Do you live in the same reality as the rest of us?
No, possibly not. You have a problem with that?:P But seriously - as someone mentioned after me, the learning curve for Dwarf Fortress is so steep that, well, it's more a vertical line than a curve. Have you actually played it?
Yes, there may be some exceptions, but if you really think something like DF is going to be appealing/accessible to the average non-geek teenager, much less one who is poor enough that they're getting their gaming system from a charity....Then I may not be the only one living in a different reality.
Not that Dwarf Fortress isn't a kickass game, but I think it might be more than a little too complex for a lot of teens - especially if they haven't used a computer much before.
I live in the Fairfax area of NoVA, and while I haven't seen the massive piles of acorns like last year, there's no shortage of squirrels running around....And they all look large, bushy-tailed, and energetic.
Are you kidding? They've been running Jeremiah Wright saying "Goddamn America" steadily on DirectTV the last couple days.
I had to laugh at the (non)genius of whoever decided to run that ad 4 times on MSNBC last night during Keith Olbermann's block...Anyone who was going to be swayed by that garbage would have already turned long ago, and it sure as hell isn't going to make much of a dent in the type of people that watch Keith.
Yeah, as someone who has worked in a few different phone support positions, I have to agree that that line of attack is not anywhere near as effective as they think it will be. Not that it isn't still fun to transfer people even when I know there's no way in hell they'll get a different answer from my boss, though:)
I love the bit about hanging up immediately and calling back, too - maybe that works better with the gigantic Indian call centers, but some of us work in slightly smaller places that don't change shifts every hour.
I for one have had countless instances of color for "non-important" things in my dreams - green grass, brown dirt, blue water, cars, food, etc. Talk to anyone that practices lucid dreaming especially, and they can no doubt give you many examples.
In my experience, I would tend to agree, as it seems (in my area, anyway) UPS/FedEX carriers are lazy, USPS carriers are stupid and lazy.
The USPS people constantly misread names/building, report false delivery attempts in their tracking system, crush/fold/spindle/mutilate things into the mailbox, forget to leave the "pick this up at the office" cards, etc.
I once a couple years ago had a USPS package travel from (on its way to me in Virginia) the point of origin in Kentucky through Ohio->Maryland-> Texas and then more or less reverse course after I emailed and asked wtf was going on, arriving almost 3 weeks after it shipped.
In contrast, the worst I usually get with UPS is the truck driver(s) being lazy bastards that would rather just falsify a delivery attempt and hope I won't notice that I was actually home at that point, rather than actually dropping something off.
I've had one of the Buffalo routers for around 2 years now (the WHR-G54S), and have never had any significant problems with it - works fine for daily use hooked up to 2 PCs, a laptop, a Wii, and a DS.
The Linksys router I had before that turned into an unreliable piece of junk about 6 months after purchase - all the problems you apparently had with the Buffalo.
Yes, but in areas where these call centres operate, there are no other jobs.
Are you seriously saying you lived somewhere with no restaurants, no grocery stores, no student jobs at your school, NOTHING except the call center? Which god awful part of Canada did you live in?
I used to live in a moderately depressed (economy-wise) area with a giant call center also, and actually worked there for a while to fulfill a requirement for my degree (taking tech support calls, inbound thankfully) - but had I not had a requirement to be somewhere at least vaguely tech-related, there were still a multitude of other basic jobs available.
I worked next to people with Master's Degrees and PhDs unable to find anything better unless they resettled.
You'll have to forgive me if I don't shed many tears for people like this....If the work situation is that horrible, then suck it up, make the sacrifice, and LEAVE. How someone could have the dedication and determination to earn a Masters/PhD, but not the will/planning to avoid wasting all that work is beyond me....At some point you have to take control of your own life if you want things to improve.
Most of them are probably students like I was with terrible managers (the cream of the crap) and strict floor regulations that leave them tethered to their computer
Yes, the absolute horror of sitting at a computer and answering the phone all day. Surely it must have been the ultimate punishment.
taking calls for their entire eight hour shift with no breaks
having a one-minute-per-day bathroom break policy
I'm no expert on Canadian labor law, but a quick search suggests this is probably illegal, just as it would be here in the US.
doing it all for a paycheque a meaningless few dollars higher than a McD's salaryman
So the pay was basically no different than McDonald's, you were subjected to illegal labor practices, and constantly abused by your "customers".....Why did you stay there instead of going to somewhere like McDonalds? Or a job on campus? Or a grocery store?
