Really? That's like complaining that horror movies take place mostly at night, or cartoons aimed at young girls are mostly pink.
Worse still is the fact that it doesn't really apply.
I mean... I guess maybe ID does like browns and greys. I can't say I've ever really noticed the color palette that much. But they aren't the only folks making first-person shooters.
The Unreal games have always had a fairly vibrant color scheme. Hell, the original Unreal game had some downright psychedelic vistas. And, depending on the map you had loaded, the Unreal Tournament games were similarly vibrant.
Then there were titles like Serious Sam, and Far Cry, and Crysis that all had pretty vibrant color schemes.
Games like Half-Life and Duke Nukem weren't exactly vibrant... But I wouldn't call them predominantly grey/brown either.
There's a reason for the slew of origin stories... They're doing the origins of the Avengers so that don't have to cover that in the Avengers movie. Also they want to appeal to people who never read the comics too so they start with the origin story as a way of introducing the character.
But you don't actually have to do an origin story for each major character.
Look at something like Watchmen. Alright, maybe not the best movie... Maybe not the best adaptation. But they managed to tell a story about several different heroes without actually doing separate origin movies for each character.
Don't like that example? How about Star Wars? You could easily argue that the whole series was basically an origin story for Luke... But Han and Obi-Wan and Leia and Chewie and Yoda and Darth Vader all managed to be pretty cool characters without their own origin stories.
How about the Indiana Jones movies? We eventually got some flashbacks to when he was younger... And that horrible Young Indie TV-series... But there were a couple solid movies before anybody started worrying about an origin story.
Its about time Hollywood came up with something original instead of digging ever deeper into the list of 2nd rate comic book "heroes"?
I don't know if I'd call Captain America a 2nd rate hero... He's a fairly major character in the Avengers line...
But I'm really getting pretty sick of these superhero origin movies. They're all the same.
Somebody acquires superpowers. We get a montage as they learn to use their powers. They do some vaguely heroic things, fighting fairly mundane enemies. Then they're put to the test against some superior foe and have to become a true hero.
It isn't much different if they're Batman, the Green Lantern, the Green Hornet, Thor, Iron Man, The Hulk, or Spider-Man. Sure, the plot will be slightly different... The characters and acting will be slightly different... The visuals will be different... But, ultimately, it's the same story.
I like superheroes. I read comics for years. I've enjoyed them quite a bit. But the origin stories were never the best part.
And it seems like all we get from Hollywood is a never-ending barrage of origin stories. Now we're going to reboot Spider-Man and see his origin again...
I did not go to see Thor, or Captain America, or Green Lantern specifically because I'm sick of origin stories - not because I didn't think they looked good or I didn't like those comics or whatever. I just don't want to see another origin story. Show me something else. Come up with something original. Or, hell, just jump into the middle of some superhero story and let me see them fighting some awesome supervillains - I don't need to see an origin movie for absolutely every superhero out there. Just run through enough exposition to let me know who's good and who's evil; and give me a good story. If the audience is really curious enough, you can give us an origin story later.
Humans aren't dumb animals. We don't breed when resources are rare.
You really believe that?
Further, we aren't even going to be resource limited.
Yes we are. Maybe not at 8 billion... But eventually we will be.
For the time being, we're pretty much limited to the resources on this planet. And they are finite. Give it a little more time and a little more technology, and maybe we can gather resources from the rest of the solar system - but they're also finite. Breed enough people, and you will hit those limits. It's just a matter of timing.
We also cut back on breeding when children cost to much, as is the case in advanced nations.
I must not live in an advanced nation then...
People with a lot of kids make the news because they are so RARE, not because they are common.
I did not single out people with a lot of kids. I specifically said "irresponsible parenting". It isn't just the Octomom, and all those other big families - but also folks who show up on shows like 16 and Pregnant or Teen Mom.
I don't worship death. And I'm not even advocating for any drastic policies at this point. But I'm not naive enough to think that we're going to automatically limit ourselves to whatever is sustainable.
We may very well limit ourselves, and it may all turn out just fine... But it won't happen because some herd mentality kicks in and we all stop procreating because we're putting too much of a strain on the environment, nor will it happen because we all become rational and realize that we can't afford these kids... It'll happen because of studies like this, and the discussions they spur, and the policies that are eventually created in response to them.
They would have gone out of business sooner if they only had books. They added all those other things in an attempt to get people to come in and buy something at least...
I'll certainly agree that reading, in general, is less popular these days. And it must be hard to run a business that sells books these days. Especially with a monster like Amazon out there. But I don't think the solution is to become some kind of half-assed media retailer.
Start selling video games, or movies, or music... And now you're competing with folks who've based their entire business on that (EB, FYE), and the commercial giants like Wal-Mart who can genuinely afford to do a little of everything. You aren't shoring up your strengths with diversity - you're venturing into very dangerous waters populated with some very hungry fish.
