Why am I not surprised to hear glowing reports of this system from someone who paid money to attend his "trainer's seminars"...? Why am I not surprised to hear that the system only works best if you take a paid seminar from a trained seminar provider.. like the guy who wrote that message?
This whole thing reminds me of my old boss who used to lecture me about "goal displacement." Instead of working towards your goal, you get into irrelevant but seemingly important tasks. It's like the writer who can't get started until he sharpens all his pencils. This system is just another huge goal displacement activity for people who have no idea what their goals are. To replace real goals with rigid to-do-list methodology is substituting activity for achievement.
The problem is, CDs aren't designed to be driven by the edge, they're designed to be driven from the center spindle. Your design would probably compress the CD and crack it. I think my spinning top idea, to spin up the CD and then flick it, would work best.
Think spinning tops, not frisbees.
on
Homemade CD Shooter?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I can easily think of a mechanism to make this gadget work. Let me give you a few hints and you can work out the rest.
Think about tops, not disks. You guys are all thinking about spinning a CD down a slot. Instead, think of it as a spinning top revolving on its axis, like a CD is designed to do. Nothing says you can't modify the CD slightly. You could glue a small spindle into the center of the CD, or just cut a small slot in the edge of the center hole, so you can make a removable spindle with a keyed rod that goes in the slot to keep the CD from slipping.
So if you've understood what I'm getting at, you now have a CD with a little wooden spindle sticking up from the top and bottom. Essentially you now have a very thin, wide top. It used to be fairly common to have wooden top "launchers" or "brackets" with notches that held the top and bottom spindle on a top. In this case, you'd need a piece of wood about an inch thick and about 1 foot long. Cut a slot down the center of the wood to allow the CD to pass through. Cut a V shaped notch across the end of the stick, perpendicular to the slot.
Now you can set the spindle of the "CD top" in the notch. Wrap some string around the spindle, pull, and you've got the CD spinning at high RPM. flick the rod and your CD is flying.
I looked around the web and this page is about as close as I came to finding a top bracket.
http://www.turnertoys.com/tops4_toddlers.htm
You can kind of see what I'm getting at, but this version just drops the top down, it's not intended for tossing, and the plane of the top isn't centered in the bracket, it's below. But I think you'll get the idea. Now go build it..
I have never EVER made a mistake that caused major data loss or other catastrophe. Never. Really. I'm not kidding. But I know what I'm doing. I've also never had a single piece of hardware ever die on me. I must lead a charmed life.
But I have been close at hand when major disasters occurred. For example.. I used to work at a computer store, back in mid 1980s Compaq used to sell these huge portables with a plasma screen, you could attach them to a docking station which was damn huge. But there was one major problem with the design, if you pulled the laptop out of the docking station when the power was on, it blew the motherboard of the laptop. I kept telling the boss that we should not have a demo machine on display with the laptop plugged into the docking station, someday, a customer would pull the laptop out and fry the machine. And of course, one day as I was demoing the machine, before I could stop him, a customer pulled the machine and blew up the laptop. I was furious, this was one of my top selling machines, and I wouldn't be selling any if I couldn't demo it. When the customer realized what he'd done, he started to make motions towards the door, I think he wanted to flee in panic. I told him I'd like him to talk to the owner and tell him what happened. He refused, and said he wasn't going to pay for the damages. I told him I don't expect him to pay for the damages but it wasn't my call, I figured if he talked to the owner, then maybe he could get a supporting statement for insurance purposes. But it wasn't my call. I dumped the customer in the owners office and washed my hands of the situation. The demo machine got replaced after about a week. This time, the machine was firmly strapped down to the base station so it could not be removed. I have a reputation in the trade as "Mr. I-told-you-so" because the disasters (like this one) that I warn people against always come true. Why oh WHY don't people ever listen?
There won't be ANY channels in the future. There will be programming sources we'd probably consider as networks under today's standards, but there won't be broadcast schedules with programs being shown at specific times of day. It will all be on-demand programming, eventually.
You are confused. But that is not surprising since the story is confusing, and flat out incorrect. The website with the demo video is from a company named Time Domain, it is not the product from Camero Inc. that is mentioned in the main story. It is not the Israeli invention, in fact, the WND story mentions Time Domain as Camero's competitor, with an inferior product. Camero doesn't seem to have ANY internet presence, I searched and couldn't find anything.
