I did write to my bank and tell them about it; I'm fairly certain they don't care. And it's hard to judge whether or not a bank has a competent IT staff before you actually transfer in your money and start using their banking site. If it weren't for that I probably would change banks.
I agree that the people on/. ought to "already know it". That's kind of the reason I posted. I was surprised at how many posts seemed to be completely ignoring the point. In fact, I distinctly said that in my post: "I think it's odd that so many people posted on this topic with the attitude "who cares about Opera anyway".
So whether or not saying it will "bring" me anything, people seemed to need reminding.
I use Opera, I like Opera, and I want to continue using it. It always made me a bit irritated that I HAD to pretend to be using IE to get into certain sites, even though many of them worked fine with Opera. My bank's site included in that list.
I think it's odd that so many people posted on this topic with the attitude "who cares about Opera anyway". This isn't about Opera. It's about standards.
In the IT world, we commit to standards for interoperability. We've all seen the benefits of this, whether we know it or not; open technologies, which are revolutionizing IT, and the internet itself in fact are possible only when the IT community adheres to standards.
Technology improves and consumers win when we follow standards. There are only two reasons I can think of not to: Greediness of the big players to keep hold of marketshare and the laziness of developers.
Funny, I don't agree at all. I believe, on the whole, the women I worked with in this field were more competent than the men. It seemed like they often worked harder and got less recognition than the men. I also felt that women tended to be a lot more committed to "doing it right", and ironically, thought more logically and less emotionally (read: politically) about their work.
I presumed it was because women really had to like and understand software to get into this field and stick with it.
I wasn't going to post that, because I have no way of knowing if my experience is typical. But since you mentioned it, I felt compelled.
BTW, I also taught software building tools for a vendor, and on that front, it seemed to me that women and men were roughly equal in ability.
I've been in the IT profession for 10 years now, I am good at it, and I love it. One of the things that has allowed me to succeed in this profession is that 1) I can't stand spending too much time with other people and 2) I have accepted #1.
I don't wanna go to lunch, I don't wanna go shopping, I don't wanna talk on the phone. Ever.
I want to net search a solution to my latest tech problem; I want to program a visual display of the mandelbrot set in C in my spare time. I want to crack that tricky sql query. I want to advance my Cisco certification. I want to lurk on slashdot. So, leave me alone with my machine!
But I had to accept those things about myself. It was hard for a long time, I thought something was wrong with me. I felt sorry and slighted when I knew other women were planning get togethers and lunch dates (even though I didn't want to go anyway.)
Lest you think I'm a total geek, let me add that I never had any shortage of interested men --- probably the result of being the only female around who knew what they were talking about. But that served as a bit of a distraction too!
Now I am on my second marriage, I have a son, 2 daughters, and 3 step daughters. They are all teenagers now. I have encouraged them all, since they were little, to express their opinion (even if it didn't exactly "count"!) and to not be ashamed of their perceived "failings". Most of all, I told my daughters, "Don't worry if you don't have many friends. Friends aren't everything, you know." Which was the exact opposite of what I was taught as a girl.
Now they are very strong minded, intelligent, and forward looking girls who seem unafraid of the challenges in a man-dominated world. At least for now. Time will tell if I did the right thing.
I take 150 mg Wellbutrin SR twice a day. My doctor started me off on one pill per day, taken in the morning, for the first 3 days. I haven't changed my dosage since. Once, I tried stopping the medication, just as an expiriment, a year ago. I had no withdrawal problems but my original symptoms returned.
In the beginning, I had some side effects of feeling a little edgy and hyper, and I really didn't sleep much the first week. If it hadn't been for my determination to quit smoking (Wellbutrin is also sold as Zyban) I probably would have stopped taking it. But after no more than a week, I started feeling better, and gradually over months, I kept improving.
Sometimes I think that the Wellbutrin might cause me to have more headaches. But I've always had headaches. They are not terrible, and go away with the usual aspirin or Ibuprofen.
I lost a few pounds on the Wellbutrin, maybe 5 or so. Overall, my weight is normal and steady.