Our local Barnes & Noble is doing just fine. Yes, they carry some bookmarks and calendars... And they've got a Starbucks in the lobby... But the vast majority of their store is devoted to books. Shelves upon shelves of books. They've got a huge section of very cheap used books... They've got all the current best-sellers... They've got a wide assortment of pretty much everything - fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, horror, romance, all of it... They've got knowledgeable employees who can actually tell me something about the books on the shelves, and help me find what I'm looking for... They've got less popular, more obscure titles that I can't find elsewhere (like at Borders)... They've got comfortable seating right in the midst of all the shelves so that I can actually sit down and read through a chapter or two and see if I want to buy the book... And they are genuinely embracing digital distribution.
In short - where Borders dealt with a changing book market by watering-down its offerings to the point where I had no reason to visit their store; B&N has responded to that same changing market by improving its offerings and becoming my first (and usually only) stop when looking for a book.
Humans consistently underestimate exponential growth. If you have a bigger population, it will grow faster.
Who honestly thinks humans are immune from population cycles of the animal kingdom? of overpopulation killoff? We're due for a war soon. War is just human's way of normalizing the population for resources.
I don't want kids and it annoys me when I see massive families. What does that make me? A dead end in genetic material or "Idiocracy" in the making?
This annoys the everloving hell out of me.
We are genuinely looking at exponential growth. More people = more mating pairs = faster population growth. And it is only going to get worse.
I'm not yet at the point where I'd advocate mandatory sterilization or zero population growth policies...
But, at the same time, I think it's downright asinine that we're still encouraging people to be fruitful and multiply. Assorted churches are still against birth control. Assorted fundamentalist groups are trying to outlaw abortion and eliminate sexual education and shut down groups like Planned Parenthood. We've got plenty of television shows that celebrate irresponsible parenting.
We've got a Borders here in town... And I won't miss them when they close their doors.
It's been a long time since I was able to go there and buy a book that wasn't on some best-seller list. And they've got more movies, music, calendars, and bookmarks than they have actual books at our store. There's a reason they're going out of business.
I enjoy Minecraft. My wife and I play together. It's fun...
But it isn't that amazing.
Dwarf Fortress lets you dig/build pretty much anything you can imagine. Red Faction let me blow holes in things years ago. Second Life has allowed people to build whatever they want for years.
I'd love an invite (ephemeriis@gmail.com), if somebody out there has one available.
I'm not a fan of Facebook. I use it largely because my wife does. I'd love to get her switched to something better... And everyone keeps raving about Google+. She's even curious enough that I might be able to get her to try it.
PADDs are proper computers- they can run arbitrary code.
You sure about that? I thought the acronym stood for Personal Access Display Device.
I was under the impression that they were used almost exclusively to display information... Maybe some basic data-entry capabilities. Something along the lines of a modern-day ereader.
At this point you are clearly too important to sack, so no worries there.
I don't know about that. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, or insecure, or something like that... But I suspect I could be replaced fairly easy.
There aren't a whole lot of IT jobs up here... And we've got a decent college absolutely full of fresh IT graduates...
Granted, they wouldn't know the place like I do. They wouldn't have the experience. They'd need a lot of training. The place would go to hell in the mean-time.
But when has that stopped a place from canning a good employee for somebody cheaper?
What you have to do is start looking for another job
I have been looking... Kind of... Half-heartedly...
Honestly, by the time I get home, I'm exhausted. And then there's the normal housework stuff to take care of. And trying to cram in family time.
Looking for a job, when I've already got one, seems like a very low-priority task.
Its like those horror movies of the 80's. A spirit voice said "Get Out!" and walls bleed, children get sucked into television static and yet the family decides to "tough it out". In the end there is a hole in the ground, a murderous man running around in a fedora, arterial spray and glowing eyes that promise a sequel. What they don't show is the family saying "hmmmm....we should have got out when it asked us to leave".
I'm not sure "manager" is the right word... His official title is "director"...
Until a couple years back, he was the sole IT person at the hospital. But he started getting pulled in multiple directions. They wanted somebody to work on various IT-related grants... And they needed somebody to work on compliance with various state and federal mandates... And somebody had to go to various meetings to determine exactly what the hospital was looking to do with it's computers...
He's still supposed to be doing technical work, and carries the pager every other week. But the fact of the matter is that on a day-to-day basis he's got very little time for actual technical work.
Why do you have a liason to coordinate the work of a single person?
Well, she isn't technically 100% IT. She's also splitting hours with Medical Records and Finance. She's kind of wound up as a jack-of-all-trades.
As for the IT portion of things - she used to be a nurse. The nurses complain about something, or report something as broken, and I frequently don't understand what they're talking about. I'm not medically trained at all. So she can take their complaints and tell me what is actually broken. She's also building electronic versions of all the assorted forms we use... And flowsheets... And she handles most of the training...
And it also seems that she's got some extra clout because she used to be a nurse - they listen to her far better than they ever listened to anyone else in IT.
at least in the states is, companies have figured out they can get one person to do the work of two and pocket the other guy's salary.
This.
I'm working at a small hospital. Our entire IT department is just three people - one clinical liaison, me, and our manager.
The clinical liaison is awesome at what she does, but she can't build a server or fix a network issue or any of that. Her job is to train the nurses and explain the issues they have in terms we can understand and things like that. She isn't supposed to be technical support.