This story is screwed up. The two links don't have anything to do with each other. The WorldNetDaily story talks about an invention by an Israeli company Camero Inc, but the/. story link is to an American company called Time Domain. The WND story even mentions Time Domain as a competitor to Camero Inc and supposedly Camero's radar is superior. WTF? Someone messed up when putting this/. story together. I couldn't even find any online presence for Camero Inc.
Take this story with a huge grain of salt. WND is not a very reliable news source. It's right up there with NewsMax and Washington Times as lunatic fringe pseudojournalism.
I don't read the mainstream crap everyone else does, what would be the point of that? I read: The Art Newspaper
Geijutsu Shincho (a japanese art magazine) MdN, a graphic design magazine from Japan. Since I can read Japanese, I can steal tips from them and use them for a couple of years before anyone outside Japan discovers them.
For computer geekery, I read MacPower. If you've never read Japanese computer magazines, you're really missing out. They're far more detailed and comprehensive than anything published in the US. Also CGWORLD is another rather good Japanese magazine covering 3D and animation topics.
For English media, I like Computer Arts Magazine, I can't count all the times CA has saved one of my projects by publishing some vital tip that had me stumped. Photoshop User Magazine is consistently useful. EFX Art & Design Magazine is also one of my favorite graphics magazines, oddly it is published in Sweden but in English.
I distinctly recall hearing about the compressed air launchers several years ago in a documentary about fireworks, probably Discovery Channel or something boring like that. I don't recall exactly when this was, but it had to be at least 3 or 4 years ago. They said Disney used compressed air to shoot fireworks, and detonated them by radio with with cheap microprocessorized detonators. The system was designed to give more accuracy over height of detonation, you just shot everything upwards at full force, and blew them up by computer controlled time delays based on calculations of weight of the projectile. So anyway, this isn't exactly news, some people have known about this for years.
I don't think you quite understand the concept of CRTs. I didn't say anything about brightness, given two settings of equal brightness and different contrast, the lower contrast setting will be less legible. There is an optimal contrast/brightness setting, there are objective standards for this setting combination. Reducing contrast will reduce legibility. If you're seeing glare, you either need to clean your eyeglasses, or consult an opthamologist to see if you have problems with your eyes.
Reducing contrast on your display makes no sense. If you want the text to be easily readable, you need high contrast. Lowering the contrast will make it LESS readable in comparison, causing MORE eyestrain. See your optometrist. He set me up with glasses specifically for working on a computer screen, at that distance and size. Works great for me.
Not heartless, just stupid. Someday, if nobody preserves the computers of the past, there will be a time when nobody remembers when computers ran code freely without DRM or GUIDs, or the time when computers broke away from their guardians and anyone could afford one, and the times when people and their computers communicated freely over a cooperative internet. People have short memories, they won't remember a time when there was anything besides Windows 2025 and Skynet. And a whole generation will never know about our short lived revolution in computing. What good will the EFF be then?
Yeah, I remember an even simpler Pop Mech story. The guy started with a self-powered gas mower. He attached a rope between a drum and the mower. It ran in a spiral around the drum, the diameter of the drum was arranged so it shortened the rope 1 mower-width per revolution. Just jab the drum in teh center of your lawn, start up the mower and it mowed a nice clean circular area. Then you just clean up the corners of the yard manually, the big areas are already done.
Simple, effective, and does 80% of the job without any complex computer crap. You can do the last 20% yourself.
Well, my name was in the credits, but it only appeared when you exit the multimedia project. Of course I have copies of all the original files. But the point was moot, the guy got his MFA degree and moved on before the award was given. I could presumably put this work in my portfolio and legitimately claim I did award-winning work, but I'd probably feel like I was just as dishonest as the guy who claimed the award for my work.
You missed the point of the story of the gallery offering to sell the $2000 photo for $200. They failed to realize the market value for this work, and deprived themselves of a cut of a $2000 sale. Yes it would have been more work to find a buyer for a $2000 print than a $200 print, but not 10x the work. So they just screwed themselves out of the profit, and they have to sell 10 $200 prints to make the same money as if they'd have sold my print for serious money.
