Poker: [...] Even the best poker player cannot read them.
Not quite true. I don't know anyone who relies on seeing someone's face to get a read on them - but that's because most player play (at least some) online poker these days. You can learn a lot from how your opponents play. In that sense, it could be extremly easy to adapt to a computer player that isn't complex enough to try to fool the human from time to time.
Air hockey: It's mostly about physical speed.
That makes it sound like it's about the speed of the arm, but it's more about the speed of the brain. And no, it's no surprise that with a certain level of technology a computer can predict the path of the puck and react to it quicker than a human.
When it comes to manned flight, all we send up right now are station crews and missions to add modules to the station, with the exception of the planned flight to repair Hubble one last time. The end of shuttle operations coincides with the completion of the (scaled-back) station.
We no longer use the Shuttle for sattelite launches or science in it's own right. Unmanned launch vehicles and the permanent station residents take care those duties. Once the station is complete, there will not be a need for the number of astronaut flights we have now, until Ares/Orion is complete and we head back to the moon.
So, NASA's manned program until the new capsules are flying will consist only of putting astronauts into the station and back. That's what we'll rely on Russia for. Europe's autonomous ship can take the large supply loads up to the station, which is a secondary use for the Shuttle trips now.
Part of the beauty of the station being an international effort is that we aren't constrained to ensuring our own cargo and astronaut delivery platform while we transition from the Shuttle to Orion, because other nations can provide the capability in the interim. People keep saying we're being forced to rely on Russia and ESA, and while that's what happened when the shuttle was grounded after Columbia, it isn't true here. We're taking advantage of Russia and ESA to save big-time operational money from having two major spaceflight programs active at the same time.
While 5 years is pushing it, just what kind of laptop the old laptop is will make a difference in how it compares to modern sub-par $400 garbage laptops. I call them that from experience, because I've bought two in the last two years. And while next year's cheapest laptops will still be garbage, they're sure to be better than the single-core POS with 512MB RAM that I got last year.
On the other hand, I just went shopping again and picked up a Gateway FX laptop for $1400 - I do not expect to see a cheapo $400 laptop that will surpass it on gaming for several years to come.
Right, if it's in the employee handbook/manual/P&P/whatever that they'll pay unused PTO/vacation/whatever when you resign, then they have to follow that.
Some laws just define the "default" rules of employment, and if your company explicitly states otherwise, it won't apply. You agreed to it by working there in the first place.
Check your contract of employment and employee handbook before you assume that.
Every place I've worked in the last 10 years has had a little notice about it being an "at-will" contract, which means that either party may terminate the employment at any time, without notice, without reason. There are some exceptions, like discrimination, or if your employee handbook guarantees something in particular about providing notice. Most I've seen repeat the at-will clause and state something about how they may accommodate 2 weeks notice, as a courtesy, at their choice.
So, yeah, if I gave notice they could show me the door and ask me not to come back, and not be obligated to pay me a penny beyond the time I actually put in.
All that's happening is that they are selling more of their product than they've ever sold before. I don't have any big statistics, but it doesn't seem reasonable that oil companies were selling less oil in the late '90s than in the early '90s. Yet, they certainly were not making the kind of money they had made just a few years before: oil fell below $15/barrel, and they faced serious financial problems.
Just the fact they're "selling more than ever before" doesn't necessarily mean they will be raking in the money. There's more to the equation than that.
Otherwise it's like having a flu vaccine released by managers that went nowhere near an immunologist or virologist. Well, you'd never find an immunologist or virologist going over every single vial of vaccine that is sent out. They're involved in the production process, but the only people overseeing the mundane daily release of product are your average QA folks.
Probably the only person who looked over this file before it was released was a lawyer and some manager somewhere.
I've encountered a couple of 3d packages that were intuitive (Lightwave 3 is one. I just sat down and started working with it.) Alan Hastings is personally responsible for wasting uncounted days - no, make that months - of my childhood. When I was 10 years old, we got our VT 0.9 system, after years of hype. I'd previously been intimidated by Imagine, but without anyone telling me what to do (my dad was as clueless as I when it came to 3D) or reading any manuals (sans pictures in the pre-release printing) I quickly began to model space ships, stage epic space battles, and render animations looooong into the night (to be later single-framed to 3/4" SP, the hardest part of the whole process).
Dunno if it's worth noting that LW didn't conform to standard interface rules either, even on the Amiga, which is where this particular thread started.