My manager is certainly skilled... But he's stuck in meetings most of the day, or working on grant proposals, or putting together purchase orders, or whatever. He's rarely available to fix technical issues.
Which means that all of the day-to-day support, and most of the longer-term projects, fall on my shoulders. I've been begging for another technical person for months, and it just isn't happening.
So I'm getting stuck working longer hours... And support is still suffering. It takes me longer to get to the little things, which gives them time to grow into bigger things. And the bigger things are getting fixed as quickly as possible, which means corners get cut. There's not enough time to properly plan/implement/train on new projects, which results in more things going wrong...
The end result is that I'm doing sloppy work, and causing more problems, which means more sloppy work... I can see what is happening, but I can't really do much about it. There's only so many hours I can work before becoming absolutely useless (As the 17-hour day I put in last week showed very clearly. I was completely useless the next day.)
I've got vacation time coming up next week... Which I've had to cut short, due to go-live for a new product... But I've still got a few days off. And, while I'm really looking forward to the break, I'm kind of dreading what I'll face when I come back to work.
No, it's about trust. I'm an atheist and I don't cheat on my wife.
Your statement makes my head hurt.
You say it's about trust... But, if you really trusted your wife (or your wife trusted you, or whatever), then some weird numbers showing up on a website wouldn't be an issue. The assumption would be that she was masturbating, or the device was malfunctioning, or something like that. It only becomes a problem when you don't trust your wife and the assumption is that she's cheating on you. Or, I suppose, when she actually does cheat on you.
But... If we set aside your statement of trust... The fact of the matter is that, regardless of whether you're an atheist or not, our cultural stereotype of monogamous marriage is largely based on Christian teaching. You and your wife have entered into a monogamous relationship - which means sexual exclusivity. But there are plenty of people out there who are not in such a relationship - in which case seeing differing numbers for sexual activity in FitBit wouldn't be a cause for concern.
So the original assertion that the underlying problem is, in fact, the mindset regarding sexual activity is 100% accurate.
The same people that clapped in glee with the release of this and other govt. data should either clap in glee with the release of ALL hacked data, or should object to the release of ALL hacked data.
So you don't see any difference at all between a private individual and a government organization?
I'm not particularly moved to emotion by either of these stories... But I can at least see a difference here.
The US government is supposed to be by the people, for the people... And yet we see plenty of evidence that the US population is being lied to at nearly every turn. Why would I, as a US citizen, object to actually getting to find out what my government is really doing? Yes, of course, folks are going to cry that it's a security breach and our top secret plans are now in the wild... Which may actually be true... But after literally years of being lied to, I guess I'm not all that worried about a top secret plan or two making it into the wrong hands.
As for Milly... Well, I'm not really convinced that anything horrible happened there. It sounds like deleting those voicemails hampered the investigation of her death. And maybe the parents might have wanted to hang on to some of them for sentimental value... But, not to be cruel or anything, the lady was already dead. Still, she's a private citizen. Not some government organization. Her close friends and family might have a legitimate argument that they have a right to hear her voicemail... And the police can certainly get a warrant to listen to it... But that really isn't something that a tabloid needs to be reporting on to drum up more readers. It's certainly something that they want to report on, because it's sensational and will sell a few more copies... But that doesn't make it right.
Sure a cheap $2 HDMI cable is just as good as a more expensive one for a short run (50') they sure as hell do matter.
Having some trouble parsing this sentence... But I'm going to assume that you're saying that over a short run, a $2 cable is just fine. Though I don't think I'd call 50 feet a "short run"...
I used to think the same thing, and I needed to do 3x60' runs. So I bought some cheap hdmi cables and ran them, no signal. Tried other 2.. same issue. Returned them, bought better quality ones (no monster cables, but better quality ones), and they ran perfect.
Most people aren't going to be going more than about 10 feet from their DVD/bluray/roku/satellite/whatever to the TV.
There is certainly going to be a difference in build-quality between a cable that costs $2 and one that costs, say, $20. And I don't generally use the ultra-cheap cables because they tend to fall apart if you're moving things around much. I had the end come right off of some ultra-cheap cable that I was using to plug into a laptop routinely.
So I guess I'm not surprised that you had some issues getting a signal through 60 feet of ultra-cheap cable... But that isn't really what this article is talking about.
There are companies out there that will sell you a 10 foot length of cable for $200, just because they can. They'll claim that the gold plating and lack of oxygen and whatever else will result in a better picture and warmer sound. But, as you saw, with a digital cable you've either got a picture or you don't. Assuming the cable doesn't fall apart, and the signal gets from one end of the cable to the other, there'll be no difference between a $2 cable and a $200 cable.
Now, you can certainly argue that for $200 the build quality is going to be higher than that of a $2 cable... And you're probably right. But that stops mattering at some point...
Ok, the $2 cable falls apart after being plugged and unplugged a few dozen times... But the $20 cable holds up just fine after a good year or two of use and abuse - so, do you really need to spend $200 on some cable that's hand-rolled on the bellies of nubile women?