I get the medication through my health insurance at a regular pharmacy.
I expect to remain on the Wellbutrin for the foreseeable future. Maybe forever. I might try going off of it again in a few years, mostly just for curiosity, if my doctor agrees. I have no side effects that would make me want to stop.
I should add, I feel unusually lucky that this medicine worked for me the way it did. It seems to address my problem, exactly. I think it's likely some people have different issues with brain chemistry and may not find it so easy to get the "perfect fit" medication.
Just out of curiosity, do you have any sleep disorders? When I was younger I had a lot of problems with a neurologic condition called Sleep Paralysis and out-of-body experiences. I always wondered if it was related to my other difficulties.
I really do believe that people like us have a condition which hasn't yet been recognized or described. It's not ADD --- because we are capable of focusing intently for long periods on something we find engaging. I'm interested in establishing a list of symptoms, if you have any to add.
You sound so much like me, most of my life, until a few years ago. It seemed like there were never enough hours in the day for me to get anything done. Things that other people did routinely were huge overwhelming tasks for me. I wondered how they did it. I would feel badly about my inability to get anything done, too, and this negative self-talk seemed to make it even harder to face a task.
Somehow I got through school, though, and actually did well. Fortunately I was smart so I didn't have to do as much work as others did to achieve the same results. I also did well at work, because as a software developer, I love what I do, so it's easy for me to focus on it.
But my every day personal life suffered. Household chores, bill paying, making (and keeping) appointments --- stuff like that made me crazy. In addition, I couldn't remember anything --- details like dates, phone numbers, what to get at the grocery store, even plots to movies I'd seen --- these things flew out of my head quickly without a trace. I had what I call SPADD -- "Smart Person Attention Deficit Disorder". Which means: I can figure out ANYTHING, but I can't remember shit.
About 2 1/2 years ago I started taking Wellbutrin to help me quit smoking. Not only was I able to quit smoking completely within a few months, but I found it made a radical change in my "SPADD". First, the negative self-talk stopped completely, and gradually, that strange feeling of having boulders in the way of everything I needed to do disappeared. Even decision-making became easier. I didn't have to struggle anymore just to open the mail, and all those other chores that I used to avoid.
My life has improved so much. I can't even explain it. It truly feels to me like there are more hours in the day now, and my life is more enjoyable.
Another odd thing is that music sounds better to me now. Which led me to a theory --- I think people with "SPADD" have a hyper-awareness that gets in their way of living. I was always both listening to music and THINKING about listening to music at the same time. That was true of everything I did --- I would be watching a movie AND THINKING about the experience of watching a movie, or paying bills and thinking about paying bills. I could never just "DO" it.
I love being on the Wellbutrin, I feel like I'm normal now --- which in my case is a good thing. I know there are a lot of people who are going to rant about how BAD the medication is for you or how immoral it is to rely on such a crutch --- but those people don't live my life. I'm better now.
One thing to keep in mind, to anyone who goes this route --- it takes months to get the full effect of the Wellbutrin. The first week or so can be uncomfortable, with sleeplessness and edginess, but for me that has completely disappeared, and I actually sleep better now than I ever have.
Um, how about that it works? I have vague memories of bizarro responses from Ask Jeeves, like responding with links to donut shops when I searched on Robert Fulton for my kid's homework assignment. The very first time I used Google in 2000 I saw that it was different, because it worked so well, and I really haven't used another search engine since. Maybe the others have improved since then.
If it's true that Google wasn't innovative, why was it so much better?
(One of the first times I used Google, I was searching for a song from the old Jetson's cartoon which I misspelled. Google responded with "did you mean Eep Opp Ork Ah Ah?". I had a good laugh, and became a confirmed user at that moment. No other search engine could touch that.)
It's true that internet time is replacing TV time for some of us. I find I can barely tolerate an hour of TV per week (other than the news, which I force myself to watch.) It's become so cheap, so predictable, so obviously driven by the bottom line that it's dead-dull to me, compared to the vibrance of information and entertainment available on-line.
