If you claim that all of high school is useless, you either attended a really dysfunctional school, or are abusing hyperbole. I don't know a single person who dropped out of high school and ended up with a career of their choice. All of the people I know who are working their career of choice at least have high school, most have a degree.
I'm sorry but I don't see the validity in supporting a "high school is for chumps" attitude, or suggesting that they need gizmos, prizes, incentives [other than learning something new].
As per my previous comment, if school is so boring, you should be getting straight A's. Otherwise, they're testing you on things you don't know, and should learn. The bullshit argument of "oh when am I going to use integrals in the 'real world'?" doesn't hold up, since the purpose of a diverse high school education is to open doors, not missile you down to a career. You're supposed to learn a variety of subjects [some of which you may initially find dry and boring] so that when you hit college/uni and/or the real world, you're not totally ignorant about subjects that are not solely in your preferred domain.
In short, most kids (not all) who can't manage to get through 4 years of free schooling because they're "bored" are just juvenile, not mature. What? You think everything in the "real world" is fun and games? You're going to have boring work from time to time, have to sit through a meeting you'd rather not be at... You think you can tell your boss "I'm gonna sit out this staff meeting cuz it's boring" and that will fly?
High school is free, social, and runs for 4 years. Even if the classes are "boring" it's not a big deal. I use boring in quotes because that's what kids say when they don't even open their minds to something.
Basically, use this line on kids "if it's boring than you should be getting straight A's." Because otherwise, you're there to learn so pay attention.
Now I don't want to insinuate that all high school drop outs are failures in life, but it's very rare that they have enough self-taught know-how to actually really accomplish something other than be a car salesman.
And not all dropouts work at walmart, some of them are breeders. Cuz you know, as a person with a grade 10 education you just "need" to start a family...
My problem is the only reason why shitty tools and OSes exist is because we're training ourselves TO EXPECT failure.
It's ok if the program has bugs, isn't fully documented, etc, that's just the way software is.
WRONG.
Photoshop should work on any decently modern OS, especially something like a *NIX where X11 is the norm and ported everywhere. It doesn't however, because nobody demands it. And they don't demand it because customers accept that "this is the way things are." Like I said earlier, imagine if people delayed upgrades to CS because they wanted to use it on another OS. I'm sure Adobe would look into complying with the wishes of the customers. I'm not pissed off because software is written for XP, I'm pissed off because customers let suppliers tell them how to do business.
In other camps it's worse though. Most arguments in favour of Office is basically "because people use Office" well that's self-serving. And it's not at all true. Where I work we use OO.o and give customers PDFs. Seems to work just fine. Sure we have copies of Office around, but we're not forced to use it, and in fact pretty much all of the workstations are incapable of running it anyways.
People have to snap out of this bullshit apathy and actually demand reasonable standards, quality, and protection [from lockin]. I'd be cool with using XP, for instance, if it weren't so far on its own tangent. MSFT basically steals any good ideas from standards then perverts it enough so they are not 100% compatible. And they only do that so they can lock people in.
For me, I'm not anti-msft because I'm some fanboy anti-msft zealot. I'm anti-msft because I don't like being forced to use tools someone else picks for me, and more so, picks for me because they want to gouge me to line their pockets.
No, because serious Photoshop users couldn't care less about running it on Linux. They need it to Just Work, not waste time tinkering with it.
Right... because absolutely no time is spent getting Windows to work. That's why people are migrating BACK TO XP from Vista in sufficient numbers as to have MSFT extend the life of XP.
To be honest I got pissed off at some packages that wouldn't update (like gedit, epiphany, etc), also the wireless config changed again. I mean I like gentoo as a concept, but in practice they don't QA enough which drives me mad. It's nice that most problems can be solved via a browse of forums.gentoo.org, but frankly, I don't have time to maintain my laptop all the time.
Now my file server/workstation at home runs gentoo, but that's because I like the freshness of the tools around and it's worth solving emerge script problems:-)
But in the case of the laptop, I "just wanted it to work."
I choose to use OSS for the myriad of benefits. It has the downside that I can't play many of the popular games. OH BIG WHOOP. I have consoles for games if I really want to play something.