And yes, I know how artists are always starving which is why I decided to learn computers in the first place, so I'd always have a profession where I could earn real money. But when I tried to integrate the two professions by working in graphics production studios, I discovered I always had to compete with people who were amateurs and had no arts training, they drove down the price of labor because "art is easy, anyone can do it." Yeah right.
Your attempt to deflect blame for your ridiculous offer isn't going to work. I am the only person in this whole discussion who has actually done work as you have described. Let me tell you how this works.
After working in graphics production for many years in LA, I went back to my old university to finish my art degree. I was disgusted at my old employer because they were charging $80/hour for my work but paying me about $10 (this was in the late 1980s), I figured I'd earn more if I finished my BFA. So one day in the Art building I notice a flyer on the bulletin board. Some guy in the Theater department is doing a multimedia MFA thesis on CDROM, he wants someone to do the interface design and graphics to wrap around his videos and text. It was a groundbreaking project, nobody had ever done a thesis on CDROM before. So I decided, what the fuck, I need to keep up my skills, I'll help the guy out for free. Total time about 10 hours, it would have cost him a thou if he'd contracted with my old studio, but he got it for nothing, all I got was a credit. So about a year later, I'm reading the newspaper about how a local theater student won a national award for his innovative interface design on his multimedia MFA thesis. Bastard didn't even acknowledge that I did the work, he took all the credit for himself. Meanwhile, I'm trying to pitch my real artwork to the local galleries. I work in an antique photo process, I'm one of only about 3 people in the world who work in this particular process, it can take me a week to make a color print, it's very labor intensive, and the materials cost hundreds of bucks. I showed them one of my best prints, it cost me about $150 in materials alone to make. The gallery loves the work and wants to sell it, but they want to sell it for $200 and take a 55% cut, which would mean I'd lose money selling the prints. I inform them that prints of this type usually sell for about $2000 and tell them to take a hike.
It is obvious you really do not understand how artists work. They're always getting offers to do work for nothing. They're always doing hugely expensive projects of their own, they'd rather be doing their personal artwork at their own expense than doing someone else's drudgework at their own expense.
Yeah, this is exactly the response they always get from employers who discover their job offer is listed on FTJ. Usually it's some asshole offers minimum wage for a job involving design, programming, and sys engineering, and when called out on it, they ALWAYS reply "I've already got a whole bunch of people who applied and are happy to find work at $5.15/hr with no benefits. If that's too low for you then there's always someone who will do the work for the price I want to pay."
What you are failing to realize is that anyone who can do your art and design work does not need to practice, they already have the skills. Your offer is known in the business press as "the race to the bottom" or "walmartization," you're trying to convince people that their work is worth less because there's always some guy who will do it cheaper. So go find them. Hint: try free clip art.
Just submit your job offers directly to this website. You'll save them the trouble of tracking down your job offer and subjecting it to humiliating attention. Be sure to come visit the chat boards so we can abuse you personally, ya cheap bastard.
Your request is similar to what I see over and over on FTJ. For some reason people think that students or unemployed artists and designers feel like giving away their labor for nothing. For example, someone found a job offer up on Craig's List seeking a candidate with skills in Photoshop & Illustrator, LiveMotion, Premier, FireworksMX, FlashMX, DreamweaverMX & FrontPage, HomeSite, JavaScript, ASP/php, and MS IIS. For all this, they want to pay $8 per hour. Sorry, not going to happen. Fortunately Craig's List prohibits this sort of exploitive ad and removed it from their listings.
No, you don't get a free ride because you are producing an open source project. If you want professional quality, you'll have to pay professionals at the going rate. No, art students don't want to give you free work in exchange for a portfolio piece, they can crank out any portfolio piece they like without having to meet the demands of a cheap client. Being an art student is very expensive, art supplies and materials cost real money (yes, even computers and software).
I used to work at the largest apple dealer in the US, back in the 1980s. We took sales seriously, but this was before the computer market got commoditized, we could afford to have professional computer experts as sales reps. I don't know if that's possible today. But when I deal with independent computer stores today, I am appalled. I was just helping a friend via email on buying a new iBook, he had an old iBook and wanted an upgrade. He went to a local independent dealer, they quoted him the same prices on the iBook as the Apple Store, but gouged him for upgrades. Like $250 for a 256Mb RAM stick plus $110 to install. They're insane, even an Apple Store RAM upgrade in a Build To Order machine doesn't cost that much, and BTO prices are a bit on the high side. When I worked in computer sales, we used to call accessory sales "point builders" because you could sell a CPU cheap but build up the profit percentage (points) with accessories. But this independent dealer was way out of line. In today's market, dealers are expected to make profits with service beyond the sale, but that's not going to happen with customers who buy overpriced accessories. They're eventually going to learn the true value of what they bought, realize they got a raw deal, and they're not going to be inclined to go back. Don't people know the most basic sales lessons? Your best customers are your previous customers. Keep them happy and they come back and bring their friends.