Same goes double for radio. I think the RIAA has got nerve complaining about music downloading --- how else am I supposed to hear anything I like? Records like the Mommyheads' "Bingham's Hole" go out of print, while the radio just can't wait to spew out another sick-sweet vocal blah-blah starlet, or shallowly corporate-funded rebellion band. Arrghhh. I'm just so sick of it.
As for the world I'm seeing my kids grow up in... it's pretty depressing, because I feel like I'm in the minority. Fox news. MTV. Michael Savage gets his own show on MSNBC, for crying out loud. People running around thinking Limbaugh is an intellectual, because his lies are sometimes original. People eating bugs on TV for money. Women willing to humliate themselves in front of the entire nation for a chance at... what? for a chance at the chance to be on TV.
Americans seem to have grown mentally fat and lazy --- willing to accept anything that goes down easily, no matter how bad it is for you. As long as that's the case, we'll see more bad TV, bad movies, bad music, than good... it's easier to find and cheaper to produce.
1) My last pc (purchased early 2001) shipped with Windows ME. Come on. What was I supposed to do with that? Had it been clearly marked "Unusable Operating System" I would have waited until XP was released before buying. As it was, I sure didn't feel much like shelling out more dough for yet another MS operating system --- and I don't think I should have had to.
2) My dad bought MS's Streets & Maps (yeah, I know -- dad, did you ever heard of Mapquest?) and put it on his XP machine. Then he tried to install it on my mom's XP laptop. Which it choked because it already had gotten hooked into his machine, I guess contacting the M(other) S(hip) to tell them what he was doing. I don't think my dad should have to buy TWO versions of Streets & Maps for one household.
But, these kinds of things backfire on a corporation. People eventually get sick of it, like they did in Taiwan. What goes around comes around, I guess it's Karma.
This is just more evidence of the growing irrelevance of record companies. As technology moves forward, the record companies seem determined to find ways to decrease creativity and thwart musicians, not promote artistry. This will prove a fatal approach, in my opinion.
Musicians can now create and engineer music in their own homes with a relatively modest investment. They can advertise and distribute on the web. By charging a modest sum to download the music, they could quickly out-earn the average 35 cents a cd they now make. When someone (Napster?) comes up with the appropriate delivery vehicle for this scheme, the music-as-big-business era will have come to an end.
Record companies ought to recognize this now and stop treating their talent as noisome middlemen. It seems like they start with packaging and marketing, and add in the music as an afterthought.
But all is not lost --- great musicians want to create great music, and people will want to hear it. You can't keep the two apart.
I know a lot of Nerds who went to great schools, scored high on their SATs and did well professionally. And I know a number who didn't. I also know a few high school "winners" who went off to their Ivy Leagues and crumbled.
I feel your assertion that calling oneself a Nerd is an excuse for self-aggrandizement is off-base. I didn't think I was a Nerd then --- it's only now looking back that I realize how utterly alone I was. There were no other thirteen-yr-old girls in my small hometown reading Sartre. I was indeed different. It was indeed painful. And, what's more, I am successful now, and I do think it's interesting and worthwhile to consider how much of what made me different contributed to my success.
I think maybe you are confusing the term Nerd with Loser --- they aren't the same thing. I dont' like calling anyone a loser though. One of the things that being smart has taught me is that you can learn something from practically anyone.
Fairly predictable response, overall. Who thought this thread would escape the mythologists?
However, I would like to add that Science, in fact, did begin as a methodology for discovering the true nature of God. Problem is, the "true nature of God" that was discovered didn't jibe well with the beloved Bible mythology and was soon condemned.
Maybe my "God" doesn't have your "God's" brains, but he also doesn't send "his children" to burn in hell for all of eternity, either.
In response to: "You say that like it's a bad thing."
I'm old enough to remember a time when "yellow journalism" was considered a vice, not a ratings-booster, and character was something you had to practice, not proclaim. Things change. I used to be proud to be a liberal. Now I'm half afraid to admit it.