People aren't forced to do anything they don't want to. You don't have to take that job at $BIGCORP where they use all the wrong software/tools/etc. You don't have to buy a PC with Vista installed, you don't have to keep it installed if you did anyways. People run Windows because they're too lazy and ignorant to sort out any choices for them, especially if the choice is for their own good in the long run anyways.
I find the "grandma" comments kinda funny though. What is your retired grandmother doing that she can't browse the web and read about computers if she's so inclined to buy one [or a new one]?
Sometimes it's worth repeating because it's a valid rhetorical question.
You can edit documents, run spreadsheets (even multiply correctly!), design software/hardware, compose music, etc, just as easily in an OSS OS as Windows. And if people stopped worshipping Redmond they'd actually realize that *they* have the power to choose, not the producers.
Why isn't photoshop ported to GNU/Linux? Because customers aren't demanding it enough. Watch people hold up updating CS, demand Linux ports, and you'll probably see it happen. But if you just blindly do what they tell you, you get less options. And in certain cases the alternatives are better. I'd rather use OO.o than MS Office. I'd rather use firefox than IE7. I'd rather use pidgin than the MSN client, I'd rather use lilypond than Finale, I'd rather use mplayer than WMP, I'd rather use a lot of things than their "traditional proprietary" counterparts.
I'd suspect for 99% of computer users out there (home users included) they could get by just as well or better with a good Linux distro than Vista. Certainly my experience with Ubuntu has been such that if you can't figure out how to use/install it, you probably won't get much out of owning a computer anyways. It's just so damn simple to use, not to mention free, and gives access to an entire library of OSS software.
Good thing my "windows" machines don't run windows.:-)
yeah I know it's cliche to post about running another OS, but honestly, what's the motivation to run windows anymore?
I recently swapped gentoo for ubuntu on my laptop, and out of the box ubuntu booted up to Gnome, had a bunch of useful software installed, was easy to add more OSS to it, it detected my wireless card, and even found my access point right away, sound works, etc. If I take an XP SP2 CD and put it in my laptop, it will fail to find my wireless AND sound. Yet, a free ubuntu CD does that and more. I just don't get what would motivate me to run Windows. This isn't a fanboy issue, it's just pragmatism. Windows is shit by comparison.
As for the issue of IE7, to be honest I'd rather run IE4 than either IE6 or IE7. Loads a hell of a lot quicker, and the interface is a bit more sane. Even without tabbed browsing it's still better than 7.
The point you're missing is I only care if the Earth sustains *me*. I don't care about the next generations. And in all likelyhood the earth will still be here in 50-60 years. So I'm set.
Not that I'm siding with corporations. I just don't really like humanity, don't have kids, and couldn't care less what goes on beyond my scope of the world.
Actually that raises an important distinction. I was a teen in the 90s, but I took an interest in computing early on (e.g. when I was a kid). I was more into tinkering with software and building computers than chatting on BBSes or whatever. I think kids of today know how to use technology quite readily, but do they actually understand how the hell it works? The percentage of kids who actually get how software/hardware works is probably just as low as it was during the 80s and 90s.
I mean, being able to use a VCR (look it up kids if you don't know what that is) in the 70s didn't automatically make you an electrical engineer. Just like using an iPod doesn't make you a software engineer.
I think we're kidding ourselves if we think that kids/teens/young adults of today actually are technically inclined to the point of knowing how things actually work.
A lesson is a lesson regardless of whether it's in front of a blackboard or on a netmeeting whiteboard. When will these people realize that it's the MESSAGE that counts more than the medium. Not every fucking kid needs a laptop, or their own personal PDA/etc. We got along just fine in the 80s/90s with a paper agenda book, blackboards, and textbooks.
Maybe if we expected our kids to take an interest in their own education, we wouldn't worry so much if precious wittle Johny is bored in class or not. The incentive should be to learn and explore knowledge. If the kids aren't fundamentally interested in learning, no amount of toys, gizmos, trickery, or whatnot will get them through a proper education.
I was hardly an ideal student. I was into my own things by time I was 14, I taught myself comp.sci and cryptography usually at the expense of regular high school subjects. Yet despite all that, i still managed to graduate from high school, go to college, grad from that, and then land a career in my field of choice.
