Re:What's the Difference Between a Computer Salesm
on
Bad PC Sales Staff Exposed
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I happened to be over my gramma's house when a window sales guy was there, so I sat in. He was pushing very hard on a price, about $4000 for all windows in the house (was about 20 years ago), but he'd "knock off a thousand" if she signed right that instant.
I pointed out how an honest organization would be capable of knocking off that much tomorrow or the next day, too.
High pressure tactics on old people is an ancient right of dishonor among the fraudulent.
Iran has no need of a peaceful nuclear power plant system, with their own domestic, cheap oil coming out their ears.
And I would seriously question the judgment of environmentalist apologists who say it's a good thing: How in god's name are you weighting one medium-sized nation's environmental impact against the possible nuclear ability of said nation?
> 2. Programs developed by professional programmers with no industry experience. These programs are > polished, stable, run fast. The problem is, since the programmers have little or no industry > experience, there is an obvious disconnect in the work process within the program.
Worked on car radios back in the Windows CE day with "Apollo", Microsoft's car radio variant of Windows CE.
Was on a phone call with MS engineers, when our guys got in an argument about how a...radio button should behave. Some MS guy said, literally, "I don't want to get into a discussion of who's smarter..."
I'm sorry? Whose software "radio button" is modeled after actual physical radio buttons that car makers have been making for 80 years?
There's a reason "radio buttons" (as opposed to check boxes) are freakin' called radio buttons.
Un-freaking believable.
They had a very tough time getting the notion that, in car radio hardware, the tuner hardware defines the end ranges of the band as well as the inter-station step size. It tells the control software, not the other way around. Hence 90%+ of Microsoft's structures, which included ways to specify things like that, were completely bass-ackwards.
And this was hardly my first exposure to it. I recall a "usability test" in a computer class 20+ years ago that showed people sitting with an old-school AT computer and the paper instruction to start the computer by "putting the floppy disc in the drive slot".
They proceeded to put the disc in an open space between the two stacked floppy drives, where it fell inside the case somewhere.
This problem goes way, way beyond Linux and the "Gramma, just do tar -xvf..." crap.
Went to Yahoo a few months back. I recall from years ago that it was a search engine that had manually filtered and cataloged web sites.
Typed in something to find, and no such pre-defined category listings came up anymore. Not sure what Yahoo's turned into, but it ain't that anymore.
And if it is, then don't complain to me, because obviously anything remotely intuitive is long since gone. I don't wanna hear that "well, if you click here, then go into that option, then go down to the link on the lower-right of the page, then..."
My buddy knew a guy who started a "this home repair company is crap" website where you could bitch about this or that contractor and the crappy job he did.
I found out about it because he (my buddy) asked me why the guy was getting sued. I can't imagine why.
In theory the site in question should have no idea it's even there. The plugin sees your URL, and goes and fetches the wiki-ish comments from its own server. They know the layout of the page and which comments apply to what elements.
There'd be no way to "disable" it barring either a special, voluntary "no SideWiki, thanks" tag you can embed (which I don't know if it even exists) or checking SideWiki yourself to see what's SideWiki'd to your page, then somehow busting your page's source code that SideWiki decides it's had enough and has to start over.
Love the examples in TFA: Michael Roizen: Food does more than affect the waist size... and Dean Ornish: Stress also contributes to heart disease; the information presented here is incomplete...
Here's what'll actually happen in such an article:
User: Ooh! I wonder what Dean ornish says on SideWiki (clicks link)
"Dr. Dean Ornish: Hey, hot stuff! I'm horny and in Buffalo, too! Wanna get together? Click here."
AA explosions are intended to burst shrapnel that punctures, not impact and blow up as per a bomb.
As such, it would hardly be different from rifle bullet holes or small RPG holes. The material doesn't tear catastrophically because of design and that there's only +1-2PSI inside the bag. This has been tested with hundreds of bullet holes and several RPG-sized holes, all of which the ship can keep up with and complete and return to base on a several hour mission.