Roundabouts (or rotaries, or traffic circles, as they're known in parts of the U.S.) induce confusion and fear in many drivers
Just because they're new and different.
People absolutely freaked out when my town got its first roundabout. Now, a few years later, nobody cares.
Give it some time and they'll be as commonplace and unremarkable as anything else on the road.
This article from an insurance periodical suggests that it's aggressive drivers who are making rotaries more dangerous.
Aggressive drivers make everything more dangerous.
I like rotaries for two reasons: when there's no traffic, it's nicer than having to stop at an arbitrary red light and wait for a mandatory 2 minutes while the lights cycle. Secondly, if I am not sure whether to turn or not, I can just take another spin around the circle until I see the street sign I'm looking for (assuming there is one, not a given on some of the sign-challenged Northeast roads).
But I loathe rotaries when there's a lot of traffic. You can sit there for a lot longer than you would at a red light. Plus, some places make a rotary out of a 5-way intersection which can be incredibly confusing. It's a tradeoff, I guess, but overall I'd rather drive in a straight line:)
Like anything else, you need the right tool for the job.
Lots of places are hearing about how awesome roundabouts are and are throwing them in everywhere - even where they aren't helpful.
If you've got a high volume of traffic, you need a larger roundabout. Something with a couple lanes to it, to handle the higher traffic. But that means it needs to take up a larger area. And, in many cases, it's just easier to do a stop light.
We've got a couple 5-way intersections here in town, and they'd actually be less-confusing with a properly-implemented roundabout. You just have to ensure that there's enough space between intersections that people can enter/exit safely.
I'd like to share your paycheck with my children and grandchildren. It's SO unfair that I cant!
So, you're against the RIAA and friends as well then? Because this is exactly what they want to do. Copyrights have been extended far beyond the lifetime of the original artist - so that the paycheck winds up being delivered to their children and grandchildren. Or, in more cases than not, the faceless corporation that owns the rights.
I used to work at EB, and I always thought it was sadly funny when some parent would get offended at some very crude/pixelated nudity... But be perfectly OK with wholesale slaughter.
Seriously.
Most people, at some point in their lives, see a naked body. Most people have sex. That's generally considered to be a good thing. Aren't parents stereotypically bugging their children for grandkids after they get married?
Most people, on the other hand, try to avoid getting dismembered with a chainsaw.
And yet... According to the way we rate our media... Chainsaw dismemberment is apparently more acceptable.
People haven't gotten any smarter, but technology has.
Outlook has junk mail filtering built-in. Gmail has spam filtering built-in. Pretty much every mail server out there has some kind of spam filtering available. Pretty much every endpoint protection package has a spam filter. There are tons of different filtering systems available for purchase.
Relatively little spam actually makes it through to the user's inbox anymore. So there's less for the stupid/gullible folks to click on.
Give the bad guys a little time. They’ll come up with new ways of getting around our current filters.
Well, of course they will... But the good guys are going to keep developing new filters, too.
Of course the other theory is that spam has become “less interesting” in light of other new and exciting ways of screwing with people. Once those dry up though, I think the guys with the suits will fall back on classic reliable spam to make their money.
Spammers go wherever the market is. Right now the market is on the social networks. More people are communicating more often on things like Facebook than through simple SMTP. So there's less profit to be had in spamming SMTP servers.
Sure, if SMTP suddenly becomes crazy-popular again you'll see the spammers head back in that direction... But all our existing filters will still be there to curtail that crap.
the profitability is still there.
I don't know about that...
Sure, it's probably pretty cheap to send out a few thousand emails... But how many of those actually make it in front of somebody's eyes? And how many of those actually get read? And how many of those are actually clicked-on?
The real money these days is in malware. Dropping bots on computers and grabbing their credentials for various websites... Or sending out some kind of fake antivirus scanner that scares people into paying $50 to clean up the fake infection... Or using those bots to hack some big, important website...
I really don't know that there's all that much profit to be made in sending out spam these days.
Idiot. Liberal or 'conservative' bastions are all pretty much the same thing. Don't get stuck on the descriptor.
That was my point.
The OP pointed out how horrible these liberal bastions are... But whether they call themselves liberal or conservative is irrelevant. There are an awful lot of people out there who think they know how to live your life better than you do, and they're more than happy to pass legislation to make you conform to their beliefs.
In San Francisco, and other so called 'liberal' bastions, laws are not created to give people the freedoms to live the life that they choose, they are created to radically socially engineer a population according to specific mores that the 'elites' prefer. So if the elites are tree-hugging PETA members, then they want to fashion society in that image, regardless of the hypocracy and stupidity it causes. One could say that all social engineering is applying a first order linear model to a chaotic system and then crying about how the results don't work.
How this is different than theocracy, I don't know.
Liberal bastions, eh? And how is this any different from those 'conservative' bastions that try to - for example - outlaw abortion?
Slashdot Mirror
Really? That's like complaining that horror movies take place mostly at night, or cartoons aimed at young girls are mostly pink.
Worse still is the fact that it doesn't really apply.