High school dropouts are nothing more than anti-social lazy people who want instant gratification and think the world owes them everything. Oh school is boring. Well you know what, not every subject in life is going to be the most exciting thing in the world. But you go through it just the same because the more rounded your education the more versatile and interesting you become. I sure as fuck wasn't that into english lit, but I still took the courses just the same, and participated as best as I could.
In short, stop crying and whining, nobody owes you jack squat, and if you stop making excuses like "we need laptops and powerpoint!" you'd actually realize that the problems are mostly with the students, not the system.
Cuz most people don't know they have problems to start with. They just assume that a 130 second boot-time or hard-drive churning opening of Word is "normal."
My parents download every single app they can find, and they're generally not stupid. It wouldn't surprise me that their box has at least a dozen viruses competing.
1. Use model #s for the cpus... e.g. 6600AT or someshit
2. Put a ref chart with relevant deets on a website [*]
3. Profit.
I lied there are three steps.
[*] deets like clock rate, fsb speed, TDP, cache per core, shared cache, cache latency/ways/ports, instruction set features [e.g. SSE, MMX, etc], pin-count, voltage, heat tolerance
Instead of calling it the "Centrino Duo Laptop" you can say "it's the Centrino 6600JZX" then a smart user can just look up 6600JZX on their website and know what the fuck it is. Do the same for the northbridge and GPU, et voila.
The confusion comes not from clever names, but when they try to consolidate all the info down.
Or in the case of Nvidia/Ati where they use non-well-ordered numbers. Like is the 8800GTS better than the fastest 7xxx series? Hint: There are stripped down versions of the 8xxx series that are worse than cards in the 7xxx series. Nvidia doesn't really provide a lot of info [or they didn't last I checked] concerning clock rates/bus width and freq/number of pixel pipes, etc...
Of course if they just ordered the fucking numbers that would work well. There probably is method to their madness, but I don't know what it is and most customers probably don't either. They could do [probably are what do I know] use the first digit for the major revision, e.g. 8xyz, but then use x/y/z for levels of mem/bus/GPU performance, e.g. a 8000 would be basic, 8009 would have the best GPU in that class, 8900 the most memory, 8090 the fastest/widest bus, etc.
That way if you saw 8555 and 7999 you could easily tell that the latter is the maxed out version of the previous revision of the core [and likely faster].
Your issues are different than those of road violations. On the road you have to be constantly aware and on the look out for hazards. It's when people let their guards down that they get into accidents. And how does a passerby tell if you're not paying attention? Well two good indications are speeding and running lights. Those are hardly the only signs of drivers not paying attention, but they're certainly the easiest to catch remotely.
It's not big secret that most drivers only plan their driving about 1 second ahead of their car. It's trivial to see, for example, how often do you see people speed from one red light to the next (e.g. the first light turns green, they then zoom by only to stop at the next red light 500 metres away). And even though they should know better, they choose to disregard any common sense and drive however they damn well please.
I don't look at the cameras as a failing of the police, I look at them as a failing of the population. As in, supposedly responsible adults can't abide by trivial rules of the road, and have to be constantly watched and scolded like the five year olds they are.
Actually if you think about it, that's probably why they hate them so much, because they hate being treated like children. Well, as my mama always said, if you don't want to be treated like a child, stop acting like one.
You can't keep road laws and not enforce them. Safety is up to the driver and other people on the road (cyclists, road workers, etc). It's not the governments place to make sure that you're driving 24/7.
Things like speed traps, red light cameras, etc, are supposed to be reminders of safe driving practices. At the point though, that you need to be reminded that you should stop for red lights because "a camera may be installed," chances are you shouldn't be driving anyways.
And in the end, if someone rear-ends you for stopping at a yellow, THEY'RE at fault. And if the law wasn't so pussy footed about, they would receive a ticket for reckless driving, demerits and their insurance would go up. Do it enough, and they lose their license.
That's the real problem, is that the laws aren't always enforced as they should be. How many people have had speeding tickets reduced? Sounds like a nice gesture, but at the end of the day it's only letting bad drivers get away with not driving correctly. Now I'm not saying there aren't relatively harmless infractions. Like speeding by 15km/h over the limit should still result in a fine, but in many cases it's not unsafe to do so. So I don't think points should be taken. 20+ km/h on the other hand is starting to get into the out of spec zone for speed.