So barring a lucky AA explosive impact directly on the bag itself, people are worrying about a non-issue. It's not a balloon to pop when a dog bites it.
The gondola and its occupants is another issue, but the big fear, of being "popped out of the sky" is a non-issue as far as today's technology goes.
Every third post seems to be worrying about bullets or shoulder-mounted rockets. Not a problem, barring a rocket exploding when it hit the bag, making a huge, shredded hole, which is not very likely to happen as it's hardly a "hard" target to impact.
+1-2 PSI neither "bursts" the bag when punctured, nor causes loss of lift so rapid the vehicle cannot complete a several-hour mission. Even hundreds of bullet holes and several RPG-sized holes cannot cause catastrophic failure nor rapid descent.
And they'd have to hit the gondola, or blow up the bag(s), not just puncture them (hundreds of bullets and even several RPG-sized punctures don't mean squat), neither of which is likely.
And anything turning on a radar is just asking to have a radar-sniffing bomb to land on it. Remember the "six GPS scramblers" Baghdad had that would give the US such troubles with all its GPS smartbombs? Died almost immediately since, go figure, broadcasting a signal makes it easy to target you.
These aren't a balloon, and they don't "pop". They run at about +1 PSI and have been tested to take several hundred rifle rounds and even several RPGs through them, with neither catastrophic failure, nor rapid enough loss of lift to prevent finishing a mission and returning to home base.
+1 PSI just doesn't gush enough gas out the hundreds of holes (which the material prevents from turning into a giant rip, and the low +PSI doesn't exacerbate rips either) that the gas tanks on board can't easily keep up with for hours.
So, comedy aside, no, a guy with a shotgun won't even be close to enough. And good luck firing a shotgun or rifle sitting in a lawnchair balloon, Mr. Pendulum.:)
The realities of Julian Simon's theories, being proven as having tremendous predictive power again and again through the decades, don't make for good disasterbation, nor a good rallying cry if you're a politician seeking power.
> but for regional pleasure travel, it could be a real winner. I know > I'd rather spend a day reading a book or cruising around the internet than driving.
Nerd: Cool! I wanna go on it!
Not Nerd: Maybe you can join the Mile High Club, eh? Hehe
Nerd: Sigh. Doubtful, I haven't joined the 24 inches club, yet.
> Specifically, what material the outer skin is made of. Seems like this kind of airship > would be extremely vulnerable flying over hostile territory
After digging through a chain of Wiki articles, it appears the Skyship 600, a predecessor, was tested with hundreds of bullets and even some RPGs launched through it. It stayed aloft for hours, plenty of time to complete a mission and return.
Apparently modern design only has a positive pressure of 1-2 PSI, which does not lead to either catastrophic failure of the bag(s) nor sufficient leakage to cause it to lose lift very fast.
Yes, the gondola would be susceptible to bullets or a missile, but the bag would not be, barring what would probably need to be a special missile capable of blowing up on impact with the inconsequential bag material.
And all that presumes they'll get anywhere near the ground anywhere near some place other than home base.
> I never heard so much bitching about how hitting the maximize button > made an app take up all three screens.
Card makers/Microsoft need to come up with a new paradigm, where you can maximize-to-whole-desktop, or optionally maximize-to-one-particular-monitor.
Shouldn't be hard to implement, but somebody needs to get over that hump and understand what's needed. You shouldn't have to "fake out" the operating system at a low level by creating a virtual monitor that's the width of all your actual monitors, just so you can do full-screen, non-windowed 3D some of the time.
I'd want all these features:
1. Window maximize to one particular monitor (all monitors choosable) 2. Window maximize to entire virtual desktop size 3. True 3D mode across all screens 4. Pseudo-3D mode that's in a window, where the window's display area is a full monitor, with the window borders off the "edges" of the monitor. Some games offer this, some do not. Needed so the game does not "iconize" when in the background, i.e. you can see what's going on in an MMORPG while you surf or watch House on Hulu.
> "With Washington State facing a billion-dollar biennial budget deficit... >...Although the majority of its software development is performed in Washington State..."