I mean... I guess maybe ID does like browns and greys. I can't say I've ever really noticed the color palette that much. But they aren't the only folks making first-person shooters.
The Unreal games have always had a fairly vibrant color scheme. Hell, the original Unreal game had some downright psychedelic vistas. And, depending on the map you had loaded, the Unreal Tournament games were similarly vibrant.
Then there were titles like Serious Sam, and Far Cry, and Crysis that all had pretty vibrant color schemes.
Games like Half-Life and Duke Nukem weren't exactly vibrant... But I wouldn't call them predominantly grey/brown either.
There's a reason for the slew of origin stories... They're doing the origins of the Avengers so that don't have to cover that in the Avengers movie. Also they want to appeal to people who never read the comics too so they start with the origin story as a way of introducing the character.
But you don't actually have to do an origin story for each major character.
Look at something like Watchmen. Alright, maybe not the best movie... Maybe not the best adaptation. But they managed to tell a story about several different heroes without actually doing separate origin movies for each character.
Don't like that example? How about Star Wars? You could easily argue that the whole series was basically an origin story for Luke... But Han and Obi-Wan and Leia and Chewie and Yoda and Darth Vader all managed to be pretty cool characters without their own origin stories.
How about the Indiana Jones movies? We eventually got some flashbacks to when he was younger... And that horrible Young Indie TV-series... But there were a couple solid movies before anybody started worrying about an origin story.
Its about time Hollywood came up with something original instead of digging ever deeper into the list of 2nd rate comic book "heroes"?
I don't know if I'd call Captain America a 2nd rate hero... He's a fairly major character in the Avengers line...
But I'm really getting pretty sick of these superhero origin movies. They're all the same.
Somebody acquires superpowers.
We get a montage as they learn to use their powers.
They do some vaguely heroic things, fighting fairly mundane enemies.
Then they're put to the test against some superior foe and have to become a true hero.
It isn't much different if they're Batman, the Green Lantern, the Green Hornet, Thor, Iron Man, The Hulk, or Spider-Man. Sure, the plot will be slightly different... The characters and acting will be slightly different... The visuals will be different... But, ultimately, it's the same story.
I like superheroes. I read comics for years. I've enjoyed them quite a bit. But the origin stories were never the best part.
And it seems like all we get from Hollywood is a never-ending barrage of origin stories. Now we're going to reboot Spider-Man and see his origin again...
I did not go to see Thor, or Captain America, or Green Lantern specifically because I'm sick of origin stories - not because I didn't think they looked good or I didn't like those comics or whatever. I just don't want to see another origin story. Show me something else. Come up with something original. Or, hell, just jump into the middle of some superhero story and let me see them fighting some awesome supervillains - I don't need to see an origin movie for absolutely every superhero out there. Just run through enough exposition to let me know who's good and who's evil; and give me a good story. If the audience is really curious enough, you can give us an origin story later.
People forget the power wealthy people have, especially one who owns most of the media.
I doubt it will impact him past a year.
You don't even need power or wealth here in the US...
Give it a year, and people won't even remember any of this.
We've got the attention span of gnats.
Humans aren't dumb animals. We don't breed when resources are rare.
You really believe that?
Further, we aren't even going to be resource limited.
Yes we are. Maybe not at 8 billion... But eventually we will be.
For the time being, we're pretty much limited to the resources on this planet. And they are finite. Give it a little more time and a little more technology, and maybe we can gather resources from the rest of the solar system - but they're also finite. Breed enough people, and you will hit those limits. It's just a matter of timing.
We also cut back on breeding when children cost to much, as is the case in advanced nations.
I must not live in an advanced nation then...
People with a lot of kids make the news because they are so RARE, not because they are common.
I did not single out people with a lot of kids. I specifically said "irresponsible parenting". It isn't just the Octomom, and all those other big families - but also folks who show up on shows like 16 and Pregnant or Teen Mom.
I don't worship death. And I'm not even advocating for any drastic policies at this point. But I'm not naive enough to think that we're going to automatically limit ourselves to whatever is sustainable.
We may very well limit ourselves, and it may all turn out just fine... But it won't happen because some herd mentality kicks in and we all stop procreating because we're putting too much of a strain on the environment, nor will it happen because we all become rational and realize that we can't afford these kids... It'll happen because of studies like this, and the discussions they spur, and the policies that are eventually created in response to them.
They would have gone out of business sooner if they only had books. They added all those other things in an attempt to get people to come in and buy something at least...
I'll certainly agree that reading, in general, is less popular these days. And it must be hard to run a business that sells books these days. Especially with a monster like Amazon out there. But I don't think the solution is to become some kind of half-assed media retailer.
Start selling video games, or movies, or music... And now you're competing with folks who've based their entire business on that (EB, FYE), and the commercial giants like Wal-Mart who can genuinely afford to do a little of everything. You aren't shoring up your strengths with diversity - you're venturing into very dangerous waters populated with some very hungry fish.