I am very, very, very skeptical that this system will produce a high-quality 3D-like image in the way the IMAX does, or Cinerama did. I don't think anyone sinking a whopping $200 into this should reasonably expect a high-quality experience comparable to IMAX.
But people mention the price as though it is cheaper than anything else you can get. The summary itself mentions perceiving the "appeal of the original was the ridiculously low price."
I'll stick with the sub-$500 laptops I've been buying for my family, with dual-core processors, widescreen 15" LCDs, fullsize keyboards, plenty of storage space, and DVD+/-RW drives.
It is precisely because they are no-compromise panels that they have a matte finish that doesn't have those issues. Someone could probably engineer a "glossy" panel that does the same, except they can already do the job with a matte finish, so why bother?
I use a Samsung 214T at work, a matte LCD panel, and it is absolutely beautiful. I'd buy them for all my computers at home, if I could. I agree that when you're talking top-quality, highly engineered monitors, those with a matte finish can make crisp and clean color and contrast.
On the other hand, the 15" or 17" matte panels I see around on other systems here are abysmal. They were the absolute cheapest model that could be bought, apparently, and it makes me quite glad to have glossy screens on all three of my most recent laptops. Looking at comparible screens in-store and at home, I find cheap glossy monitors provide better color, contrast, brightness, and overall picture than cheap mattes. I do miss the nice (matte) screen my old Gateway laptop from 1998 had, but back then I was buying a $2500 laptop and these days I end up buying the $500 special.
Ha! Seeing black-on-gray perform well vindicates my old website design, in which I imitated the Amiga 2.x color scheme. (Everyone else just called it old-fashioned, because it resembled using Mosaic or an early Netscape browser.)
The law may be the law, but laws are different in different places.
Where I grew up, if you don't bother to make sure you either have a light-protected right-of-way, or make sure the cross traffic has deferred the right-of-way to you, it's your fault you stepped into traffic. On the other hand, being a little town in the middle of the country, most people were polite enough to stop and let you cross anywhere, crosswalk or not.
Where I live now, we have two types of crosswalks. In a yellow-lined crosswalk, a pedestrian has right-of-way across the entire street as soon as they step into it. In a white-lined crosswalk, traffic only has to defer the right-of-way to a pedestrian in their lane of traffic. (Generally, school zones generally have the yellow-line variety. Plus flashing red lights to remind you. Plus two crossing guards with stop signs to make sure you really get the point.)
(Of course, what good is a law that isn't enforced? Last month, a motorcycle zipped around a car stopped at an intersection to wait for a pedestrian and killed the 10-year-old that was crossing the street on a weekend. That's breaking the law in all sorts of ways. He wasn't cited. Personally, I'll take the crossing guards, thanks.)
It's about society as a whole taking care of it's less fortunate members.
I absolutely agree. However, that has nothing to do with rights or privileges. The ability to get a shiny new goretex endograft or drug-coated stent for an aortic aneurysm is a priviliege, no matter how you look at it. It might be a privilege you pay for, or your insurance, or the government. But you don't gain the right to receive that new fancy technology just because someone invented it.
I've received foodstamps, daycare assistance, and financial aid in the past - that's why I picked them. My family now makes >$100k and I'm happy to pay my share of taxes back so that others have the same opportunities. I think they are, generally, good programs. And unconstitutional. *shrug*
For me, I ideologically believe that health care is a right of everyone and not a privilege for those that can afford it.
I just can't understand this position. Yes, healthcare in the US needs to be changed, because our current system (which I am a part of) is broken. And yes, I'm in favor of some sort of universal healthcare as the best answer to the situation.
But I'll never claim that healthcare is a right. The basic concept of "rights" is that we have a right to think, say, do what we want, when it doesn't infringe on the same rights of others. I'll agree you have the "right" to eat, but you don't have the "right" to force me to serve you dinner. Similarly, I could agree you have the "right" to care for your own health as you see fit, but no "right" to force me to provide care to you.
Of course, that means it's probably unconstitutional, and similarly foodstamps or daycare assistance or student financial aid. Oh well, when have we ever let that stand in the way?
Not everyone is blessed with being surrounded by "professionals."