But in the end, it's up to the drivers to drive safe. Just like how I do the speed limit in the fast lane. Which without fault catches at least 10 people on my way to work, passing me doing 20 over the limit. If any one of those people hits my car from behind, THEY'RE at fault. Heck, even if I were doing 20 UNDER the limit, they're still at fault if they hit my car (though I could be fined for obstructing traffic). If they did hit my car it's because they weren't paying attention and driving recklessly. Hence, demerit points. Do that enough times you lose your license.
So really, you shouldn't be super concerned with the people behind you. It's not your responsibility to make sure you're speeding "enough," or running enough red-lights. All you have to do is not hit things in front/side of you, and get out of the way for emergency crews. The rest of society can go fuck themselves if you're not going fast enough for their likings. Do the damn speed limit, stop for reds, and you'll have nothing to bitch about.
It's very rare that I find myself doing the speed limit and end up in on the boundary of "when I should stop for a yellow" and "when I can go through it." In those cases, I make a judgment call and if possible I stop anyways (having to be restrained by the seat belt and all). Even then it never really amounts to stomping on my brakes, just means I decelerate quicker than normal.
99/100 times when I get a yellow I'm either sufficiently away that I can stop safely, or close enough that I can go through it with time to spare. Did I forget to mention I drive the speed limit? Oh yeah, I drive the speed limit. Lights are usually timed to give you ample stopping time for the speed you're supposed to be doing (if they're not using a standard delay).
If you find yourself stomping on your brakes, it's because you're either not paying attention and notice the yellow too late, or you're speeding, or both.
First, I don't see the privacy violation. You are driving on a PUBLIC highway. If you want to remain private, keep private. Don't get in your car in plain sight and drive on a public road.
Second, I don't see why the only viable solution is to put cops out instead of cameras. Obviously the cameras are catching people. Maybe the LAW needs updating. As in, more stiff penalties. Like run two lights in a year and lose your license. Instead of just fining people money, since that seems not to discourage people from speeding/running lights.
I love that assbackwards logic. The cameras only catch violators. The theory being that people will drive properly to keep safe, and if not for that, at least to save money.
I do the speed limit and stop for lights because it's safe. But I really don't want a ticket either so I'm extra cautious. Even when it's "safe" to do say 20 over the limit I still don't.
And why is being efficient bad? Should cops forgo using computers to look up license plates because it's too simple when trying to find stolen cars? Or stop using hand guns when trying to defend themselves. Man up loretta, technology is there to improve efficiency, which yes, means they'll catch more people.
So why not grow an adult size set of brain matter, stop breaking the law like the jerk asshole you are, and you can go about not bitching about harmless traffic cameras.
Yeah I don't get it either. The basic logic works like this, "I was getting away with it before, don't change/enforce the law so I can't continue my bad practices!"
It's like when they put in speed/redlight cameras. The majority of people who bitch are the very people the gear is meant to catch. And they're not really pissed off because of the supposed violation of privacy, it's because they know they won't get away with their previously bad behaviour.
I for one welcome this. I think there should be a discretion though, I mean if I fail to report the $13 toy I sold on ebay last year I shouldn't face prison time. But if you're doing [say] more than $1000/year in sales it should be mandatory.
So you ignore the principles under conditions where they could actually do some good and get inexperienced drivers to reconsider their speed. There are many kinds of idiots on the road, and you're one of them.
[forgot to reply to this]
No, it means I'm a safe driver. When I drive the limit in the fast lane on clear roads, the people behind me should be well in control of their cars. So pissed off they may be, there is no reason for them to hit me. Chances of people actually hitting my car is low to nill. In icy/slushy roads, even though they're responsible for driving a safe limit, they don't and the chances of someone hitting my car is a lot higher.
All this means is I don't purposefully put myself in a situation where I'm very likely to get hurt.
If you can't judge your closing distance and adjust speed on a clear and open road, you shouldn't be driving regardless of whoever may be in front of you.
Slashdot Mirror
If you claim that all of high school is useless, you either attended a really dysfunctional school, or are abusing hyperbole. I don't know a single person who dropped out of high school and ended up with a career of their choice. All of the people I know who are working their career of choice at least have high school, most have a degree.
I'm sorry but I don't see the validity in supporting a "high school is for chumps" attitude, or suggesting that they need gizmos, prizes, incentives [other than learning something new].