It's a little hard to believe you just didn't want to do anything more strenuous than sitting on your rear all day.
When you get a callback from tech support in India does it have a country code? Or is it a toll-free/local number? In my experience I have never seen a foreign number on my systems.
You're lucky, then. I've gotten calls several times that show up as foreign numbers in the last year or so, usually from Costa Rica somewhere, and Korea a couple times (although I live in an area with a lot of Koreans, so may have been a wrong number).
Got one on my cellphone that showed up as +50622229877 yesterday actually, was on my desk phone at the time, and they hung up without leaving a message right before I was able to grab it.
One more vote that maybe it just has something to do with your location.
It takes about 3-4 business days to receive a disc (if it is not in high demand) and 3-4 business days to be registered as returned.
Usually about 2 days each way here (Northern VA/DC Metro area).
Half of the discs I received were scratched so as to be unplayable (tested on several different players)
We've been using the 1-at-a-time service level for a little over a year and 72 discs - only one disc has been damaged (several cracks out from the center), and it only took one 5-minute phone call to get a no-questions-asked replacement.
I can't say I know many details about how they handle stocking discs or sharing between distribution centers, but maybe the other subscribers in your area are just really bad about causing damage or something?
Got mine at Target, GE brand. Every light in our place (aside from the big regular-fluorescent tube fixture in the kitchen) is a CFL...They fit everywhere (even the 20-year old fixtures in the hallway and dining room), no sound at all, no burnouts in about 1.5 years so far.
Color temperature is a bit cold, but not overly so, and oddly, seems to blend with the sunlight very well.
I haven't played the Wii's iteration of Mario Kart, which I probably should rent, but I have a feeling it's not much better (although, feel free to enlighten me on this).
The online play with Mario Kart (at least for me, over wireless attached to a cable modem) is worlds better than SSBB. Almost lag-free, doesn't take 10 minutes to find enough people for a match, etc.
If an Obama supporter did it, i'd still think they were as idiotic as someone from McCain's side, yes.
A posting like this goes a little past "biased non-story" into "blatant shill" territory. For all we know, the submitter could be a paid member of McCain's staff.
This was an awesome book back when I first read it as a pre-teen myself, it seems rather tame now though....Any kid that's watched a decent amount of anything like the TNG-onwards Star Trek series or Stargate probably won't find the premise quite as fantastic as it seemed 15 years ago though.
Orson Scott Card
Have to echo a few of the other posters and say that the Ender's Game books are probably a bit much for pre-teens...All depends on the individual kid though. Personally, I didn't read the first one till I was 20 or so, though that was more because I just hadn't known it was out there.
Susan Cooper (The Dark is Rising)
Quite good...I found the whole "struggle against ancient evil" to be quite a good read when I found these during grade school, though maybe that's because i'm also a fan of the story formula in most JRPGs, or vice-versa:):P
the Tom Swift series
I agree these were pretty good also - I had (almost) the entire Tom Swift Jr. series passed on from my dad's childhood, and I enjoyed them quite a bit during my pre-teen years.
I had something along the same lines last week....Some piece of junk mail from a "Dealer Services" in St. Louis trying to look as official as possible, and proclaiming that my 2007 car's 10-year warranty was going to expire if I didn't call RIGHT NOW and sign up for whatever scam service they're peddling.
That's the problem with DKos logic: thinking you can get people to agree with you by calling them idiots.
You sound kinda bitter...Have a bad run posting there or something?
Even assuming it does happen a significant amount of time for the moment (feel free to point out some specific posts aside from obvious trolls), that's not exactly exclusive to DKos and the left wing - try going to RedState, FreeRepublic, or other such sites, and you'll find plenty of people whos preferred method of trying to "convert" Democrats to their views is to treat them as lower life forms at every opportunity.
The only thing the "backlash" will do is harden the resolve of HRC democrats. You've already seen it during the primary.
Well, we'll see how it plays out from here....It'll be interesting no matter which way it goes, that's for sure.