Our local Barnes & Noble is doing just fine. Yes, they carry some bookmarks and calendars... And they've got a Starbucks in the lobby... But the vast majority of their store is devoted to books. Shelves upon shelves of books. They've got a huge section of very cheap used books... They've got all the current best-sellers... They've got a wide assortment of pretty much everything - fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, horror, romance, all of it... They've got knowledgeable employees who can actually tell me something about the books on the shelves, and help me find what I'm looking for... They've got less popular, more obscure titles that I can't find elsewhere (like at Borders)... They've got comfortable seating right in the midst of all the shelves so that I can actually sit down and read through a chapter or two and see if I want to buy the book... And they are genuinely embracing digital distribution.
In short - where Borders dealt with a changing book market by watering-down its offerings to the point where I had no reason to visit their store; B&N has responded to that same changing market by improving its offerings and becoming my first (and usually only) stop when looking for a book.
I must be old and grumpy and cynical.
Humans consistently underestimate exponential growth. If you have a bigger population, it will grow faster.
Who honestly thinks humans are immune from population cycles of the animal kingdom? of overpopulation killoff? We're due for a war soon. War is just human's way of normalizing the population for resources.
I don't want kids and it annoys me when I see massive families. What does that make me? A dead end in genetic material or "Idiocracy" in the making?
This annoys the everloving hell out of me.
We are genuinely looking at exponential growth. More people = more mating pairs = faster population growth. And it is only going to get worse.
I'm not yet at the point where I'd advocate mandatory sterilization or zero population growth policies...
But, at the same time, I think it's downright asinine that we're still encouraging people to be fruitful and multiply. Assorted churches are still against birth control. Assorted fundamentalist groups are trying to outlaw abortion and eliminate sexual education and shut down groups like Planned Parenthood. We've got plenty of television shows that celebrate irresponsible parenting.
We've got a Borders here in town... And I won't miss them when they close their doors.
It's been a long time since I was able to go there and buy a book that wasn't on some best-seller list. And they've got more movies, music, calendars, and bookmarks than they have actual books at our store. There's a reason they're going out of business.
I enjoy Minecraft. My wife and I play together. It's fun...
But it isn't that amazing.
Dwarf Fortress lets you dig/build pretty much anything you can imagine. Red Faction let me blow holes in things years ago. Second Life has allowed people to build whatever they want for years.
Wow. Damn. Never underestimate the power of Slashdot! Thanks for the invites folks!
I'd love an invite (ephemeriis@gmail.com), if somebody out there has one available.
I'm not a fan of Facebook. I use it largely because my wife does. I'd love to get her switched to something better... And everyone keeps raving about Google+. She's even curious enough that I might be able to get her to try it.
PADDs are proper computers- they can run arbitrary code.
You sure about that? I thought the acronym stood for Personal Access Display Device.
I was under the impression that they were used almost exclusively to display information... Maybe some basic data-entry capabilities. Something along the lines of a modern-day ereader.
At this point you are clearly too important to sack, so no worries there.
I don't know about that. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, or insecure, or something like that... But I suspect I could be replaced fairly easy.
There aren't a whole lot of IT jobs up here... And we've got a decent college absolutely full of fresh IT graduates...
Granted, they wouldn't know the place like I do. They wouldn't have the experience. They'd need a lot of training. The place would go to hell in the mean-time.
But when has that stopped a place from canning a good employee for somebody cheaper?
What you have to do is start looking for another job
I have been looking... Kind of... Half-heartedly...
Honestly, by the time I get home, I'm exhausted. And then there's the normal housework stuff to take care of. And trying to cram in family time.
Looking for a job, when I've already got one, seems like a very low-priority task.
Its like those horror movies of the 80's. A spirit voice said "Get Out!" and walls bleed, children get sucked into television static and yet the family decides to "tough it out". In the end there is a hole in the ground, a murderous man running around in a fedora, arterial spray and glowing eyes that promise a sequel. What they don't show is the family saying "hmmmm....we should have got out when it asked us to leave".
You certainly have a way with words....
Why do you have a manager managing two people?
I'm not sure "manager" is the right word... His official title is "director"...
Until a couple years back, he was the sole IT person at the hospital. But he started getting pulled in multiple directions. They wanted somebody to work on various IT-related grants... And they needed somebody to work on compliance with various state and federal mandates... And somebody had to go to various meetings to determine exactly what the hospital was looking to do with it's computers...
He's still supposed to be doing technical work, and carries the pager every other week. But the fact of the matter is that on a day-to-day basis he's got very little time for actual technical work.
Why do you have a liason to coordinate the work of a single person?
Well, she isn't technically 100% IT. She's also splitting hours with Medical Records and Finance. She's kind of wound up as a jack-of-all-trades.
As for the IT portion of things - she used to be a nurse. The nurses complain about something, or report something as broken, and I frequently don't understand what they're talking about. I'm not medically trained at all. So she can take their complaints and tell me what is actually broken. She's also building electronic versions of all the assorted forms we use... And flowsheets... And she handles most of the training...
And it also seems that she's got some extra clout because she used to be a nurse - they listen to her far better than they ever listened to anyone else in IT.
at least in the states is, companies have figured out they can get one person to do the work of two and pocket the other guy's salary.
This.