"That can change," said Microsoft.
That nearby article about the Congograss spread ends with the note that it could spread all the way to Michigan. Michigan is in a protracted, 8+ year recession since 2001. The only businesses that open here are ones that get massive, multi-decade tax breaks from the government.
Washington should consider itself lucky that it has those jobs to begin with. To pretend that, since the software was developed there (i.e. paid for there) that therefore that state gets to tax its sales, is the usual grab fantasy of politicians who spend too much.
Like many large companies, it's a worldwide company. My own has engineering and manufacturing on all three big continents. Local government has strict laws against laying off workers, as Germany does? "Well, next time we open factories or engineering facilities, guess where it won't be?"
, Microsoft records its estimated $18 billion in licensing revenue per year through a corporate office in Reno, Nevada where there is no licensing tax. Just by enforcing the state's existing tax law from 2008 onwards, we could reduce Washington's revenue shortfall by more than 70 percent. Alternately, we could pursue the entire $707 million from Microsoft's thirteen years of tax dodging and cover most of the expected deficit going forward.' We have discussed Microsoft's creative capitalism in the past." In such ways do the pontifications of the local power-hungry get a reality check.
Slashdot Mirror
I happened to be over my gramma's house when a window sales guy was there, so I sat in. He was pushing very hard on a price, about $4000 for all windows in the house (was about 20 years ago), but he'd "knock off a thousand" if she signed right that instant.
I pointed out how an honest organization would be capable of knocking off that much tomorrow or the next day, too.
High pressure tactics on old people is an ancient right of dishonor among the fraudulent.
> Has the Glory Gone Out of Working In IT?
As a highly educated programmer and software engineer, I hate to say it, but this is like asking "Has the Glory Gone Out of Being a Nurse?"
Actually, risking downmod even more, it's more like, "Has the Glory Gone out of Being A Candystriper?"
Iran has no need of a peaceful nuclear power plant system, with their own domestic, cheap oil coming out their ears.
And I would seriously question the judgment of environmentalist apologists who say it's a good thing: How in god's name are you weighting one medium-sized nation's environmental impact against the possible nuclear ability of said nation?
> 2. Programs developed by professional programmers with no industry experience. These programs are
> polished, stable, run fast. The problem is, since the programmers have little or no industry
> experience, there is an obvious disconnect in the work process within the program.
Worked on car radios back in the Windows CE day with "Apollo", Microsoft's car radio variant of Windows CE.
Was on a phone call with MS engineers, when our guys got in an argument about how a...radio button should behave. Some MS guy said, literally, "I don't want to get into a discussion of who's smarter..."
I'm sorry? Whose software "radio button" is modeled after actual physical radio buttons that car makers have been making for 80 years?
There's a reason "radio buttons" (as opposed to check boxes) are freakin' called radio buttons.
Un-freaking believable.
They had a very tough time getting the notion that, in car radio hardware, the tuner hardware defines the end ranges of the band as well as the inter-station step size. It tells the control software, not the other way around. Hence 90%+ of Microsoft's structures, which included ways to specify things like that, were completely bass-ackwards.
> Shuttleworth said. 'You sit and watch someone struggle with the software that you've so lovingly produced.'"
(In Russel from Independence Day voice) I've been sayin' that for ten damned years! And not just for Linux, for all apps and OSes.
The Inmates Are Running The Asylum
For behavior:
Microwave + computer = computer
Jet airplane + computer = computer
X-ray machine + computer = computer
And this was hardly my first exposure to it. I recall a "usability test" in a computer class 20+ years ago that showed people sitting with an old-school AT computer and the paper instruction to start the computer by "putting the floppy disc in the drive slot".
They proceeded to put the disc in an open space between the two stacked floppy drives, where it fell inside the case somewhere.
This problem goes way, way beyond Linux and the "Gramma, just do tar -xvf..." crap.
And those penis jokes had penis jokes upon their backs to bite 'em.
And those jokes had penis jokes, smaller still, and so, ad infinitum.