I just think we can be strong and respectful at the same time. Obama seems to be particularly good at this -- my favorite quote from his speech after clinching the nomination was "I honor John McCain for his accomplishments, even if he chooses to deny mine." That was the perfect attack line, IMHO. Obama stood him for himself and drew a contrast between him and McCain without resorting to loaded words like "cut and run".
Yeah, no argument from me there either. As cheesy as they are, many of his speeches have been the first time (while watching a candidate/president) i've caught myself breaking out in a grin since Clinton was in office.
My point is that it's not worth the effort. Again, as far as I can tell...whatever relatively tiny amount of support he gains from such ventures will be canceled out by the backlash from the DKos base, which in turn could very well convince people that were on the fence to stay away from McCain.
I think it's hilarious that one of the first sites they pick to try and woo away disaffected Democrats is DailyKos....As far as the strength of most people's party loyalty, it's like some teenager deciding to start his life of crime by breaking into Fort Knox as opposed to robbing a vending machine or something.
If they really think there's a massive wave of supporters just waiting to defect, though....They can go ahead and try it. It'll certainly be amusing, if nothing else.
ow I'm primarily watching the Newshour on PBS, BBC America as well as reading the various online news sites. It's pretty sad when the BBC can present a more balanced look at American politics than most mainstream American news networks.
Whatever works for you - i'm not going to insult anyone's intelligence and try to say Keith isn't biased, I just think comparing him to O'Reilly is unfair to him, and frankly, overly generous to Bill.
I just don't want to see us adopt the Republican method of Governing -- blackmailing our own members to vote the party line against their own constituents, demonizing the opposition and locking yourself into a bubble and ignoring all outside influence
Neither do I, but the fact is, the Republicans (or at least the ones currently in power) are not just going to suddenly play nice and cooperate. And if you think some of them are jerks now, just wait and see how desperate they get if Obama wins and they lose even more seats in the House/Senate.
While they don't need to be treated as badly as many of them have treated Democrats, there's a middle ground where Democrats still need to grow a farking spine and stick up for themselves....And if that requires getting angry enough to push back, then so be it.
Every single negative stereotype you can think of about Democrats/liberals is exemplified by some of the comments on that site. Pulling out words like "racist" or "homophobe" in the middle of a conversation because someone has a principled disagreement with you. I asked once upon a time why that was any better than Republicans who pull out words like "cut and run" if you disagree with them -- needless to say that didn't win me many friends and I got about 30 replies explaining why it was "different" when Democrats do it as opposed to Republicans.
I'd love to read that thread if you care to link to it....I tried searching there with your Slashdot ID but obviously you used something else.
Half of the people that contribute there seem more interested in punishing the Republicans for the last seven years then they do in moving forward.
I'm not saying it's right, but expecting a lot of them (myself included) not to feel more than a little bitter and vengeful after the events and treatment of the last 7 years is rather unrealistic.
Ditto for Keith Olbermann. Tried watching him -- eventually came to the conclusion that he is little better than a left-wing version of Bill O'Reilly.
Yeah, I don't guess that you tried watching for very long if you're seriously considering him similar to O'Reilly - the two guys are practically mortal enemies that openly mock and belittle each other on national TV and elsewhere. I guess i'm infected with liberal bias, because I've never seen him as a version of O'Reilly, left-wing or otherwise.
but it's worth putting forth a modicum of effort to find them there, nonetheless.
No, it won't be. Have you looked at the front page of DailyKos lately? Any minute amount of goodwill they get from disaffected Hillary supporters will be vastly outweighed by the posters who will treat shills competing for McCain's favor as complete jokes, if not with outright hatred....And I doubt things are much different on the other lefty blogs mentioned.
If they want to be accepted with open arms, they're better off sticking to places like RedState where any true show of support of teh evil liberals is almost immediately nuked by trigger-happy moderators.
Getting a girlfriend or boyfriend. I've seen it work well over the years even with the most hardcore online users.
Thank goodness that my wife actually, y'know, shares my interests and loves internet/gaming activities as much as I do. We have pets, stable jobs, pay all the bills, etc.
Seriously. This isn't an addiction, it's people using up their free time. Give them something more interesting to do and they'll do that instead.
What you do with your free time should be based on what you find entertaining, not just because of the stupid notion that gaming and such are only for people who can't find anything better to do.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you live in the same reality as the rest of us?