I'm working at a small hospital. Our entire IT department is just three people - one clinical liaison, me, and our manager.
The clinical liaison is awesome at what she does, but she can't build a server or fix a network issue or any of that. Her job is to train the nurses and explain the issues they have in terms we can understand and things like that. She isn't supposed to be technical support.
My manager is certainly skilled... But he's stuck in meetings most of the day, or working on grant proposals, or putting together purchase orders, or whatever. He's rarely available to fix technical issues.
Which means that all of the day-to-day support, and most of the longer-term projects, fall on my shoulders. I've been begging for another technical person for months, and it just isn't happening.
So I'm getting stuck working longer hours... And support is still suffering. It takes me longer to get to the little things, which gives them time to grow into bigger things. And the bigger things are getting fixed as quickly as possible, which means corners get cut. There's not enough time to properly plan/implement/train on new projects, which results in more things going wrong...
The end result is that I'm doing sloppy work, and causing more problems, which means more sloppy work... I can see what is happening, but I can't really do much about it. There's only so many hours I can work before becoming absolutely useless (As the 17-hour day I put in last week showed very clearly. I was completely useless the next day.)
I've got vacation time coming up next week... Which I've had to cut short, due to go-live for a new product... But I've still got a few days off. And, while I'm really looking forward to the break, I'm kind of dreading what I'll face when I come back to work.
No, it's about trust. I'm an atheist and I don't cheat on my wife.
Your statement makes my head hurt.
You say it's about trust... But, if you really trusted your wife (or your wife trusted you, or whatever), then some weird numbers showing up on a website wouldn't be an issue. The assumption would be that she was masturbating, or the device was malfunctioning, or something like that. It only becomes a problem when you don't trust your wife and the assumption is that she's cheating on you. Or, I suppose, when she actually does cheat on you.
But... If we set aside your statement of trust... The fact of the matter is that, regardless of whether you're an atheist or not, our cultural stereotype of monogamous marriage is largely based on Christian teaching. You and your wife have entered into a monogamous relationship - which means sexual exclusivity. But there are plenty of people out there who are not in such a relationship - in which case seeing differing numbers for sexual activity in FitBit wouldn't be a cause for concern.
So the original assertion that the underlying problem is, in fact, the mindset regarding sexual activity is 100% accurate.
The same people that clapped in glee with the release of this and other govt. data should either clap in glee with the release of ALL hacked data, or should object to the release of ALL hacked data.
So you don't see any difference at all between a private individual and a government organization?
I'm not particularly moved to emotion by either of these stories... But I can at least see a difference here.
The US government is supposed to be by the people, for the people... And yet we see plenty of evidence that the US population is being lied to at nearly every turn. Why would I, as a US citizen, object to actually getting to find out what my government is really doing? Yes, of course, folks are going to cry that it's a security breach and our top secret plans are now in the wild... Which may actually be true... But after literally years of being lied to, I guess I'm not all that worried about a top secret plan or two making it into the wrong hands.
As for Milly... Well, I'm not really convinced that anything horrible happened there. It sounds like deleting those voicemails hampered the investigation of her death. And maybe the parents might have wanted to hang on to some of them for sentimental value... But, not to be cruel or anything, the lady was already dead. Still, she's a private citizen. Not some government organization. Her close friends and family might have a legitimate argument that they have a right to hear her voicemail... And the police can certainly get a warrant to listen to it... But that really isn't something that a tabloid needs to be reporting on to drum up more readers. It's certainly something that they want to report on, because it's sensational and will sell a few more copies... But that doesn't make it right.
Sure a cheap $2 HDMI cable is just as good as a more expensive one for a short run (50') they sure as hell do matter.
Having some trouble parsing this sentence... But I'm going to assume that you're saying that over a short run, a $2 cable is just fine. Though I don't think I'd call 50 feet a "short run"...
I used to think the same thing, and I needed to do 3x60' runs. So I bought some cheap hdmi cables and ran them, no signal. Tried other 2.. same issue. Returned them, bought better quality ones (no monster cables, but better quality ones), and they ran perfect.
Most people aren't going to be going more than about 10 feet from their DVD/bluray/roku/satellite/whatever to the TV.
There is certainly going to be a difference in build-quality between a cable that costs $2 and one that costs, say, $20. And I don't generally use the ultra-cheap cables because they tend to fall apart if you're moving things around much. I had the end come right off of some ultra-cheap cable that I was using to plug into a laptop routinely.
So I guess I'm not surprised that you had some issues getting a signal through 60 feet of ultra-cheap cable... But that isn't really what this article is talking about.
There are companies out there that will sell you a 10 foot length of cable for $200, just because they can. They'll claim that the gold plating and lack of oxygen and whatever else will result in a better picture and warmer sound. But, as you saw, with a digital cable you've either got a picture or you don't. Assuming the cable doesn't fall apart, and the signal gets from one end of the cable to the other, there'll be no difference between a $2 cable and a $200 cable.
Now, you can certainly argue that for $200 the build quality is going to be higher than that of a $2 cable... And you're probably right. But that stops mattering at some point...