As per my previous comment, if school is so boring, you should be getting straight A's. Otherwise, they're testing you on things you don't know, and should learn. The bullshit argument of "oh when am I going to use integrals in the 'real world'?" doesn't hold up, since the purpose of a diverse high school education is to open doors, not missile you down to a career. You're supposed to learn a variety of subjects [some of which you may initially find dry and boring] so that when you hit college/uni and/or the real world, you're not totally ignorant about subjects that are not solely in your preferred domain.
In short, most kids (not all) who can't manage to get through 4 years of free schooling because they're "bored" are just juvenile, not mature. What? You think everything in the "real world" is fun and games? You're going to have boring work from time to time, have to sit through a meeting you'd rather not be at... You think you can tell your boss "I'm gonna sit out this staff meeting cuz it's boring" and that will fly?
Talk to me in 2-3 years when XP is no longer supported, you need a new computer and only Vista or whatever comes with it.
At least if I put a solid linux Distro on my box, it'll still be around 5 years from now.
High school is free, social, and runs for 4 years. Even if the classes are "boring" it's not a big deal. I use boring in quotes because that's what kids say when they don't even open their minds to something.
Basically, use this line on kids "if it's boring than you should be getting straight A's." Because otherwise, you're there to learn so pay attention.
Now I don't want to insinuate that all high school drop outs are failures in life, but it's very rare that they have enough self-taught know-how to actually really accomplish something other than be a car salesman.
And not all dropouts work at walmart, some of them are breeders. Cuz you know, as a person with a grade 10 education you just "need" to start a family...
My problem is the only reason why shitty tools and OSes exist is because we're training ourselves TO EXPECT failure.
It's ok if the program has bugs, isn't fully documented, etc, that's just the way software is.
WRONG.
Photoshop should work on any decently modern OS, especially something like a *NIX where X11 is the norm and ported everywhere. It doesn't however, because nobody demands it. And they don't demand it because customers accept that "this is the way things are." Like I said earlier, imagine if people delayed upgrades to CS because they wanted to use it on another OS. I'm sure Adobe would look into complying with the wishes of the customers. I'm not pissed off because software is written for XP, I'm pissed off because customers let suppliers tell them how to do business.
In other camps it's worse though. Most arguments in favour of Office is basically "because people use Office" well that's self-serving. And it's not at all true. Where I work we use OO.o and give customers PDFs. Seems to work just fine. Sure we have copies of Office around, but we're not forced to use it, and in fact pretty much all of the workstations are incapable of running it anyways.
People have to snap out of this bullshit apathy and actually demand reasonable standards, quality, and protection [from lockin]. I'd be cool with using XP, for instance, if it weren't so far on its own tangent. MSFT basically steals any good ideas from standards then perverts it enough so they are not 100% compatible. And they only do that so they can lock people in.
For me, I'm not anti-msft because I'm some fanboy anti-msft zealot. I'm anti-msft because I don't like being forced to use tools someone else picks for me, and more so, picks for me because they want to gouge me to line their pockets.
No, because serious Photoshop users couldn't care less about running it on Linux. They need it to Just Work, not waste time tinkering with it.
... gotcha.
Right... because absolutely no time is spent getting Windows to work. That's why people are migrating BACK TO XP from Vista in sufficient numbers as to have MSFT extend the life of XP.
Right, Windows "Just Works"
To be honest I got pissed off at some packages that wouldn't update (like gedit, epiphany, etc), also the wireless config changed again. I mean I like gentoo as a concept, but in practice they don't QA enough which drives me mad. It's nice that most problems can be solved via a browse of forums.gentoo.org, but frankly, I don't have time to maintain my laptop all the time.
:-)
Now my file server/workstation at home runs gentoo, but that's because I like the freshness of the tools around and it's worth solving emerge script problems
But in the case of the laptop, I "just wanted it to work."
I choose to use OSS for the myriad of benefits. It has the downside that I can't play many of the popular games. OH BIG WHOOP. I have consoles for games if I really want to play something.
People aren't forced to do anything they don't want to. You don't have to take that job at $BIGCORP where they use all the wrong software/tools/etc. You don't have to buy a PC with Vista installed, you don't have to keep it installed if you did anyways. People run Windows because they're too lazy and ignorant to sort out any choices for them, especially if the choice is for their own good in the long run anyways.