No, possibly not. You have a problem with that? :P But seriously - as someone mentioned after me, the learning curve for Dwarf Fortress is so steep that, well, it's more a vertical line than a curve. Have you actually played it?
Yes, there may be some exceptions, but if you really think something like DF is going to be appealing/accessible to the average non-geek teenager, much less one who is poor enough that they're getting their gaming system from a charity....Then I may not be the only one living in a different reality.
Not that Dwarf Fortress isn't a kickass game, but I think it might be more than a little too complex for a lot of teens - especially if they haven't used a computer much before.
I live in the Fairfax area of NoVA, and while I haven't seen the massive piles of acorns like last year, there's no shortage of squirrels running around....And they all look large, bushy-tailed, and energetic.
Are you kidding? They've been running Jeremiah Wright saying "Goddamn America" steadily on DirectTV the last couple days.
I had to laugh at the (non)genius of whoever decided to run that ad 4 times on MSNBC last night during Keith Olbermann's block...Anyone who was going to be swayed by that garbage would have already turned long ago, and it sure as hell isn't going to make much of a dent in the type of people that watch Keith.
Yeah, as someone who has worked in a few different phone support positions, I have to agree that that line of attack is not anywhere near as effective as they think it will be. Not that it isn't still fun to transfer people even when I know there's no way in hell they'll get a different answer from my boss, though :)
I love the bit about hanging up immediately and calling back, too - maybe that works better with the gigantic Indian call centers, but some of us work in slightly smaller places that don't change shifts every hour.
Maybe yours don't :)
I for one have had countless instances of color for "non-important" things in my dreams - green grass, brown dirt, blue water, cars, food, etc. Talk to anyone that practices lucid dreaming especially, and they can no doubt give you many examples.
In my experience, I would tend to agree, as it seems (in my area, anyway) UPS/FedEX carriers are lazy, USPS carriers are stupid and lazy.
The USPS people constantly misread names/building, report false delivery attempts in their tracking system, crush/fold/spindle/mutilate things into the mailbox, forget to leave the "pick this up at the office" cards, etc.
I once a couple years ago had a USPS package travel from (on its way to me in Virginia) the point of origin in Kentucky through Ohio->Maryland-> Texas and then more or less reverse course after I emailed and asked wtf was going on, arriving almost 3 weeks after it shipped.
In contrast, the worst I usually get with UPS is the truck driver(s) being lazy bastards that would rather just falsify a delivery attempt and hope I won't notice that I was actually home at that point, rather than actually dropping something off.
I've had one of the Buffalo routers for around 2 years now (the WHR-G54S), and have never had any significant problems with it - works fine for daily use hooked up to 2 PCs, a laptop, a Wii, and a DS.
The Linksys router I had before that turned into an unreliable piece of junk about 6 months after purchase - all the problems you apparently had with the Buffalo.
Yes, but in areas where these call centres operate, there are no other jobs.
Are you seriously saying you lived somewhere with no restaurants, no grocery stores, no student jobs at your school, NOTHING except the call center? Which god awful part of Canada did you live in?
I used to live in a moderately depressed (economy-wise) area with a giant call center also, and actually worked there for a while to fulfill a requirement for my degree (taking tech support calls, inbound thankfully) - but had I not had a requirement to be somewhere at least vaguely tech-related, there were still a multitude of other basic jobs available.
I worked next to people with Master's Degrees and PhDs unable to find anything better unless they resettled.
You'll have to forgive me if I don't shed many tears for people like this....If the work situation is that horrible, then suck it up, make the sacrifice, and LEAVE. How someone could have the dedication and determination to earn a Masters/PhD, but not the will/planning to avoid wasting all that work is beyond me....At some point you have to take control of your own life if you want things to improve.
Most of them are probably students like I was with terrible managers (the cream of the crap) and strict floor regulations that leave them tethered to their computer
Yes, the absolute horror of sitting at a computer and answering the phone all day. Surely it must have been the ultimate punishment.
taking calls for their entire eight hour shift with no breaks
having a one-minute-per-day bathroom break policy
I'm no expert on Canadian labor law, but a quick search suggests this is probably illegal, just as it would be here in the US.
doing it all for a paycheque a meaningless few dollars higher than a McD's salaryman
So the pay was basically no different than McDonald's, you were subjected to illegal labor practices, and constantly abused by your "customers".....Why did you stay there instead of going to somewhere like McDonalds? Or a job on campus? Or a grocery store?