I work in an OR. We have badge-readers on every entrance into the OR, plus another set for the locker rooms, so you can be pretty sure only employees and medical staff are wandering around. However, we have a very diverse population, from neurosurgeons to housekeepers who can't speak English. When I first started, I used to leave my locker unlocked (the combination locks are miserable, it usually takes several tries to get them to open) - until I had a $20 bill stolen out of my wallet. I've also had a flash drive walk off after I accidently left it in a computer for an hour. At least two surgeons have had iPods stolen right out of the OR rooms, either by staff or students. As far as company assets go, several laptop CD drives have disappeared, and even an entire laptop system - including the rolling cart it was cable-locked to - went missing one night.
Upstairs, in the support department, I share an office space with data entry clerks and clinical lead nurses. I know them all and assume I can trust them. This may seem petty, but after one vacation last year I came back to find someone had exchanged my nice Dell keyboard with a very cheap Belkin, complete with a sticky numpad. Most of the keyboards around were the same model, and everyone around claimed innocence. My typing rate was abysmal during the week I waited for I/S to bring me a new keyboard (which I've taken care to document the serial number from, so if it happens again I can hunt down the culprit).
Still, "go find another job" isn't a helpful solution. I do worry about my things being stolen, but that doesn't drive me to find employment elsewhere. I work for the only private non-profit hospital in our region, a hospital that doesn't receive any of the charities, endowments, grants, or state funding that all the other hospitals around us receive, yet consistently has better outcomes than any of them. I have a good boss and friends I enjoy working with. I may not be compensated quite as well here as I would in some other hospitals, but I still make a good wage. No, I won't let a couple of unidentified bad apples spoil the otherwise positive work environment I have - instead I put some effort into securing my personal belongings, and go on about my day.
Considering they use the same essential technology in the OR - just drills that cost $10,000 each - and some kinds of brain surgery are routinely done under local anesthetic... this is less impressive to me than someone performing an emergency trach with a ball-point pen.
(Which they actually taught us about in nursing school, though I've forgotten the details by now.)
The doors are open but you need a membership to buy merchandise. You can look around for free, though.
Costco won't let you enter without a membership card, so they already do restrict access as you said.
(Now, sometimes they don't pay very close attention. I went almost a whole year without them asking to see my card at the door, but they've started up again recently.)
The corporate environment I'm in rather encourages this. First of all, you copy as many people as possible to CYA - my direct boss specifically asks to be CC'd on anything I send out of department, others include their bosses on the replies, sometimes adding a couple of VPs if they think there might be a person to blame for something or another, and so it piles up.
Also, it's considered "proper" to top-post and include all prior emails in the chain so that one can easily reference previous points of the conversation without searching through Outlook. I was the only person in my circle of correspondance that trimmed my replies, so I gave up bothering. Someone was bound to get upset at me for it, at some point.
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Poker: [...] Even the best poker player cannot read them.
Not quite true. I don't know anyone who relies on seeing someone's face to get a read on them - but that's because most player play (at least some) online poker these days. You can learn a lot from how your opponents play. In that sense, it could be extremly easy to adapt to a computer player that isn't complex enough to try to fool the human from time to time.
Air hockey: It's mostly about physical speed.
That makes it sound like it's about the speed of the arm, but it's more about the speed of the brain. And no, it's no surprise that with a certain level of technology a computer can predict the path of the puck and react to it quicker than a human.
When it comes to manned flight, all we send up right now are station crews and missions to add modules to the station, with the exception of the planned flight to repair Hubble one last time. The end of shuttle operations coincides with the completion of the (scaled-back) station.
We no longer use the Shuttle for sattelite launches or science in it's own right. Unmanned launch vehicles and the permanent station residents take care those duties. Once the station is complete, there will not be a need for the number of astronaut flights we have now, until Ares/Orion is complete and we head back to the moon.
So, NASA's manned program until the new capsules are flying will consist only of putting astronauts into the station and back. That's what we'll rely on Russia for. Europe's autonomous ship can take the large supply loads up to the station, which is a secondary use for the Shuttle trips now.
Part of the beauty of the station being an international effort is that we aren't constrained to ensuring our own cargo and astronaut delivery platform while we transition from the Shuttle to Orion, because other nations can provide the capability in the interim. People keep saying we're being forced to rely on Russia and ESA, and while that's what happened when the shuttle was grounded after Columbia, it isn't true here. We're taking advantage of Russia and ESA to save big-time operational money from having two major spaceflight programs active at the same time.
I don't think I've ever seen someone with a higher userid than mine making a point about how low their userid is. At least mine is 5 digits. ;)
Of course, I just made your prediction about starting a new thread true, thereby giving your comments credibility. Damn.