I find the "grandma" comments kinda funny though. What is your retired grandmother doing that she can't browse the web and read about computers if she's so inclined to buy one [or a new one]?
Sometimes it's worth repeating because it's a valid rhetorical question.
You can edit documents, run spreadsheets (even multiply correctly!), design software/hardware, compose music, etc, just as easily in an OSS OS as Windows. And if people stopped worshipping Redmond they'd actually realize that *they* have the power to choose, not the producers.
Why isn't photoshop ported to GNU/Linux? Because customers aren't demanding it enough. Watch people hold up updating CS, demand Linux ports, and you'll probably see it happen. But if you just blindly do what they tell you, you get less options. And in certain cases the alternatives are better. I'd rather use OO.o than MS Office. I'd rather use firefox than IE7. I'd rather use pidgin than the MSN client, I'd rather use lilypond than Finale, I'd rather use mplayer than WMP, I'd rather use a lot of things than their "traditional proprietary" counterparts.
I'd suspect for 99% of computer users out there (home users included) they could get by just as well or better with a good Linux distro than Vista. Certainly my experience with Ubuntu has been such that if you can't figure out how to use/install it, you probably won't get much out of owning a computer anyways. It's just so damn simple to use, not to mention free, and gives access to an entire library of OSS software.
Tom
Good thing my "windows" machines don't run windows. :-)
yeah I know it's cliche to post about running another OS, but honestly, what's the motivation to run windows anymore?
I recently swapped gentoo for ubuntu on my laptop, and out of the box ubuntu booted up to Gnome, had a bunch of useful software installed, was easy to add more OSS to it, it detected my wireless card, and even found my access point right away, sound works, etc. If I take an XP SP2 CD and put it in my laptop, it will fail to find my wireless AND sound. Yet, a free ubuntu CD does that and more. I just don't get what would motivate me to run Windows. This isn't a fanboy issue, it's just pragmatism. Windows is shit by comparison.
As for the issue of IE7, to be honest I'd rather run IE4 than either IE6 or IE7. Loads a hell of a lot quicker, and the interface is a bit more sane. Even without tabbed browsing it's still better than 7.
Tom
The point you're missing is I only care if the Earth sustains *me*. I don't care about the next generations. And in all likelyhood the earth will still be here in 50-60 years. So I'm set.
Not that I'm siding with corporations. I just don't really like humanity, don't have kids, and couldn't care less what goes on beyond my scope of the world.
Tom
Actually that raises an important distinction. I was a teen in the 90s, but I took an interest in computing early on (e.g. when I was a kid). I was more into tinkering with software and building computers than chatting on BBSes or whatever. I think kids of today know how to use technology quite readily, but do they actually understand how the hell it works? The percentage of kids who actually get how software/hardware works is probably just as low as it was during the 80s and 90s.
I mean, being able to use a VCR (look it up kids if you don't know what that is) in the 70s didn't automatically make you an electrical engineer. Just like using an iPod doesn't make you a software engineer.
I think we're kidding ourselves if we think that kids/teens/young adults of today actually are technically inclined to the point of knowing how things actually work.
A lesson is a lesson regardless of whether it's in front of a blackboard or on a netmeeting whiteboard. When will these people realize that it's the MESSAGE that counts more than the medium. Not every fucking kid needs a laptop, or their own personal PDA/etc. We got along just fine in the 80s/90s with a paper agenda book, blackboards, and textbooks.
Maybe if we expected our kids to take an interest in their own education, we wouldn't worry so much if precious wittle Johny is bored in class or not. The incentive should be to learn and explore knowledge. If the kids aren't fundamentally interested in learning, no amount of toys, gizmos, trickery, or whatnot will get them through a proper education.
I was hardly an ideal student. I was into my own things by time I was 14, I taught myself comp.sci and cryptography usually at the expense of regular high school subjects. Yet despite all that, i still managed to graduate from high school, go to college, grad from that, and then land a career in my field of choice.
High school dropouts are nothing more than anti-social lazy people who want instant gratification and think the world owes them everything. Oh school is boring. Well you know what, not every subject in life is going to be the most exciting thing in the world. But you go through it just the same because the more rounded your education the more versatile and interesting you become. I sure as fuck wasn't that into english lit, but I still took the courses just the same, and participated as best as I could.