I want to know what poor guy gets stuck cleaning the M&Ms out of the cockpit. I'm sure they all melted in the desert heat once the spacecraft sat on the runway for a few minutes. This isn't exactly the best way to treat a cockpit full of fancy electronics, to bathe them in blobs of sugary fat.
hey, no fair poking fun, my first computer was an 8080A running at 2MHz.
But seriously, there is no damn way I'd overclock my dualie 1GHz MDD G4. With 4 internal hard drives and the Apple swapped-out reduced noise power supply, it's already blazing hot. If I close the door to my office, and I'm doing something CPU intensive like video compression, the room temp will quickly rise to about 90 degrees, despite my central air conditioning. But then, I have a really small office.
Oh, ferchrissake, stop spouting that old FUD about how Windoze market dominance means it's the preferred target for viruses, and if Mac had a 90% share, it would be targeted too. It's just not true.
You're missing the point. In my idea, the routers would be preconfigured to that class of students' computers only, only those students would have access via a fixed password. Then disconnect the router to shut it down at the end of the class. This only deals with time limits on access, not on who can access, that has to be dealt with through regular router configuration. The time restriction seems to be the toughest problem. Of course I'm presuming the router has some sort of NVRAM to keep configuration data between classes, when it's powered down.
There must be an idiot-simple workaround. Wireless routers are dirt cheap, maybe the simplest solution would be just to give a preconfigured wireless router to each teacher, have them take it with them to class, and remove it when their class is done. Then they can physically remove the access point when it's not being used for their class. Each class could have a different preconfigged router, just plug and go for the duration of the class. But I suspect there must be some reason why this wouldn't work.
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Why am I not surprised to hear glowing reports of this system from someone who paid money to attend his "trainer's seminars"...? Why am I not surprised to hear that the system only works best if you take a paid seminar from a trained seminar provider.. like the guy who wrote that message?
This whole thing reminds me of my old boss who used to lecture me about "goal displacement." Instead of working towards your goal, you get into irrelevant but seemingly important tasks. It's like the writer who can't get started until he sharpens all his pencils. This system is just another huge goal displacement activity for people who have no idea what their goals are. To replace real goals with rigid to-do-list methodology is substituting activity for achievement.
The problem is, CDs aren't designed to be driven by the edge, they're designed to be driven from the center spindle. Your design would probably compress the CD and crack it. I think my spinning top idea, to spin up the CD and then flick it, would work best.
I can easily think of a mechanism to make this gadget work. Let me give you a few hints and you can work out the rest.
Think about tops, not disks. You guys are all thinking about spinning a CD down a slot. Instead, think of it as a spinning top revolving on its axis, like a CD is designed to do. Nothing says you can't modify the CD slightly. You could glue a small spindle into the center of the CD, or just cut a small slot in the edge of the center hole, so you can make a removable spindle with a keyed rod that goes in the slot to keep the CD from slipping.
So if you've understood what I'm getting at, you now have a CD with a little wooden spindle sticking up from the top and bottom. Essentially you now have a very thin, wide top. It used to be fairly common to have wooden top "launchers" or "brackets" with notches that held the top and bottom spindle on a top. In this case, you'd need a piece of wood about an inch thick and about 1 foot long. Cut a slot down the center of the wood to allow the CD to pass through. Cut a V shaped notch across the end of the stick, perpendicular to the slot.
Now you can set the spindle of the "CD top" in the notch. Wrap some string around the spindle, pull, and you've got the CD spinning at high RPM. flick the rod and your CD is flying.
I looked around the web and this page is about as close as I came to finding a top bracket.
http://www.turnertoys.com/tops4_toddlers.htm
You can kind of see what I'm getting at, but this version just drops the top down, it's not intended for tossing, and the plane of the top isn't centered in the bracket, it's below. But I think you'll get the idea. Now go build it..