Ok, the $2 cable falls apart after being plugged and unplugged a few dozen times... But the $20 cable holds up just fine after a good year or two of use and abuse - so, do you really need to spend $200 on some cable that's hand-rolled on the bellies of nubile women?
Roundabouts (or rotaries, or traffic circles, as they're known in parts of the U.S.) induce confusion and fear in many drivers
Just because they're new and different.
People absolutely freaked out when my town got its first roundabout. Now, a few years later, nobody cares.
Give it some time and they'll be as commonplace and unremarkable as anything else on the road.
This article from an insurance periodical suggests that it's aggressive drivers who are making rotaries more dangerous.
Aggressive drivers make everything more dangerous.
I like rotaries for two reasons: when there's no traffic, it's nicer than having to stop at an arbitrary red light and wait for a mandatory 2 minutes while the lights cycle. Secondly, if I am not sure whether to turn or not, I can just take another spin around the circle until I see the street sign I'm looking for (assuming there is one, not a given on some of the sign-challenged Northeast roads).
But I loathe rotaries when there's a lot of traffic. You can sit there for a lot longer than you would at a red light. Plus, some places make a rotary out of a 5-way intersection which can be incredibly confusing. It's a tradeoff, I guess, but overall I'd rather drive in a straight line :)
Like anything else, you need the right tool for the job.
Lots of places are hearing about how awesome roundabouts are and are throwing them in everywhere - even where they aren't helpful.
If you've got a high volume of traffic, you need a larger roundabout. Something with a couple lanes to it, to handle the higher traffic. But that means it needs to take up a larger area. And, in many cases, it's just easier to do a stop light.
We've got a couple 5-way intersections here in town, and they'd actually be less-confusing with a properly-implemented roundabout. You just have to ensure that there's enough space between intersections that people can enter/exit safely.
I'd like to share your paycheck with my children and grandchildren. It's SO unfair that I cant!
So, you're against the RIAA and friends as well then? Because this is exactly what they want to do. Copyrights have been extended far beyond the lifetime of the original artist - so that the paycheck winds up being delivered to their children and grandchildren. Or, in more cases than not, the faceless corporation that owns the rights.
I used to work at EB, and I always thought it was sadly funny when some parent would get offended at some very crude/pixelated nudity... But be perfectly OK with wholesale slaughter.
Seriously.
Most people, at some point in their lives, see a naked body. Most people have sex. That's generally considered to be a good thing. Aren't parents stereotypically bugging their children for grandkids after they get married?
Most people, on the other hand, try to avoid getting dismembered with a chainsaw.
And yet... According to the way we rate our media... Chainsaw dismemberment is apparently more acceptable.
People en-masse haven’t gotten any smarter.
People haven't gotten any smarter, but technology has.
Outlook has junk mail filtering built-in. Gmail has spam filtering built-in. Pretty much every mail server out there has some kind of spam filtering available. Pretty much every endpoint protection package has a spam filter. There are tons of different filtering systems available for purchase.
Relatively little spam actually makes it through to the user's inbox anymore. So there's less for the stupid/gullible folks to click on.
Give the bad guys a little time. They’ll come up with new ways of getting around our current filters.
Well, of course they will... But the good guys are going to keep developing new filters, too.
Of course the other theory is that spam has become “less interesting” in light of other new and exciting ways of screwing with people. Once those dry up though, I think the guys with the suits will fall back on classic reliable spam to make their money.
Spammers go wherever the market is. Right now the market is on the social networks. More people are communicating more often on things like Facebook than through simple SMTP. So there's less profit to be had in spamming SMTP servers.
Sure, if SMTP suddenly becomes crazy-popular again you'll see the spammers head back in that direction... But all our existing filters will still be there to curtail that crap.
the profitability is still there.
I don't know about that...
Sure, it's probably pretty cheap to send out a few thousand emails... But how many of those actually make it in front of somebody's eyes? And how many of those actually get read? And how many of those are actually clicked-on?
The real money these days is in malware. Dropping bots on computers and grabbing their credentials for various websites... Or sending out some kind of fake antivirus scanner that scares people into paying $50 to clean up the fake infection... Or using those bots to hack some big, important website...
I really don't know that there's all that much profit to be made in sending out spam these days.
Idiot. Liberal or 'conservative' bastions are all pretty much the same thing. Don't get stuck on the descriptor.
That was my point.
The OP pointed out how horrible these liberal bastions are... But whether they call themselves liberal or conservative is irrelevant. There are an awful lot of people out there who think they know how to live your life better than you do, and they're more than happy to pass legislation to make you conform to their beliefs.
In San Francisco, and other so called 'liberal' bastions, laws are not created to give people the freedoms to live the life that they choose, they are created to radically socially engineer a population according to specific mores that the 'elites' prefer. So if the elites are tree-hugging PETA members, then they want to fashion society in that image, regardless of the hypocracy and stupidity it causes. One could say that all social engineering is applying a first order linear model to a chaotic system and then crying about how the results don't work.
How this is different than theocracy, I don't know.
Liberal bastions, eh? And how is this any different from those 'conservative' bastions that try to - for example - outlaw abortion?