In short, stop crying and whining, nobody owes you jack squat, and if you stop making excuses like "we need laptops and powerpoint!" you'd actually realize that the problems are mostly with the students, not the system.
we cannot conclude from this that the ozone layer is recovering already
In short, EVERYBODY PANIC and give us grant monies!
Since I don't have kids, and probably won't, I say screw the ozone. I'm all for living indoors anyways.
Cuz most people don't know they have problems to start with. They just assume that a 130 second boot-time or hard-drive churning opening of Word is "normal."
My parents download every single app they can find, and they're generally not stupid. It wouldn't surprise me that their box has at least a dozen viruses competing.
She's free to say anything she wants (well libel/slander/etc aside). Doesn't mean it's law.
So she could say you're stealing O2 from the atmosphere by living. So what? Doesn't mean it matters or it's law.
Tom
Yeah, so I raised the flag at Iwo Jima, were you there for that?
Two steps...
1. Use model #s for the cpus... e.g. 6600AT or someshit
2. Put a ref chart with relevant deets on a website [*]
3. Profit.
I lied there are three steps.
[*] deets like clock rate, fsb speed, TDP, cache per core, shared cache, cache latency/ways/ports, instruction set features [e.g. SSE, MMX, etc], pin-count, voltage, heat tolerance
Instead of calling it the "Centrino Duo Laptop" you can say "it's the Centrino 6600JZX" then a smart user can just look up 6600JZX on their website and know what the fuck it is. Do the same for the northbridge and GPU, et voila.
The confusion comes not from clever names, but when they try to consolidate all the info down.
Or in the case of Nvidia/Ati where they use non-well-ordered numbers. Like is the 8800GTS better than the fastest 7xxx series? Hint: There are stripped down versions of the 8xxx series that are worse than cards in the 7xxx series. Nvidia doesn't really provide a lot of info [or they didn't last I checked] concerning clock rates/bus width and freq/number of pixel pipes, etc...
Of course if they just ordered the fucking numbers that would work well. There probably is method to their madness, but I don't know what it is and most customers probably don't either. They could do [probably are what do I know] use the first digit for the major revision, e.g. 8xyz, but then use x/y/z for levels of mem/bus/GPU performance, e.g. a 8000 would be basic, 8009 would have the best GPU in that class, 8900 the most memory, 8090 the fastest/widest bus, etc.
That way if you saw 8555 and 7999 you could easily tell that the latter is the maxed out version of the previous revision of the core [and likely faster].
Tom
Your issues are different than those of road violations. On the road you have to be constantly aware and on the look out for hazards. It's when people let their guards down that they get into accidents. And how does a passerby tell if you're not paying attention? Well two good indications are speeding and running lights. Those are hardly the only signs of drivers not paying attention, but they're certainly the easiest to catch remotely.
It's not big secret that most drivers only plan their driving about 1 second ahead of their car. It's trivial to see, for example, how often do you see people speed from one red light to the next (e.g. the first light turns green, they then zoom by only to stop at the next red light 500 metres away). And even though they should know better, they choose to disregard any common sense and drive however they damn well please.
I don't look at the cameras as a failing of the police, I look at them as a failing of the population. As in, supposedly responsible adults can't abide by trivial rules of the road, and have to be constantly watched and scolded like the five year olds they are.
Actually if you think about it, that's probably why they hate them so much, because they hate being treated like children. Well, as my mama always said, if you don't want to be treated like a child, stop acting like one.
You can't keep road laws and not enforce them. Safety is up to the driver and other people on the road (cyclists, road workers, etc). It's not the governments place to make sure that you're driving 24/7.
Things like speed traps, red light cameras, etc, are supposed to be reminders of safe driving practices. At the point though, that you need to be reminded that you should stop for red lights because "a camera may be installed," chances are you shouldn't be driving anyways.
And in the end, if someone rear-ends you for stopping at a yellow, THEY'RE at fault. And if the law wasn't so pussy footed about, they would receive a ticket for reckless driving, demerits and their insurance would go up. Do it enough, and they lose their license.