I still hold what I consider to be liberal views (favoring individual rights over the large corporation, for instance, and a strong belief in freedom of speech and religion) but now liberals are demonized for these views. The minute you don't toe the party line --- expressing for example that perhaps we ought to be cautious in the use of inflammatory statements such as "axis of evil" --- you're pigeonholed as a tree-hugging, bleeding heart socialist who wants to give your neighbors' money away to the derelict.
I really hate the tone of political rhetoric in this country today. September 11 was bad enough --- what the politicians and the media feeding off of them are doing now to destroy democracy is more insidious, if not as violent.
We "liberals" (at least those of us formerly known as "independent thinkers" and now derisively and indescriminately labelled liberal because we disagree with SOME extreme right rhetoric) never thought of regulations as entertainment, just a necessary evil --- for these exact reasons.
Wealthy people don't get wealthy by being nice. They have a right to get wealthy -- but they don't have a right to thwart any in the path of their greed, in any manner they choose.
Well, I agree with you --- in principle. You have the right idea, and the right approach --- however, in the world of software, no man is an island.
I love my Opera browser, really love it. I would love to BEAT Microsoft with this better software. But guess what? I have to keep IE around, don't I? You know why. Because it's impossible to get around certain sites without it. I'm just where MS wants me to be.
The only thing I can do is NOT visit sites that aren't coded to standards --- sites such as my company's on-line 401k management site.
If only it were as simple as making the software choice you want. And the main reason it's not that simple is because Microsoft doesn't want you to have that choice. They take away MY options by mucking around with standards, and it makes me mad.
it means they want to KEEP you! Don't worry about "being the first to be cut" or appearing disloyal. If your employer has that kind of vindictive attitude, you'd probably know it already, and you wouldn't even consider the counter offer.
And maybe they were underpaying you. So? They're in business and so are you. You can get more and you've proved it. They can pay more and they are willing to prove it. It's a free market. Where's the problem?
Slashdot Mirror
I did write to my bank and tell them about it; I'm fairly certain they don't care. And it's hard to judge whether or not a bank has a competent IT staff before you actually transfer in your money and start using their banking site. If it weren't for that I probably would change banks.
/. ought to "already know it". That's kind of the reason I posted. I was surprised at how many posts seemed to be completely ignoring the point. In fact, I distinctly said that in my post: "I think it's odd that so many people posted on this topic with the attitude "who cares about Opera anyway".
I agree that the people on
So whether or not saying it will "bring" me anything, people seemed to need reminding.
I use Opera, I like Opera, and I want to continue using it. It always made me a bit irritated that I HAD to pretend to be using IE to get into certain sites, even though many of them worked fine with Opera. My bank's site included in that list.
I think it's odd that so many people posted on this topic with the attitude "who cares about Opera anyway". This isn't about Opera. It's about standards.
In the IT world, we commit to standards for interoperability. We've all seen the benefits of this, whether we know it or not; open technologies, which are revolutionizing IT, and the internet itself in fact are possible only when the IT community adheres to standards.
Technology improves and consumers win when we follow standards. There are only two reasons I can think of not to: Greediness of the big players to keep hold of marketshare and the laziness of developers.
Funny, I don't agree at all. I believe, on the whole, the women I worked with in this field were more competent than the men. It seemed like they often worked harder and got less recognition than the men. I also felt that women tended to be a lot more committed to "doing it right", and ironically, thought more logically and less emotionally (read: politically) about their work.
I presumed it was because women really had to like and understand software to get into this field and stick with it.
I wasn't going to post that, because I have no way of knowing if my experience is typical. But since you mentioned it, I felt compelled.
BTW, I also taught software building tools for a vendor, and on that front, it seemed to me that women and men were roughly equal in ability.
I've been in the IT profession for 10 years now, I am good at it, and I love it. One of the things that has allowed me to succeed in this profession is that 1) I can't stand spending too much time with other people and 2) I have accepted #1.
I don't wanna go to lunch, I don't wanna go shopping, I don't wanna talk on the phone. Ever.