I have never EVER made a mistake that caused major data loss or other catastrophe. Never. Really. I'm not kidding. But I know what I'm doing. I've also never had a single piece of hardware ever die on me. I must lead a charmed life.
But I have been close at hand when major disasters occurred. For example.. I used to work at a computer store, back in mid 1980s Compaq used to sell these huge portables with a plasma screen, you could attach them to a docking station which was damn huge. But there was one major problem with the design, if you pulled the laptop out of the docking station when the power was on, it blew the motherboard of the laptop.
I kept telling the boss that we should not have a demo machine on display with the laptop plugged into the docking station, someday, a customer would pull the laptop out and fry the machine. And of course, one day as I was demoing the machine, before I could stop him, a customer pulled the machine and blew up the laptop. I was furious, this was one of my top selling machines, and I wouldn't be selling any if I couldn't demo it. When the customer realized what he'd done, he started to make motions towards the door, I think he wanted to flee in panic. I told him I'd like him to talk to the owner and tell him what happened. He refused, and said he wasn't going to pay for the damages. I told him I don't expect him to pay for the damages but it wasn't my call, I figured if he talked to the owner, then maybe he could get a supporting statement for insurance purposes. But it wasn't my call. I dumped the customer in the owners office and washed my hands of the situation.
The demo machine got replaced after about a week. This time, the machine was firmly strapped down to the base station so it could not be removed.
I have a reputation in the trade as "Mr. I-told-you-so" because the disasters (like this one) that I warn people against always come true. Why oh WHY don't people ever listen?
There won't be ANY channels in the future. There will be programming sources we'd probably consider as networks under today's standards, but there won't be broadcast schedules with programs being shown at specific times of day. It will all be on-demand programming, eventually.
You are confused. But that is not surprising since the story is confusing, and flat out incorrect. The website with the demo video is from a company named Time Domain, it is not the product from Camero Inc. that is mentioned in the main story. It is not the Israeli invention, in fact, the WND story mentions Time Domain as Camero's competitor, with an inferior product. Camero doesn't seem to have ANY internet presence, I searched and couldn't find anything.
This story is screwed up. The two links don't have anything to do with each other. The WorldNetDaily story talks about an invention by an Israeli company Camero Inc, but the /. story link is to an American company called Time Domain. The WND story even mentions Time Domain as a competitor to Camero Inc and supposedly Camero's radar is superior. WTF? Someone messed up when putting this /. story together. I couldn't even find any online presence for Camero Inc.
Take this story with a huge grain of salt. WND is not a very reliable news source. It's right up there with NewsMax and Washington Times as lunatic fringe pseudojournalism.
I don't read the mainstream crap everyone else does, what would be the point of that? I read:
The Art Newspaper
Geijutsu Shincho (a japanese art magazine)
MdN, a graphic design magazine from Japan. Since I can read Japanese, I can steal tips from them and use them for a couple of years before anyone outside Japan discovers them.
For computer geekery, I read MacPower. If you've never read Japanese computer magazines, you're really missing out. They're far more detailed and comprehensive than anything published in the US. Also CGWORLD is another rather good Japanese magazine covering 3D and animation topics.
For English media, I like Computer Arts Magazine, I can't count all the times CA has saved one of my projects by publishing some vital tip that had me stumped. Photoshop User Magazine is consistently useful. EFX Art & Design Magazine is also one of my favorite graphics magazines, oddly it is published in Sweden but in English.
I distinctly recall hearing about the compressed air launchers several years ago in a documentary about fireworks, probably Discovery Channel or something boring like that. I don't recall exactly when this was, but it had to be at least 3 or 4 years ago. They said Disney used compressed air to shoot fireworks, and detonated them by radio with with cheap microprocessorized detonators. The system was designed to give more accuracy over height of detonation, you just shot everything upwards at full force, and blew them up by computer controlled time delays based on calculations of weight of the projectile.
So anyway, this isn't exactly news, some people have known about this for years.
I don't think you quite understand the concept of CRTs. I didn't say anything about brightness, given two settings of equal brightness and different contrast, the lower contrast setting will be less legible.
There is an optimal contrast/brightness setting, there are objective standards for this setting combination. Reducing contrast will reduce legibility. If you're seeing glare, you either need to clean your eyeglasses, or consult an opthamologist to see if you have problems with your eyes.
