra-capitalistic push for power of none other than Thaksin Shinawatra; he has been challenging the king these last years, something that has pretty much not happened before. Thaksin likes to present himself as a "humble" down-to-earth man, yet he is by far the richest and one of the most powerful man of the country and it is safe to assume he did not get to that height without bodies in his cellar; some of those he was convicted for and had to stay in exile.
There were no wrong-doings by the monarchy prior to the military coup but Thaksin was pushing for power with TRT to grow his huge business empire at that time and buying voters and that's when through the monarch the military put a foot down and he was trialed for nepotism and corruption amongst others.
Now I know, you are going to argue these were wrong allegations and he is pretty much a "saint" trying to bring freedom to the population against an oppressive regime. The reason you are saying so is because this is the picture Thaksin's followers were very busy painting for the international media throughout the military coups. It is essentially a calculated way of presenting the Western media with an image everyone here can easily understand - the oppressed farmers fighting against their oppressors. Yet, in the case of Thailand this just is not true. Thailand clearly has a lot of issues but it is wrong to blame the king and the monarchy for that and the people in Thailand are not oppressed, they are somewhere stuck between the old ways of the monarchy and moving toward bona-fide western democracy, they just are not there yet. Like I said, democracy is not yet 100% there in Thailand and it is going to take them a while longer... much like what you saw as outcomes of the "Arab spring". You don't drop the democracy bomb and everything is going to be great and wholesome in a week.
And before you argue in favor of the rebels and Thaksin voters, consider the fact that a huge portion of the votes were just bought from poor farmers. That's what I mean, that's how Thaksin is challenging the monarchy. He presents a new feeding hand and asks absolute loyalty in return. For nothing but his own gain in power and to grow his businesses and influence. Imagine Larry Ellison buying the presidency. This is not democracy either, yet with a huge part of the population being poor you will find it hard to establish a real democracy because starving people want food and they don't care who gives them bread.
So don't be too quick to side against the king and the monarchy and for Thaksin and his henchmen just because the romantic Western idea of oppressed people fighting against an abusive state feels good in your rebellious first world tummies.
As ridiculous as what they are doing may seem to you, essentially they are pushing back against what Thaksin and his henchmen have been doing ever since the riots. Thaksin has grown huge in media, he knows how to influence the international opinion and how to twist things the right way. You are getting front row seats to an internal political power struggle, that's all this is. There is no "good" and "evil" side, if anything it is the conservative and well educated against the poor under the leadership of greed
...of Warcraft!
Aaah yes, they call it "Mudder's Milk"! Now let's hear of our hero Jayne once more!
There is a HUGE difference between unconsciously and unquestioningly applying whatever religious rituals were passed down to you and discovering the psychological science behind or at least scientific proof for what is actually going on. For example, the latter is typically far less connected to centuries of cruelties against people who happen to follow different rituals.
This is an interesting idea and also an incredibly stupid one.
First, WoW does not have any "different paths" to offer you to make leveling again and again really interesting... slightly different surroundings and slightly different colors when pressing 1-2-3 are not interesting, different paths. They would have to fundamentally change the game to the point it becomes a different game.
Second, any sort of perma-death or real consequences in the game like you see implemented extremely well in "EVE Online" make the game much less simple-fun and much more of an actual, real-world-like challenge. What I mean by that is, you cannot just play "end-game" EVE without giving a single frakk because any and all of your actions can have very dire consequences and the typical EVE-player probably enjoys that in a masochistic way - but the typical WoW raid and battleground zerg will very likely not enjoy this AT ALL. And these kind of consequences are pretty rare in most popular video games, for a good reason. A lot of players just want to play and relax and NOT worry about actually losing things they put a lot of time into. You have enough consequences and serious things to worry about in daily life, video games should offer you a different world and a temporary escape, much like books and movies.
Instead tinfoil bodysuits for everyone!
The fundamental problem is that typically you write software for the customer and then it belongs to your customer and not to you - so one way or another you have to involve your customer in this decision.
A colleague of mine used to work for a company where he would be criticized for not staying late with the others when deadlines were looming, even though he had already finished his part long before.
To be honest, I can understand that. Nothing is worse than working on a project with a looming deadline and then one guy in the team decides to just frakk off because he finished his part and he doesn't give a damn about anything else. It might not have been integrated yet, there might be other issues and they might need him or he should just support his colleagues. It really damages the team-spirit because it shows how he only cares about his work and nothing or nobody else. And I am saying this as someone who has first handedly experienced a "colleague" who would do the bare minimum and then just go home, leaving others to sort out his shit and fix mistakes. It ultimately showed very clearly he is not committed and does not care about anyone but himself. He quickly lost all respect in the team for a lot of reasons but that was a big one. You don't just leave your buddies until the job is done.
Oh and the same goes for the boss even more so! As the boss you absolutely HAVE to stay and don't disturb anyone, just make sure there is pizza, soda and whatever else becomes necessary. It is your obligation to stay, even if all you do is sit quietly in your office and surf the web - but at least you are there in case anyone needs you and you show your support.
First lesson: never EVER give a number unless you know you can make it. Rather tell them you will get back at them in with an estimation or tell them why you think it is complicated but never EVER give out some random number - because no matter what you were thinking when you gave out the number, they will hold you responsible for that number as soon as it is on the table. Making you spill the beans is management's way of coercing you into commitment and responsibility because then they will always hold that number over your head.
Very likely NO on the Cisco certification. I was a lot into networking during university and ultimately did a lowly CCNA on the side and I can guarantee you that no training but a Cisco-specific, if not CCNA-specific training will get you through even those entry level certifications.
While the networking theory alone should be enough, the cisco, router and IOS specific questions will break your back if you haven't prepared well for them. e.g. expect to be asked situational, specific IOS commands in multiple choice questions.
Euro-land checking in! They were trying to teach us some computer basics but the teachers were mostly the PE+geography type and did not have much of a clue at all, so I wasn't really taught much.
But I learned a lot about computers and internet from my friends in school! We hacked (well, script-kiddy-exploited) the school's unix mail server, ran xdcc downloads in the background, had a lot of fun with BO on student AND teacher PCs oh and I really learned to circle-strafe because we would mostly play quake during computer classes!
I also think it has to do with seeing others do it or becoming a victim of rudeness yourself - so you get the impression it is ok or want to retaliate.
This is absolutely horrible and I shudder to think that this was suggested AND got up to Score 5 on /.