I want to net search a solution to my latest tech problem; I want to program a visual display of the mandelbrot set in C in my spare time. I want to crack that tricky sql query. I want to advance my Cisco certification. I want to lurk on slashdot. So, leave me alone with my machine!
But I had to accept those things about myself. It was hard for a long time, I thought something was wrong with me. I felt sorry and slighted when I knew other women were planning get togethers and lunch dates (even though I didn't want to go anyway.)
Lest you think I'm a total geek, let me add that I never had any shortage of interested men --- probably the result of being the only female around who knew what they were talking about. But that served as a bit of a distraction too!
Now I am on my second marriage, I have a son, 2 daughters, and 3 step daughters. They are all teenagers now. I have encouraged them all, since they were little, to express their opinion (even if it didn't exactly "count"!) and to not be ashamed of their perceived "failings". Most of all, I told my daughters, "Don't worry if you don't have many friends. Friends aren't everything, you know." Which was the exact opposite of what I was taught as a girl.
Now they are very strong minded, intelligent, and forward looking girls who seem unafraid of the challenges in a man-dominated world. At least for now. Time will tell if I did the right thing.
no wonder you are anonymous.
I take 150 mg Wellbutrin SR twice a day. My doctor started me off on one pill per day, taken in the morning, for the first 3 days. I haven't changed my dosage since. Once, I tried stopping the medication, just as an expiriment, a year ago. I had no withdrawal problems but my original symptoms returned.
In the beginning, I had some side effects of feeling a little edgy and hyper, and I really didn't sleep much the first week. If it hadn't been for my determination to quit smoking (Wellbutrin is also sold as Zyban) I probably would have stopped taking it. But after no more than a week, I started feeling better, and gradually over months, I kept improving.
Sometimes I think that the Wellbutrin might cause me to have more headaches. But I've always had headaches. They are not terrible, and go away with the usual aspirin or Ibuprofen.
I lost a few pounds on the Wellbutrin, maybe 5 or so. Overall, my weight is normal and steady.
I get the medication through my health insurance at a regular pharmacy.
I expect to remain on the Wellbutrin for the foreseeable future. Maybe forever. I might try going off of it again in a few years, mostly just for curiosity, if my doctor agrees. I have no side effects that would make me want to stop.
I should add, I feel unusually lucky that this medicine worked for me the way it did. It seems to address my problem, exactly. I think it's likely some people have different issues with brain chemistry and may not find it so easy to get the "perfect fit" medication.
Just out of curiosity, do you have any sleep disorders? When I was younger I had a lot of problems with a neurologic condition called Sleep Paralysis and out-of-body experiences. I always wondered if it was related to my other difficulties.
I really do believe that people like us have a condition which hasn't yet been recognized or described. It's not ADD --- because we are capable of focusing intently for long periods on something we find engaging. I'm interested in establishing a list of symptoms, if you have any to add.
I hope this helps!!
--Izora
You sound so much like me, most of my life, until a few years ago. It seemed like there were never enough hours in the day for me to get anything done. Things that other people did routinely were huge overwhelming tasks for me. I wondered how they did it. I would feel badly about my inability to get anything done, too, and this negative self-talk seemed to make it even harder to face a task.
Somehow I got through school, though, and actually did well. Fortunately I was smart so I didn't have to do as much work as others did to achieve the same results. I also did well at work, because as a software developer, I love what I do, so it's easy for me to focus on it.
But my every day personal life suffered. Household chores, bill paying, making (and keeping) appointments --- stuff like that made me crazy. In addition, I couldn't remember anything --- details like dates, phone numbers, what to get at the grocery store, even plots to movies I'd seen --- these things flew out of my head quickly without a trace. I had what I call SPADD -- "Smart Person Attention Deficit Disorder". Which means: I can figure out ANYTHING, but I can't remember shit.