I don't know any alcoholics, just people who routinely go binge drinking every couple days.
I mean, you're not really an alcoholic unless you attend AA meetings.
Now, I've heard mouse ball jokes before, but I can't say I've ever heard moth ball jokes. Must be a generational thing. ;)
While 5 years is pushing it, just what kind of laptop the old laptop is will make a difference in how it compares to modern sub-par $400 garbage laptops. I call them that from experience, because I've bought two in the last two years. And while next year's cheapest laptops will still be garbage, they're sure to be better than the single-core POS with 512MB RAM that I got last year.
On the other hand, I just went shopping again and picked up a Gateway FX laptop for $1400 - I do not expect to see a cheapo $400 laptop that will surpass it on gaming for several years to come.
I like the wording of "around the world" but they can still weasel out of it by pointing out they said "many," not "all."
Since Amazon lists it for $500 as well, it seems that is not the case.
Right, if it's in the employee handbook/manual/P&P/whatever that they'll pay unused PTO/vacation/whatever when you resign, then they have to follow that.
Some laws just define the "default" rules of employment, and if your company explicitly states otherwise, it won't apply. You agreed to it by working there in the first place.
Check your contract of employment and employee handbook before you assume that.
Every place I've worked in the last 10 years has had a little notice about it being an "at-will" contract, which means that either party may terminate the employment at any time, without notice, without reason. There are some exceptions, like discrimination, or if your employee handbook guarantees something in particular about providing notice. Most I've seen repeat the at-will clause and state something about how they may accommodate 2 weeks notice, as a courtesy, at their choice.
So, yeah, if I gave notice they could show me the door and ask me not to come back, and not be obligated to pay me a penny beyond the time I actually put in.
Just the fact they're "selling more than ever before" doesn't necessarily mean they will be raking in the money. There's more to the equation than that.
Probably the only person who looked over this file before it was released was a lawyer and some manager somewhere.
Coward, perhaps. Anonymous, not so much.
Dunno if it's worth noting that LW didn't conform to standard interface rules either, even on the Amiga, which is where this particular thread started.
But people mention the price as though it is cheaper than anything else you can get. The summary itself mentions perceiving the "appeal of the original was the ridiculously low price."
I'll stick with the sub-$500 laptops I've been buying for my family, with dual-core processors, widescreen 15" LCDs, fullsize keyboards, plenty of storage space, and DVD+/-RW drives.
It is precisely because they are no-compromise panels that they have a matte finish that doesn't have those issues. Someone could probably engineer a "glossy" panel that does the same, except they can already do the job with a matte finish, so why bother?
I use a Samsung 214T at work, a matte LCD panel, and it is absolutely beautiful. I'd buy them for all my computers at home, if I could. I agree that when you're talking top-quality, highly engineered monitors, those with a matte finish can make crisp and clean color and contrast.
On the other hand, the 15" or 17" matte panels I see around on other systems here are abysmal. They were the absolute cheapest model that could be bought, apparently, and it makes me quite glad to have glossy screens on all three of my most recent laptops. Looking at comparible screens in-store and at home, I find cheap glossy monitors provide better color, contrast, brightness, and overall picture than cheap mattes. I do miss the nice (matte) screen my old Gateway laptop from 1998 had, but back then I was buying a $2500 laptop and these days I end up buying the $500 special.
Ha! Seeing black-on-gray perform well vindicates my old website design, in which I imitated the Amiga 2.x color scheme. (Everyone else just called it old-fashioned, because it resembled using Mosaic or an early Netscape browser.)
The law may be the law, but laws are different in different places.
Where I grew up, if you don't bother to make sure you either have a light-protected right-of-way, or make sure the cross traffic has deferred the right-of-way to you, it's your fault you stepped into traffic. On the other hand, being a little town in the middle of the country, most people were polite enough to stop and let you cross anywhere, crosswalk or not.
Where I live now, we have two types of crosswalks. In a yellow-lined crosswalk, a pedestrian has right-of-way across the entire street as soon as they step into it. In a white-lined crosswalk, traffic only has to defer the right-of-way to a pedestrian in their lane of traffic. (Generally, school zones generally have the yellow-line variety. Plus flashing red lights to remind you. Plus two crossing guards with stop signs to make sure you really get the point.)
(Of course, what good is a law that isn't enforced? Last month, a motorcycle zipped around a car stopped at an intersection to wait for a pedestrian and killed the 10-year-old that was crossing the street on a weekend. That's breaking the law in all sorts of ways. He wasn't cited. Personally, I'll take the crossing guards, thanks.)
