They're routinely lied to and mislead, either out of contempt or ignorance.
I got "banned" from a Gamestop in Orlando a while back for stopping somebody from being scammed by one of their employees.
It was back when the Dreamcast was dropping in price to $99. It happened on a Sunday, because I went to Best Buy to get one, and they didn't have any of the keyboards left, so we went over to Gaystop to see if they had one. I got to witness an employee telling a father that the price drop didn't take effect until Tuesday.
I spoke up and said that I just bought one at Best Buy for $99, and read many ads that morning in the newspaper for the same price. The father thanked me, flipped off the employee, and walked out, over to Best Buy. I was told I was no longer welcome in that store, which was ok, as that was the first and only time I had ever been there.
I had a customer want a website done for his company. I went over for a chat to see what he wanted, what the company was about, etc. He gave me a sob story about how the company is falling on hard times, used to be on the NYSE, he once was worth millions but now can barely afford his house.
I wrote up a contract with milestone payments, was reasonable with the fee (I was in college after all, any money is money after all), and asked him to sign. My boss at my university job is a notary public, so I asked if she would notarize it.
He sends it back with some requested changes that were reasonable, so I made them. Then he told me to go ahead and start and he'd sign it and get it back to me. I'm thinking 'yeah, right' and tell him I can't start work until I have it signed, to protect both of us.
Well, it's over a year later. Still no signed contract, still no work done. I still have that feeling if I did the work, he wouldn't have paid me. But that's ok, I wouldn't have given him ANYTHING until I saw some monies.
In the course of getting my CS degree, I had a programming languages class that demonstrated how functional languages have their uses in a very real way. The first assignment was to write a boolean expression parser in C. The second assignement was to do the same in ML. Then Prolog. My Prolog program was 3 lines long. The C program was much, much longer and much more complicated too.
Personally, I am self taught in most languages I know. I took CS because I like to program, but I knew what the degree really was. I learned a bunch of techniques for analyzing algorithms and various other language-independant techniques.
I figured I'd get a software programming job after I graduated, but I didn't want a mindless job. I like to solve problems, so I was hoping for a job where I could program tools to solve particular problems or automate jobs. No "write this part of this project, do it this way", more like "I need X to do Y." That's what I love about programming.
SCO must read at -1 then... If you read at 1 or even 2 you get plenty of good comments, and some great humor in the process too:-)
Re:why not use a mass spectrometer
on
Meet the Nasalnaut
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Which they do... The article says they run things through a mass spectrometer first to determine toxicity. But the true offensiveness of an odor can't be determined by a machine. For instance, I can eat alot of garlic and be bothered by it later. My mom has a little bit and complains for hours she reeks of garlic. It takes a few human noses to determine if something is going to be offensive in closed, recirculated quarters such as the Shuttle or the ISS.
Instead of each nation trying to build it in competition, why don't we try to build it all together? Maybe this is the event we need to unite as a world, Star Trek stylee...
I rarely meet players over the age of 30. This leads to inexperienced coding and less bleeding edge technology. That could be part of the problem.
I'm one of the head coders for the mud I play on (advanced over the years). I'm 22, and started coding for them when I was 19. I'll admit if you compare code quality now and then, I've vastly improved over the years (not to say I was any slouch or anything back then, but my technique has improved since). We strive to have good features, and I've worked on some of the biggest enhancements that have made over the 8 or so years this mud has been running in its current iteration.
But I agree with your other points. Opening the source has been discussed, but the person who runs the place is pretty paranoid about the source (it was stolen before by a former coder, and she brought legal action). I had to wait a year or so and code on bits and pieces of files only related to my code before I actually got the entire thing.
Sometimes players complain about stuff, and how we sometimes get behind on code or new features. I tell them that I do it for free, for the love of the code. Sometimes live gets in the way.
An unboxed, used copy of Chrono Trigger was marked at $75 at a local game shop. And I watched somebody snap that up pretty quick. After the person left, I asked the dood at the counter how long they had that game on the shelf, and he had only had it for a couple of days.