Went to Yahoo a few months back. I recall from years ago that it was a search engine that had manually filtered and cataloged web sites.
Typed in something to find, and no such pre-defined category listings came up anymore. Not sure what Yahoo's turned into, but it ain't that anymore.
And if it is, then don't complain to me, because obviously anything remotely intuitive is long since gone. I don't wanna hear that "well, if you click here, then go into that option, then go down to the link on the lower-right of the page, then..."
My buddy knew a guy who started a "this home repair company is crap" website where you could bitch about this or that contractor and the crappy job he did.
I found out about it because he (my buddy) asked me why the guy was getting sued. I can't imagine why.
In theory the site in question should have no idea it's even there. The plugin sees your URL, and goes and fetches the wiki-ish comments from its own server. They know the layout of the page and which comments apply to what elements.
There'd be no way to "disable" it barring either a special, voluntary "no SideWiki, thanks" tag you can embed (which I don't know if it even exists) or checking SideWiki yourself to see what's SideWiki'd to your page, then somehow busting your page's source code that SideWiki decides it's had enough and has to start over.
...which, of course, defeats the purpose of anybody being able to make comments.
Don't know a solution, but everybody knows the problem. :-/
Every additional toolbar you install is one more place for embarrassing links to hide.
[Napoleon] Idiot! [/Napoleon]
Love the examples in TFA: Michael Roizen: Food does more than affect the waist size... and Dean Ornish: Stress also contributes to heart disease; the information presented here is incomplete...
Here's what'll actually happen in such an article:
User: Ooh! I wonder what Dean ornish says on SideWiki (clicks link)
"Dr. Dean Ornish: Hey, hot stuff! I'm horny and in Buffalo, too! Wanna get together? Click here."
Times 1000.
See, it's like a rifle hole and....
AA explosions are intended to burst shrapnel that punctures, not impact and blow up as per a bomb.
As such, it would hardly be different from rifle bullet holes or small RPG holes. The material doesn't tear catastrophically because of design and that there's only +1-2PSI inside the bag. This has been tested with hundreds of bullet holes and several RPG-sized holes, all of which the ship can keep up with and complete and return to base on a several hour mission.
So barring a lucky AA explosive impact directly on the bag itself, people are worrying about a non-issue. It's not a balloon to pop when a dog bites it.
The gondola and its occupants is another issue, but the big fear, of being "popped out of the sky" is a non-issue as far as today's technology goes.
Every third post seems to be worrying about bullets or shoulder-mounted rockets. Not a problem, barring a rocket exploding when it hit the bag, making a huge, shredded hole, which is not very likely to happen as it's hardly a "hard" target to impact.
+1-2 PSI neither "bursts" the bag when punctured, nor causes loss of lift so rapid the vehicle cannot complete a several-hour mission. Even hundreds of bullet holes and several RPG-sized holes cannot cause catastrophic failure nor rapid descent.
And they'd have to hit the gondola, or blow up the bag(s), not just puncture them (hundreds of bullets and even several RPG-sized punctures don't mean squat), neither of which is likely.
And anything turning on a radar is just asking to have a radar-sniffing bomb to land on it. Remember the "six GPS scramblers" Baghdad had that would give the US such troubles with all its GPS smartbombs? Died almost immediately since, go figure, broadcasting a signal makes it easy to target you.
These aren't a balloon, and they don't "pop". They run at about +1 PSI and have been tested to take several hundred rifle rounds and even several RPGs through them, with neither catastrophic failure, nor rapid enough loss of lift to prevent finishing a mission and returning to home base.
+1 PSI just doesn't gush enough gas out the hundreds of holes (which the material prevents from turning into a giant rip, and the low +PSI doesn't exacerbate rips either) that the gas tanks on board can't easily keep up with for hours.
So, comedy aside, no, a guy with a shotgun won't even be close to enough. And good luck firing a shotgun or rifle sitting in a lawnchair balloon, Mr. Pendulum. :)
The realities of Julian Simon's theories, being proven as having tremendous predictive power again and again through the decades, don't make for good disasterbation, nor a good rallying cry if you're a politician seeking power.