It's about society as a whole taking care of it's less fortunate members.
I absolutely agree. However, that has nothing to do with rights or privileges. The ability to get a shiny new goretex endograft or drug-coated stent for an aortic aneurysm is a priviliege, no matter how you look at it. It might be a privilege you pay for, or your insurance, or the government. But you don't gain the right to receive that new fancy technology just because someone invented it.
I've received foodstamps, daycare assistance, and financial aid in the past - that's why I picked them. My family now makes >$100k and I'm happy to pay my share of taxes back so that others have the same opportunities. I think they are, generally, good programs. And unconstitutional. *shrug*
-Jupo
For me, I ideologically believe that health care is a right of everyone and not a privilege for those that can afford it.
I just can't understand this position. Yes, healthcare in the US needs to be changed, because our current system (which I am a part of) is broken. And yes, I'm in favor of some sort of universal healthcare as the best answer to the situation.
But I'll never claim that healthcare is a right. The basic concept of "rights" is that we have a right to think, say, do what we want, when it doesn't infringe on the same rights of others. I'll agree you have the "right" to eat, but you don't have the "right" to force me to serve you dinner. Similarly, I could agree you have the "right" to care for your own health as you see fit, but no "right" to force me to provide care to you.
Of course, that means it's probably unconstitutional, and similarly foodstamps or daycare assistance or student financial aid. Oh well, when have we ever let that stand in the way?
-Jupo
Not everyone is blessed with being surrounded by "professionals."
I work in an OR. We have badge-readers on every entrance into the OR, plus another set for the locker rooms, so you can be pretty sure only employees and medical staff are wandering around. However, we have a very diverse population, from neurosurgeons to housekeepers who can't speak English. When I first started, I used to leave my locker unlocked (the combination locks are miserable, it usually takes several tries to get them to open) - until I had a $20 bill stolen out of my wallet. I've also had a flash drive walk off after I accidently left it in a computer for an hour. At least two surgeons have had iPods stolen right out of the OR rooms, either by staff or students. As far as company assets go, several laptop CD drives have disappeared, and even an entire laptop system - including the rolling cart it was cable-locked to - went missing one night.
Upstairs, in the support department, I share an office space with data entry clerks and clinical lead nurses. I know them all and assume I can trust them. This may seem petty, but after one vacation last year I came back to find someone had exchanged my nice Dell keyboard with a very cheap Belkin, complete with a sticky numpad. Most of the keyboards around were the same model, and everyone around claimed innocence. My typing rate was abysmal during the week I waited for I/S to bring me a new keyboard (which I've taken care to document the serial number from, so if it happens again I can hunt down the culprit).
Still, "go find another job" isn't a helpful solution. I do worry about my things being stolen, but that doesn't drive me to find employment elsewhere. I work for the only private non-profit hospital in our region, a hospital that doesn't receive any of the charities, endowments, grants, or state funding that all the other hospitals around us receive, yet consistently has better outcomes than any of them. I have a good boss and friends I enjoy working with. I may not be compensated quite as well here as I would in some other hospitals, but I still make a good wage. No, I won't let a couple of unidentified bad apples spoil the otherwise positive work environment I have - instead I put some effort into securing my personal belongings, and go on about my day.
Considering they use the same essential technology in the OR - just drills that cost $10,000 each - and some kinds of brain surgery are routinely done under local anesthetic... this is less impressive to me than someone performing an emergency trach with a ball-point pen.
(Which they actually taught us about in nursing school, though I've forgotten the details by now.)
Just FYI.
The doors are open but you need a membership to buy merchandise. You can look around for free, though.
Costco won't let you enter without a membership card, so they already do restrict access as you said.
(Now, sometimes they don't pay very close attention. I went almost a whole year without them asking to see my card at the door, but they've started up again recently.)
The corporate environment I'm in rather encourages this. First of all, you copy as many people as possible to CYA - my direct boss specifically asks to be CC'd on anything I send out of department, others include their bosses on the replies, sometimes adding a couple of VPs if they think there might be a person to blame for something or another, and so it piles up.
Also, it's considered "proper" to top-post and include all prior emails in the chain so that one can easily reference previous points of the conversation without searching through Outlook. I was the only person in my circle of correspondance that trimmed my replies, so I gave up bothering. Someone was bound to get upset at me for it, at some point.