About 2 1/2 years ago I started taking Wellbutrin to help me quit smoking. Not only was I able to quit smoking completely within a few months, but I found it made a radical change in my "SPADD". First, the negative self-talk stopped completely, and gradually, that strange feeling of having boulders in the way of everything I needed to do disappeared. Even decision-making became easier. I didn't have to struggle anymore just to open the mail, and all those other chores that I used to avoid.
My life has improved so much. I can't even explain it. It truly feels to me like there are more hours in the day now, and my life is more enjoyable.
Another odd thing is that music sounds better to me now. Which led me to a theory --- I think people with "SPADD" have a hyper-awareness that gets in their way of living. I was always both listening to music and THINKING about listening to music at the same time. That was true of everything I did --- I would be watching a movie AND THINKING about the experience of watching a movie, or paying bills and thinking about paying bills. I could never just "DO" it.
I love being on the Wellbutrin, I feel like I'm normal now --- which in my case is a good thing. I know there are a lot of people who are going to rant about how BAD the medication is for you or how immoral it is to rely on such a crutch --- but those people don't live my life. I'm better now.
One thing to keep in mind, to anyone who goes this route --- it takes months to get the full effect of the Wellbutrin. The first week or so can be uncomfortable, with sleeplessness and edginess, but for me that has completely disappeared, and I actually sleep better now than I ever have.
Izora
Um, how about that it works? I have vague memories of bizarro responses from Ask Jeeves, like responding with links to donut shops when I searched on Robert Fulton for my kid's homework assignment. The very first time I used Google in 2000 I saw that it was different, because it worked so well, and I really haven't used another search engine since. Maybe the others have improved since then.
If it's true that Google wasn't innovative, why was it so much better?
(One of the first times I used Google, I was searching for a song from the old Jetson's cartoon which I misspelled. Google responded with "did you mean Eep Opp Ork Ah Ah?". I had a good laugh, and became a confirmed user at that moment. No other search engine could touch that.)
It's true that internet time is replacing TV time for some of us. I find I can barely tolerate an hour of TV per week (other than the news, which I force myself to watch.) It's become so cheap, so predictable, so obviously driven by the bottom line that it's dead-dull to me, compared to the vibrance of information and entertainment available on-line.
Same goes double for radio. I think the RIAA has got nerve complaining about music downloading --- how else am I supposed to hear anything I like? Records like the Mommyheads' "Bingham's Hole" go out of print, while the radio just can't wait to spew out another sick-sweet vocal blah-blah starlet, or shallowly corporate-funded rebellion band. Arrghhh. I'm just so sick of it.
As for the world I'm seeing my kids grow up in... it's pretty depressing, because I feel like I'm in the minority. Fox news. MTV. Michael Savage gets his own show on MSNBC, for crying out loud. People running around thinking Limbaugh is an intellectual, because his lies are sometimes original. People eating bugs on TV for money. Women willing to humliate themselves in front of the entire nation for a chance at... what? for a chance at the chance to be on TV.
Americans seem to have grown mentally fat and lazy --- willing to accept anything that goes down easily, no matter how bad it is for you. As long as that's the case, we'll see more bad TV, bad movies, bad music, than good... it's easier to find and cheaper to produce.
1) My last pc (purchased early 2001) shipped with Windows ME. Come on. What was I supposed to do with that? Had it been clearly marked "Unusable Operating System" I would have waited until XP was released before buying. As it was, I sure didn't feel much like shelling out more dough for yet another MS operating system --- and I don't think I should have had to.
2) My dad bought MS's Streets & Maps (yeah, I know -- dad, did you ever heard of Mapquest?) and put it on his XP machine. Then he tried to install it on my mom's XP laptop. Which it choked because it already had gotten hooked into his machine, I guess contacting the M(other) S(hip) to tell them what he was doing. I don't think my dad should have to buy TWO versions of Streets & Maps for one household.
But, these kinds of things backfire on a corporation. People eventually get sick of it, like they did in Taiwan. What goes around comes around, I guess it's Karma.
This is just more evidence of the growing irrelevance of record companies. As technology moves forward, the record companies seem determined to find ways to decrease creativity and thwart musicians, not promote artistry. This will prove a fatal approach, in my opinion.
