douglas adams wrote something along those lines in "hitch hikers guide to the galaxy" (or one of the sequels - I can't remember exactly)
"all the major design flaws in the product are completely hidden by the superficial design faults - users of the product are so happy to actually get it to do something that they totally overlook that fact that it doesn't actually *do* anything useful..."
Why is it that politicians of all types need some bandwagon to jump on? it's like :
1) Politician B is voted in , either by telling the biggest lies , or being the least obnoxious of the bunch. Politician bleats about the fact that Politician A's party has stuffed everything , and it will take at least 2 or three terms of office to fix everything (hint,hint). Politician B looks for a cause to 'really get behind'. Often it is the one that all the outrageous lies were told about before the election, but this is not always true.
2) Politician thinks , "jeez, I sure don't want to go unnoticed this term, better find something and get behind it completely! When the next elections come up i can say 'hey look , i stood up for little kiddies/old folks/**the aussie battler** '
3) Politician proceeds to totally screw that area up , often with a lot of shouting in parliament, and saying things like "the opposition is a big poo-poo!", accompianied by much cursing by the group that is affected, who wish the politician would go bug some other minority.
4) Politician trumpets loud and long about 'how things are changing for the better - oh , and vote for me again or it'll all be changed back back by the opposition!! (who , if they actually get back into power, generally decide not to change anything, anyway, as they have bigger bandwagons to pursue)
5) The next elections arrive and people curse long and hard about the fact that no matter who you vote for, you get a politician.
6) The whole process returns to step 1.
That just about sums up Australian Politics.
Maybe we should just buy out tasmania and secede, or perhaps we can persuade Canberra and the A.C.T. to leave instead:-)
Footnote: For those overseas who failed geography, Tasmania is that little triangle island that often gets left off the bottom of Australia (often used in the yobbo phrase "show us yer map of Tassie!!!") , and the A.C.T. is the Australian Capital Territory, where the federal gov't resides:-)
Ah, the voice of a purist! Lets think about things here :
The average person's "Hi-Fi" isn't:-)
The average person doesn't *really* care too much about quality (to some extent) , they just want music. (oh , and generally LOUD music please)
So does the average person , who just wants music whilst partying / reading / doing the housework / driving their car care? Probably not.
Yes, mp3's mangle the sound a fair bit. I am willing to trade off the loss of fidelity, for the simple fact that you can jam (and 'jam' is probably the most approprate word) 12 hours on music onto a single C.D. No, it's not *perfect* music. The AM radio in my car is also woeful , but I still listen to it - and mp3's tend to sound a lot better than ol' AM.
Nothing in my "hi-fi" system comes anywhere near perfect, the listening conditions are nowhere near perfect, and lets not forget my poor old industrially-deaf ears. Why go to extreme lengths to get the most accurate reproduction , when most people sadly don't even notice.
If your motherboard is fairly new, you can just burn yourself a bootable CD - I burnt one with a teeny bit of dos + a dos mp3 player, and it's great. Just switch the pooter on, and drop it in before the thing gets past its memory check. It was a bit fiddly setting up the generic cd-rom drivers,and figuring out just exactly which drive letter the cd-rom got (not the boot image, that turns into a virtual floppy, but the actual mp3's) , but I had a bit of a poke around with a win98 (gasp! shock! ack!) cd, and it was no big deal.
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douglas adams wrote something along those lines in "hitch hikers guide to the galaxy" (or one of the sequels - I can't remember exactly)
"all the major design flaws in the product are completely hidden by the superficial design faults - users of the product are so happy to actually get it to do something that they totally overlook that fact that it doesn't actually *do* anything useful..."
Why is it that politicians of all types need some bandwagon to jump on? it's like :
:-)
:-)
1) Politician B is voted in , either by telling the biggest lies , or being the least obnoxious of the bunch. Politician bleats about the fact that Politician A's party has stuffed everything , and it will take at least 2 or three terms of office to fix everything (hint,hint). Politician B looks for a cause to 'really get behind'. Often it is the one that all the outrageous lies were told about before the election, but this is not always true.
2) Politician thinks , "jeez, I sure don't want to go unnoticed this term, better find something and get behind it completely! When the next elections come up i can say 'hey look , i stood up for little kiddies/old folks/**the aussie battler** '
3) Politician proceeds to totally screw that area up , often with a lot of shouting in parliament, and saying things like "the opposition is a big poo-poo!", accompianied by much cursing by the group that is affected, who wish the politician would go bug some other minority.
4) Politician trumpets loud and long about 'how things are changing for the better - oh , and vote for me again or it'll all be changed back back by the opposition!! (who , if they actually get back into power, generally decide not to change anything, anyway, as they have bigger bandwagons to pursue)
5) The next elections arrive and people curse long and hard about the fact that no matter who you vote for, you get a politician.
6) The whole process returns to step 1.
That just about sums up Australian Politics.
Maybe we should just buy out tasmania and secede, or perhaps we can persuade Canberra and the A.C.T. to leave instead
Footnote:
For those overseas who failed geography, Tasmania is that little triangle island that often gets left off the bottom of Australia (often used in the yobbo phrase "show us yer map of Tassie!!!") , and the A.C.T. is the Australian Capital Territory, where the federal gov't resides
Ah, the voice of a purist! Lets think about things here :
:-)
The average person's "Hi-Fi" isn't
The average person doesn't *really* care too much about quality (to some extent) , they just want music. (oh , and generally LOUD music please)
So does the average person , who just wants music whilst partying / reading / doing the housework / driving their car care? Probably not.
Yes, mp3's mangle the sound a fair bit.
I am willing to trade off the loss of fidelity, for the simple fact that you can jam (and 'jam' is probably the most approprate word) 12 hours on music onto a single C.D. No, it's not *perfect* music. The AM radio in my car is also woeful , but I still listen to it - and mp3's tend to sound a lot better than ol' AM.
Nothing in my "hi-fi" system comes anywhere near perfect, the listening conditions are nowhere near perfect, and lets not forget my poor old industrially-deaf ears. Why go to extreme lengths to get the most accurate reproduction , when most people sadly don't even notice.
If your motherboard is fairly new, you can just burn yourself a bootable CD - I burnt one with a teeny bit of dos + a dos mp3 player, and it's great. Just switch the pooter on, and drop it in before the thing gets past its memory check. It was a bit fiddly setting up the generic cd-rom drivers ,and figuring out just exactly which drive letter the cd-rom got (not the boot image, that turns into a virtual floppy, but the actual mp3's) , but I had a bit of a poke around with a win98 (gasp! shock! ack!) cd, and it was no big deal.