Reducing contrast on your display makes no sense. If you want the text to be easily readable, you need high contrast. Lowering the contrast will make it LESS readable in comparison, causing MORE eyestrain.
See your optometrist. He set me up with glasses specifically for working on a computer screen, at that distance and size. Works great for me.
Not heartless, just stupid. Someday, if nobody preserves the computers of the past, there will be a time when nobody remembers when computers ran code freely without DRM or GUIDs, or the time when computers broke away from their guardians and anyone could afford one, and the times when people and their computers communicated freely over a cooperative internet. People have short memories, they won't remember a time when there was anything besides Windows 2025 and Skynet. And a whole generation will never know about our short lived revolution in computing. What good will the EFF be then?
Yeah, I remember an even simpler Pop Mech story. The guy started with a self-powered gas mower. He attached a rope between a drum and the mower. It ran in a spiral around the drum, the diameter of the drum was arranged so it shortened the rope 1 mower-width per revolution. Just jab the drum in teh center of your lawn, start up the mower and it mowed a nice clean circular area. Then you just clean up the corners of the yard manually, the big areas are already done.
Simple, effective, and does 80% of the job without any complex computer crap. You can do the last 20% yourself.
Well, my name was in the credits, but it only appeared when you exit the multimedia project. Of course I have copies of all the original files. But the point was moot, the guy got his MFA degree and moved on before the award was given. I could presumably put this work in my portfolio and legitimately claim I did award-winning work, but I'd probably feel like I was just as dishonest as the guy who claimed the award for my work.
You missed the point of the story of the gallery offering to sell the $2000 photo for $200. They failed to realize the market value for this work, and deprived themselves of a cut of a $2000 sale. Yes it would have been more work to find a buyer for a $2000 print than a $200 print, but not 10x the work. So they just screwed themselves out of the profit, and they have to sell 10 $200 prints to make the same money as if they'd have sold my print for serious money.
And yes, I know how artists are always starving which is why I decided to learn computers in the first place, so I'd always have a profession where I could earn real money. But when I tried to integrate the two professions by working in graphics production studios, I discovered I always had to compete with people who were amateurs and had no arts training, they drove down the price of labor because "art is easy, anyone can do it." Yeah right.
Your attempt to deflect blame for your ridiculous offer isn't going to work. I am the only person in this whole discussion who has actually done work as you have described. Let me tell you how this works.
After working in graphics production for many years in LA, I went back to my old university to finish my art degree. I was disgusted at my old employer because they were charging $80/hour for my work but paying me about $10 (this was in the late 1980s), I figured I'd earn more if I finished my BFA.
So one day in the Art building I notice a flyer on the bulletin board. Some guy in the Theater department is doing a multimedia MFA thesis on CDROM, he wants someone to do the interface design and graphics to wrap around his videos and text. It was a groundbreaking project, nobody had ever done a thesis on CDROM before. So I decided, what the fuck, I need to keep up my skills, I'll help the guy out for free. Total time about 10 hours, it would have cost him a thou if he'd contracted with my old studio, but he got it for nothing, all I got was a credit.
So about a year later, I'm reading the newspaper about how a local theater student won a national award for his innovative interface design on his multimedia MFA thesis. Bastard didn't even acknowledge that I did the work, he took all the credit for himself.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to pitch my real artwork to the local galleries. I work in an antique photo process, I'm one of only about 3 people in the world who work in this particular process, it can take me a week to make a color print, it's very labor intensive, and the materials cost hundreds of bucks. I showed them one of my best prints, it cost me about $150 in materials alone to make. The gallery loves the work and wants to sell it, but they want to sell it for $200 and take a 55% cut, which would mean I'd lose money selling the prints. I inform them that prints of this type usually sell for about $2000 and tell them to take a hike.
It is obvious you really do not understand how artists work. They're always getting offers to do work for nothing. They're always doing hugely expensive projects of their own, they'd rather be doing their personal artwork at their own expense than doing someone else's drudgework at their own expense.
Yeah, this is exactly the response they always get from employers who discover their job offer is listed on FTJ. Usually it's some asshole offers minimum wage for a job involving design, programming, and sys engineering, and when called out on it, they ALWAYS reply "I've already got a whole bunch of people who applied and are happy to find work at $5.15/hr with no benefits. If that's too low for you then there's always someone who will do the work for the price I want to pay."