That's the real problem, is that the laws aren't always enforced as they should be. How many people have had speeding tickets reduced? Sounds like a nice gesture, but at the end of the day it's only letting bad drivers get away with not driving correctly. Now I'm not saying there aren't relatively harmless infractions. Like speeding by 15km/h over the limit should still result in a fine, but in many cases it's not unsafe to do so. So I don't think points should be taken. 20+ km/h on the other hand is starting to get into the out of spec zone for speed.
But in the end, it's up to the drivers to drive safe. Just like how I do the speed limit in the fast lane. Which without fault catches at least 10 people on my way to work, passing me doing 20 over the limit. If any one of those people hits my car from behind, THEY'RE at fault. Heck, even if I were doing 20 UNDER the limit, they're still at fault if they hit my car (though I could be fined for obstructing traffic). If they did hit my car it's because they weren't paying attention and driving recklessly. Hence, demerit points. Do that enough times you lose your license.
So really, you shouldn't be super concerned with the people behind you. It's not your responsibility to make sure you're speeding "enough," or running enough red-lights. All you have to do is not hit things in front/side of you, and get out of the way for emergency crews. The rest of society can go fuck themselves if you're not going fast enough for their likings. Do the damn speed limit, stop for reds, and you'll have nothing to bitch about.
It's very rare that I find myself doing the speed limit and end up in on the boundary of "when I should stop for a yellow" and "when I can go through it." In those cases, I make a judgment call and if possible I stop anyways (having to be restrained by the seat belt and all). Even then it never really amounts to stomping on my brakes, just means I decelerate quicker than normal.
99/100 times when I get a yellow I'm either sufficiently away that I can stop safely, or close enough that I can go through it with time to spare. Did I forget to mention I drive the speed limit? Oh yeah, I drive the speed limit. Lights are usually timed to give you ample stopping time for the speed you're supposed to be doing (if they're not using a standard delay).
If you find yourself stomping on your brakes, it's because you're either not paying attention and notice the yellow too late, or you're speeding, or both.
First, I don't see the privacy violation. You are driving on a PUBLIC highway. If you want to remain private, keep private. Don't get in your car in plain sight and drive on a public road.
Second, I don't see why the only viable solution is to put cops out instead of cameras. Obviously the cameras are catching people. Maybe the LAW needs updating. As in, more stiff penalties. Like run two lights in a year and lose your license. Instead of just fining people money, since that seems not to discourage people from speeding/running lights.
How about them apples?
I love that assbackwards logic. The cameras only catch violators. The theory being that people will drive properly to keep safe, and if not for that, at least to save money.
I do the speed limit and stop for lights because it's safe. But I really don't want a ticket either so I'm extra cautious. Even when it's "safe" to do say 20 over the limit I still don't.
And why is being efficient bad? Should cops forgo using computers to look up license plates because it's too simple when trying to find stolen cars? Or stop using hand guns when trying to defend themselves. Man up loretta, technology is there to improve efficiency, which yes, means they'll catch more people.
So why not grow an adult size set of brain matter, stop breaking the law like the jerk asshole you are, and you can go about not bitching about harmless traffic cameras.
corner gas for the win as well ... good form.
Tom
Win.
Yeah I don't get it either. The basic logic works like this, "I was getting away with it before, don't change/enforce the law so I can't continue my bad practices!"
It's like when they put in speed/redlight cameras. The majority of people who bitch are the very people the gear is meant to catch. And they're not really pissed off because of the supposed violation of privacy, it's because they know they won't get away with their previously bad behaviour.
I for one welcome this. I think there should be a discretion though, I mean if I fail to report the $13 toy I sold on ebay last year I shouldn't face prison time. But if you're doing [say] more than $1000/year in sales it should be mandatory.
So you ignore the principles under conditions where they could actually do some good and get inexperienced drivers to reconsider their speed. There are many kinds of idiots on the road, and you're one of them.
[forgot to reply to this]
No, it means I'm a safe driver. When I drive the limit in the fast lane on clear roads, the people behind me should be well in control of their cars. So pissed off they may be, there is no reason for them to hit me. Chances of people actually hitting my car is low to nill. In icy/slushy roads, even though they're responsible for driving a safe limit, they don't and the chances of someone hitting my car is a lot higher.
All this means is I don't purposefully put myself in a situation where I'm very likely to get hurt.
If you can't judge your closing distance and adjust speed on a clear and open road, you shouldn't be driving regardless of whoever may be in front of you.