When I graduated and was looking for a job, I submitted my resume to some jobs I found on Monster and a few on my local newspaper's section at, IIRC, CareerBuilder. In total, about 20 positions over the course of 2 months.
I got 0 response. Zip, zilch, nada. Except for the confirmation email telling me my resume was submitted for that particular listing, I got nothing. No calls, no emails, nothing. And I was qualified for the job.
And I got my current job by knowing somebody who worked at the company. I knew somebody at another company too, called them, they checked, but they didn't have anything open for me at the time. But the guy said to get back in touch if I hadn't found anything in a few months.
Word of mouth, networking (not that kind, the kind where you *gasp* talk to people!), and having contacts in companies seem to be the best way to go, and I didn't even need to read a study to figure that out.
Ahh yes, the old non-volatile reprogramming tool... They can do wonders for a flakey hard drive. A few good whacks and suddenly you get a warrenty replacement!
Quite right. Not only can it be dangerous to your PC or bank account (if they install a key logger too, for example), but stuff like this steals your bandwidth, which some people in this world still pay for by amount, not a flat rate.
Hopefully Microsoft, with their new stance on spam and "security" (not to be flamebait but they really haven't made me trust them yet), will get their act together and realize that there need to be substantial changes to the way they go about things in order to combat these problems.
Quite right. As the parent pointed out, the OS isn't ready. The Itanic version didn't have DirectX or Windows Media Player. For a "consumer" OS built on x86-64, those technologies (DirectX anyways, I could care less about WMP) must be included. Couple that with 64-bit drivers that need to be developed by hardware makers, and it can explain the delays all by itself. Who'd want an OS that there are no drivers for?
I mean, come on... who woulda thought Microsoft would have kept backwards compatibility?
But on a serious note, they can't just apply their usual "They'll upgrade if we force them to" standards to video game consoles. They'll lose their shirt. Look how well the PS2 sold, probably in part because of backwards compatability. Now that Nintendo is using disc-based games, maybe their next console will be backwards compatible. If the Xbox isn't backwards compatible, it's almost like putting out an entirely new console again.
But based on hardware specs I've seen, it probably won't happen unless they already have the games seperated from the hardware layer (which from what I've read about hardware clocks and stuff they don't). Good luck Microsoft.
Similar to my situation with the Speed Network. I like rally racing, and in Orlando, I got the Speed Network with my basic cable package. Well, now that I've graduated and moved, the Speed Network is only available in this location when you have digital cable! ARGH!
Moral of the story, make sure the channels you like are available on the package you are planning to get.
And for the record, the cable is free with my apartment, and to upgrade I (supposedly) just have to pay the difference. I'm just waiting until I get my new HDTV:-)
In the plant across the street from the one I work in, they make the main engine controller for the Space Shuttle. The Columbia tragedy had a close-to-home impact for many of the people who work in that program. They set up a small memorial over there. It's not much in the way of grandeur, but it shows they still remember those that were lost in the pursuit of man's dreams.
Campbell's Soups should produce a Souper Bowl, similar to the Bud Bowl. That would be gooooood watchin.
Re:Thought there was an IP play going on...
on
Superbowling
·
· Score: 1
Players depicted in store ads, from what I've seen over the years, are always generic. That way they don't have to pay any licensing fees for logos, etc.
I bought 2 books new, but online one semester. They took 2 weeks to arrive, but I got $90 list price books for $45 each. At the end of the semester, I sold thpse 2 books back to the university book store during their Book Buyback week (don't get me started on how the buyback period ends the weekend before the last finals take place) for a total of almost $70.
It felt good to get something from them for their usual policy of paying $20 for a book and selling it as used for $60.
And it doesn't even solve the problem of bouncing a virus infected email back to the person who is listed in the "from" address. Because with most new viruses, that person isn't the infected one most of the time.
I think that's what the submitter is complaining about. Anti-virus solutions sending bounce messages for virus infected emails to the people in the "from".
Quite right. I bought a Logitech wireless kit (the black one with the play/stop/volume/etc buttons on it) and I still use my Intellimouse Optical rather then the optical wireless mouse that came with it (and eats batteries like ). Aside from a useless mouse sitting in my closet, no complaints from me. The on-keyboard controls work with Winamp, and that's pretty much all I ask.