Musicians can now create and engineer music in their own homes with a relatively modest investment. They can advertise and distribute on the web. By charging a modest sum to download the music, they could quickly out-earn the average 35 cents a cd they now make. When someone (Napster?) comes up with the appropriate delivery vehicle for this scheme, the music-as-big-business era will have come to an end.
Record companies ought to recognize this now and stop treating their talent as noisome middlemen. It seems like they start with packaging and marketing, and add in the music as an afterthought.
But all is not lost --- great musicians want to create great music, and people will want to hear it. You can't keep the two apart.
I'm sorry, I don't agree.
I know a lot of Nerds who went to great schools, scored high on their SATs and did well professionally. And I know a number who didn't. I also know a few high school "winners" who went off to their Ivy Leagues and crumbled.
I feel your assertion that calling oneself a Nerd is an excuse for self-aggrandizement is off-base. I didn't think I was a Nerd then --- it's only now looking back that I realize how utterly alone I was. There were no other thirteen-yr-old girls in my small hometown reading Sartre. I was indeed different. It was indeed painful. And, what's more, I am successful now, and I do think it's interesting and worthwhile to consider how much of what made me different contributed to my success.
I think maybe you are confusing the term Nerd with Loser --- they aren't the same thing. I dont' like calling anyone a loser though. One of the things that being smart has taught me is that you can learn something from practically anyone.
Fairly predictable response, overall. Who thought this thread would escape the mythologists?
However, I would like to add that Science, in fact, did begin as a methodology for discovering the true nature of God. Problem is, the "true nature of God" that was discovered didn't jibe well with the beloved Bible mythology and was soon condemned.
Maybe my "God" doesn't have your "God's" brains, but he also doesn't send "his children" to burn in hell for all of eternity, either.
In response to: "You say that like it's a bad thing."
I'm old enough to remember a time when "yellow journalism" was considered a vice, not a ratings-booster, and character was something you had to practice, not proclaim. Things change. I used to be proud to be a liberal. Now I'm half afraid to admit it.
I still hold what I consider to be liberal views (favoring individual rights over the large corporation, for instance, and a strong belief in freedom of speech and religion) but now liberals are demonized for these views. The minute you don't toe the party line --- expressing for example that perhaps we ought to be cautious in the use of inflammatory statements such as "axis of evil" --- you're pigeonholed as a tree-hugging, bleeding heart socialist who wants to give your neighbors' money away to the derelict.
I really hate the tone of political rhetoric in this country today. September 11 was bad enough --- what the politicians and the media feeding off of them are doing now to destroy democracy is more insidious, if not as violent.
Let's hope.
We "liberals" (at least those of us formerly known as "independent thinkers" and now derisively and indescriminately labelled liberal because we disagree with SOME extreme right rhetoric) never thought of regulations as entertainment, just a necessary evil --- for these exact reasons.
Wealthy people don't get wealthy by being nice. They have a right to get wealthy -- but they don't have a right to thwart any in the path of their greed, in any manner they choose.
Well, I agree with you --- in principle. You have the right idea, and the right approach --- however, in the world of software, no man is an island.
I love my Opera browser, really love it. I would love to BEAT Microsoft with this better software. But guess what? I have to keep IE around, don't I? You know why. Because it's impossible to get around certain sites without it. I'm just where MS wants me to be.
The only thing I can do is NOT visit sites that aren't coded to standards --- sites such as my company's on-line 401k management site.
If only it were as simple as making the software choice you want. And the main reason it's not that simple is because Microsoft doesn't want you to have that choice. They take away MY options by mucking around with standards, and it makes me mad.
it means they want to KEEP you! Don't worry about "being the first to be cut" or appearing disloyal. If your employer has that kind of vindictive attitude, you'd probably know it already, and you wouldn't even consider the counter offer.
And maybe they were underpaying you. So? They're in business and so are you. You can get more and you've proved it. They can pay more and they are willing to prove it. It's a free market. Where's the problem?