> but for regional pleasure travel, it could be a real winner. I know
> I'd rather spend a day reading a book or cruising around the internet than driving.
Nerd: Cool! I wanna go on it!
Not Nerd: Maybe you can join the Mile High Club, eh? Hehe
Nerd: Sigh. Doubtful, I haven't joined the 24 inches club, yet.
> Specifically, what material the outer skin is made of. Seems like this kind of airship
> would be extremely vulnerable flying over hostile territory
After digging through a chain of Wiki articles, it appears the Skyship 600, a predecessor, was tested with hundreds of bullets and even some RPGs launched through it. It stayed aloft for hours, plenty of time to complete a mission and return.
Apparently modern design only has a positive pressure of 1-2 PSI, which does not lead to either catastrophic failure of the bag(s) nor sufficient leakage to cause it to lose lift very fast.
Yes, the gondola would be susceptible to bullets or a missile, but the bag would not be, barring what would probably need to be a special missile capable of blowing up on impact with the inconsequential bag material.
And all that presumes they'll get anywhere near the ground anywhere near some place other than home base.
> I never heard so much bitching about how hitting the maximize button
> made an app take up all three screens.
Card makers/Microsoft need to come up with a new paradigm, where you can maximize-to-whole-desktop, or optionally maximize-to-one-particular-monitor.
Shouldn't be hard to implement, but somebody needs to get over that hump and understand what's needed. You shouldn't have to "fake out" the operating system at a low level by creating a virtual monitor that's the width of all your actual monitors, just so you can do full-screen, non-windowed 3D some of the time .
I'd want all these features:
1. Window maximize to one particular monitor (all monitors choosable)
2. Window maximize to entire virtual desktop size
3. True 3D mode across all screens
4. Pseudo-3D mode that's in a window, where the window's display area is a full monitor, with the window borders off the "edges" of the monitor. Some games offer this, some do not. Needed so the game does not "iconize" when in the background, i.e. you can see what's going on in an MMORPG while you surf or watch House on Hulu.
I'll settle for 3 24" screens, side-by-side, for my MMORPGs. Have 1 already, so 2 more and the card and I should be out for what, $500?
> "With Washington State facing a billion-dollar biennial budget deficit... ...Although the majority of its software development is performed in Washington State..."
>
"That can change," said Microsoft.
That nearby article about the Congograss spread ends with the note that it could spread all the way to Michigan. Michigan is in a protracted, 8+ year recession since 2001. The only businesses that open here are ones that get massive, multi-decade tax breaks from the government.
Washington should consider itself lucky that it has those jobs to begin with. To pretend that, since the software was developed there (i.e. paid for there) that therefore that state gets to tax its sales, is the usual grab fantasy of politicians who spend too much.
Like many large companies, it's a worldwide company. My own has engineering and manufacturing on all three big continents. Local government has strict laws against laying off workers, as Germany does? "Well, next time we open factories or engineering facilities, guess where it won't be?"
, Microsoft records its estimated $18 billion in licensing revenue per year through a corporate office in Reno, Nevada where there is no licensing tax. Just by enforcing the state's existing tax law from 2008 onwards, we could reduce Washington's revenue shortfall by more than 70 percent. Alternately, we could pursue the entire $707 million from Microsoft's thirteen years of tax dodging and cover most of the expected deficit going forward.' We have discussed Microsoft's creative capitalism in the past." In such ways do the pontifications of the local power-hungry get a reality check.
> " 'They don't understand that cogongrass can replace an entire ecosystem.'
> Left unchecked, Pecot says 'it could spread all the way to Michigan.'"
where it will be stopped at the border, killed by the trampling feet of people moving out of that sorry state.
I can say that since I live here.
> Isn't the McKinnon case more like charging him to buy the
> lock that had been missing when he walked in?
It's more like charging him to replace the window latch that he showed could be easily lifted with a credit card.