It's a little hard to believe you just didn't want to do anything more strenuous than sitting on your rear all day.
When you get a callback from tech support in India does it have a country code? Or is it a toll-free/local number? In my experience I have never seen a foreign number on my systems.
You're lucky, then. I've gotten calls several times that show up as foreign numbers in the last year or so, usually from Costa Rica somewhere, and Korea a couple times (although I live in an area with a lot of Koreans, so may have been a wrong number).
Got one on my cellphone that showed up as +50622229877 yesterday actually, was on my desk phone at the time, and they hung up without leaving a message right before I was able to grab it.
One more vote that maybe it just has something to do with your location.
It takes about 3-4 business days to receive a disc (if it is not in high demand) and 3-4 business days to be registered as returned.
Usually about 2 days each way here (Northern VA/DC Metro area).
Half of the discs I received were scratched so as to be unplayable (tested on several different players)
We've been using the 1-at-a-time service level for a little over a year and 72 discs - only one disc has been damaged (several cracks out from the center), and it only took one 5-minute phone call to get a no-questions-asked replacement.
I can't say I know many details about how they handle stocking discs or sharing between distribution centers, but maybe the other subscribers in your area are just really bad about causing damage or something?
Got mine at Target, GE brand. Every light in our place (aside from the big regular-fluorescent tube fixture in the kitchen) is a CFL...They fit everywhere (even the 20-year old fixtures in the hallway and dining room), no sound at all, no burnouts in about 1.5 years so far.
Color temperature is a bit cold, but not overly so, and oddly, seems to blend with the sunlight very well.
I haven't played the Wii's iteration of Mario Kart, which I probably should rent, but I have a feeling it's not much better (although, feel free to enlighten me on this).
The online play with Mario Kart (at least for me, over wireless attached to a cable modem) is worlds better than SSBB. Almost lag-free, doesn't take 10 minutes to find enough people for a match, etc.
If an Obama supporter did it, i'd still think they were as idiotic as someone from McCain's side, yes.
A posting like this goes a little past "biased non-story" into "blatant shill" territory. For all we know, the submitter could be a paid member of McCain's staff.
No doubt Mr. "Vote McCain in 2008!" is looking to score some points with this one.
I'm not saying everything posted here has to be neutral by any means, but geez, this is pretty transparent.
Madeline L'Engle
This was an awesome book back when I first read it as a pre-teen myself, it seems rather tame now though....Any kid that's watched a decent amount of anything like the TNG-onwards Star Trek series or Stargate probably won't find the premise quite as fantastic as it seemed 15 years ago though.
Orson Scott Card
Have to echo a few of the other posters and say that the Ender's Game books are probably a bit much for pre-teens...All depends on the individual kid though. Personally, I didn't read the first one till I was 20 or so, though that was more because I just hadn't known it was out there.
Susan Cooper (The Dark is Rising)
Quite good...I found the whole "struggle against ancient evil" to be quite a good read when I found these during grade school, though maybe that's because i'm also a fan of the story formula in most JRPGs, or vice-versa :):P
the Tom Swift series
I agree these were pretty good also - I had (almost) the entire Tom Swift Jr. series passed on from my dad's childhood, and I enjoyed them quite a bit during my pre-teen years.
I had something along the same lines last week....Some piece of junk mail from a "Dealer Services" in St. Louis trying to look as official as possible, and proclaiming that my 2007 car's 10-year warranty was going to expire if I didn't call RIGHT NOW and sign up for whatever scam service they're peddling.
That's the problem with DKos logic: thinking you can get people to agree with you by calling them idiots.
You sound kinda bitter...Have a bad run posting there or something?
Even assuming it does happen a significant amount of time for the moment (feel free to point out some specific posts aside from obvious trolls), that's not exactly exclusive to DKos and the left wing - try going to RedState, FreeRepublic, or other such sites, and you'll find plenty of people whos preferred method of trying to "convert" Democrats to their views is to treat them as lower life forms at every opportunity.
The only thing the "backlash" will do is harden the resolve of HRC democrats. You've already seen it during the primary.
Well, we'll see how it plays out from here....It'll be interesting no matter which way it goes, that's for sure.