What you are failing to realize is that anyone who can do your art and design work does not need to practice, they already have the skills. Your offer is known in the business press as "the race to the bottom" or "walmartization," you're trying to convince people that their work is worth less because there's always some guy who will do it cheaper. So go find them. Hint: try free clip art.
Just submit your job offers directly to this website. You'll save them the trouble of tracking down your job offer and subjecting it to humiliating attention. Be sure to come visit the chat boards so we can abuse you personally, ya cheap bastard.
Your request is similar to what I see over and over on FTJ. For some reason people think that students or unemployed artists and designers feel like giving away their labor for nothing. For example, someone found a job offer up on Craig's List seeking a candidate with skills in Photoshop & Illustrator, LiveMotion, Premier, FireworksMX, FlashMX, DreamweaverMX & FrontPage, HomeSite, JavaScript, ASP/php, and MS IIS. For all this, they want to pay $8 per hour. Sorry, not going to happen. Fortunately Craig's List prohibits this sort of exploitive ad and removed it from their listings.
No, you don't get a free ride because you are producing an open source project. If you want professional quality, you'll have to pay professionals at the going rate. No, art students don't want to give you free work in exchange for a portfolio piece, they can crank out any portfolio piece they like without having to meet the demands of a cheap client. Being an art student is very expensive, art supplies and materials cost real money (yes, even computers and software).
I used to work at the largest apple dealer in the US, back in the 1980s. We took sales seriously, but this was before the computer market got commoditized, we could afford to have professional computer experts as sales reps. I don't know if that's possible today.
But when I deal with independent computer stores today, I am appalled. I was just helping a friend via email on buying a new iBook, he had an old iBook and wanted an upgrade. He went to a local independent dealer, they quoted him the same prices on the iBook as the Apple Store, but gouged him for upgrades. Like $250 for a 256Mb RAM stick plus $110 to install. They're insane, even an Apple Store RAM upgrade in a Build To Order machine doesn't cost that much, and BTO prices are a bit on the high side.
When I worked in computer sales, we used to call accessory sales "point builders" because you could sell a CPU cheap but build up the profit percentage (points) with accessories. But this independent dealer was way out of line.
In today's market, dealers are expected to make profits with service beyond the sale, but that's not going to happen with customers who buy overpriced accessories. They're eventually going to learn the true value of what they bought, realize they got a raw deal, and they're not going to be inclined to go back. Don't people know the most basic sales lessons? Your best customers are your previous customers. Keep them happy and they come back and bring their friends.
I want to know what poor guy gets stuck cleaning the M&Ms out of the cockpit. I'm sure they all melted in the desert heat once the spacecraft sat on the runway for a few minutes. This isn't exactly the best way to treat a cockpit full of fancy electronics, to bathe them in blobs of sugary fat.
I suppose you were even more pissed off to discover that ARD 1.2 Client was rolled into MacOS X 10.3 for free.
hey, no fair poking fun, my first computer was an 8080A running at 2MHz.
But seriously, there is no damn way I'd overclock my dualie 1GHz MDD G4. With 4 internal hard drives and the Apple swapped-out reduced noise power supply, it's already blazing hot. If I close the door to my office, and I'm doing something CPU intensive like video compression, the room temp will quickly rise to about 90 degrees, despite my central air conditioning. But then, I have a really small office.
Oh, ferchrissake, stop spouting that old FUD about how Windoze market dominance means it's the preferred target for viruses, and if Mac had a 90% share, it would be targeted too. It's just not true.
You're missing the point. In my idea, the routers would be preconfigured to that class of students' computers only, only those students would have access via a fixed password. Then disconnect the router to shut it down at the end of the class. This only deals with time limits on access, not on who can access, that has to be dealt with through regular router configuration. The time restriction seems to be the toughest problem. Of course I'm presuming the router has some sort of NVRAM to keep configuration data between classes, when it's powered down.
There must be an idiot-simple workaround. Wireless routers are dirt cheap, maybe the simplest solution would be just to give a preconfigured wireless router to each teacher, have them take it with them to class, and remove it when their class is done. Then they can physically remove the access point when it's not being used for their class. Each class could have a different preconfigged router, just plug and go for the duration of the class.
But I suspect there must be some reason why this wouldn't work.