I just think we can be strong and respectful at the same time. Obama seems to be particularly good at this -- my favorite quote from his speech after clinching the nomination was "I honor John McCain for his accomplishments, even if he chooses to deny mine." That was the perfect attack line, IMHO. Obama stood him for himself and drew a contrast between him and McCain without resorting to loaded words like "cut and run".
Yeah, no argument from me there either. As cheesy as they are, many of his speeches have been the first time (while watching a candidate/president) i've caught myself breaking out in a grin since Clinton was in office.
Your point? They're not the ones McCain is after.
My point is that it's not worth the effort. Again, as far as I can tell...whatever relatively tiny amount of support he gains from such ventures will be canceled out by the backlash from the DKos base, which in turn could very well convince people that were on the fence to stay away from McCain.
I think it's hilarious that one of the first sites they pick to try and woo away disaffected Democrats is DailyKos....As far as the strength of most people's party loyalty, it's like some teenager deciding to start his life of crime by breaking into Fort Knox as opposed to robbing a vending machine or something.
If they really think there's a massive wave of supporters just waiting to defect, though....They can go ahead and try it. It'll certainly be amusing, if nothing else.
ow I'm primarily watching the Newshour on PBS, BBC America as well as reading the various online news sites. It's pretty sad when the BBC can present a more balanced look at American politics than most mainstream American news networks.
Whatever works for you - i'm not going to insult anyone's intelligence and try to say Keith isn't biased, I just think comparing him to O'Reilly is unfair to him, and frankly, overly generous to Bill.
I just don't want to see us adopt the Republican method of Governing -- blackmailing our own members to vote the party line against their own constituents, demonizing the opposition and locking yourself into a bubble and ignoring all outside influence
Neither do I, but the fact is, the Republicans (or at least the ones currently in power) are not just going to suddenly play nice and cooperate. And if you think some of them are jerks now, just wait and see how desperate they get if Obama wins and they lose even more seats in the House/Senate.
While they don't need to be treated as badly as many of them have treated Democrats, there's a middle ground where Democrats still need to grow a farking spine and stick up for themselves....And if that requires getting angry enough to push back, then so be it.
Every single negative stereotype you can think of about Democrats/liberals is exemplified by some of the comments on that site. Pulling out words like "racist" or "homophobe" in the middle of a conversation because someone has a principled disagreement with you. I asked once upon a time why that was any better than Republicans who pull out words like "cut and run" if you disagree with them -- needless to say that didn't win me many friends and I got about 30 replies explaining why it was "different" when Democrats do it as opposed to Republicans.
I'd love to read that thread if you care to link to it....I tried searching there with your Slashdot ID but obviously you used something else.
Half of the people that contribute there seem more interested in punishing the Republicans for the last seven years then they do in moving forward.
I'm not saying it's right, but expecting a lot of them (myself included) not to feel more than a little bitter and vengeful after the events and treatment of the last 7 years is rather unrealistic.
Ditto for Keith Olbermann. Tried watching him -- eventually came to the conclusion that he is little better than a left-wing version of Bill O'Reilly.
Yeah, I don't guess that you tried watching for very long if you're seriously considering him similar to O'Reilly - the two guys are practically mortal enemies that openly mock and belittle each other on national TV and elsewhere. I guess i'm infected with liberal bias, because I've never seen him as a version of O'Reilly, left-wing or otherwise.
but it's worth putting forth a modicum of effort to find them there, nonetheless.
No, it won't be. Have you looked at the front page of DailyKos lately? Any minute amount of goodwill they get from disaffected Hillary supporters will be vastly outweighed by the posters who will treat shills competing for McCain's favor as complete jokes, if not with outright hatred....And I doubt things are much different on the other lefty blogs mentioned.
If they want to be accepted with open arms, they're better off sticking to places like RedState where any true show of support of teh evil liberals is almost immediately nuked by trigger-happy moderators.
Getting a girlfriend or boyfriend. I've seen it work well over the years even with the most hardcore online users.
Thank goodness that my wife actually, y'know, shares my interests and loves internet/gaming activities as much as I do. We have pets, stable jobs, pay all the bills, etc.
Seriously. This isn't an addiction, it's people using up their free time. Give them something more interesting to do and they'll do that instead.
What you do with your free time should be based on what you find entertaining, not just because of the stupid notion that gaming and such are only for people who can't find anything better to do.