Slashdot Mirror
They're routinely lied to and mislead, either out of contempt or ignorance.
I got "banned" from a Gamestop in Orlando a while back for stopping somebody from being scammed by one of their employees.
It was back when the Dreamcast was dropping in price to $99. It happened on a Sunday, because I went to Best Buy to get one, and they didn't have any of the keyboards left, so we went over to Gaystop to see if they had one. I got to witness an employee telling a father that the price drop didn't take effect until Tuesday.
I spoke up and said that I just bought one at Best Buy for $99, and read many ads that morning in the newspaper for the same price. The father thanked me, flipped off the employee, and walked out, over to Best Buy. I was told I was no longer welcome in that store, which was ok, as that was the first and only time I had ever been there.
I had a customer want a website done for his company. I went over for a chat to see what he wanted, what the company was about, etc. He gave me a sob story about how the company is falling on hard times, used to be on the NYSE, he once was worth millions but now can barely afford his house.
I wrote up a contract with milestone payments, was reasonable with the fee (I was in college after all, any money is money after all), and asked him to sign. My boss at my university job is a notary public, so I asked if she would notarize it.
He sends it back with some requested changes that were reasonable, so I made them. Then he told me to go ahead and start and he'd sign it and get it back to me. I'm thinking 'yeah, right' and tell him I can't start work until I have it signed, to protect both of us.
Well, it's over a year later. Still no signed contract, still no work done. I still have that feeling if I did the work, he wouldn't have paid me. But that's ok, I wouldn't have given him ANYTHING until I saw some monies.
In the course of getting my CS degree, I had a programming languages class that demonstrated how functional languages have their uses in a very real way. The first assignment was to write a boolean expression parser in C. The second assignement was to do the same in ML. Then Prolog. My Prolog program was 3 lines long. The C program was much, much longer and much more complicated too.
Personally, I am self taught in most languages I know. I took CS because I like to program, but I knew what the degree really was. I learned a bunch of techniques for analyzing algorithms and various other language-independant techniques.
I figured I'd get a software programming job after I graduated, but I didn't want a mindless job. I like to solve problems, so I was hoping for a job where I could program tools to solve particular problems or automate jobs. No "write this part of this project, do it this way", more like "I need X to do Y." That's what I love about programming.
SCO must read at -1 then... If you read at 1 or even 2 you get plenty of good comments, and some great humor in the process too :-)
Which they do... The article says they run things through a mass spectrometer first to determine toxicity. But the true offensiveness of an odor can't be determined by a machine. For instance, I can eat alot of garlic and be bothered by it later. My mom has a little bit and complains for hours she reeks of garlic. It takes a few human noses to determine if something is going to be offensive in closed, recirculated quarters such as the Shuttle or the ISS.
Instead of each nation trying to build it in competition, why don't we try to build it all together? Maybe this is the event we need to unite as a world, Star Trek stylee...
Actually, I was thinking more like this one, in an article about odd games.
I rarely meet players over the age of 30. This leads to inexperienced coding and less bleeding edge technology. That could be part of the problem.
I'm one of the head coders for the mud I play on (advanced over the years). I'm 22, and started coding for them when I was 19. I'll admit if you compare code quality now and then, I've vastly improved over the years (not to say I was any slouch or anything back then, but my technique has improved since). We strive to have good features, and I've worked on some of the biggest enhancements that have made over the 8 or so years this mud has been running in its current iteration.
But I agree with your other points. Opening the source has been discussed, but the person who runs the place is pretty paranoid about the source (it was stolen before by a former coder, and she brought legal action). I had to wait a year or so and code on bits and pieces of files only related to my code before I actually got the entire thing.
Sometimes players complain about stuff, and how we sometimes get behind on code or new features. I tell them that I do it for free, for the love of the code. Sometimes live gets in the way.
An unboxed, used copy of Chrono Trigger was marked at $75 at a local game shop. And I watched somebody snap that up pretty quick. After the person left, I asked the dood at the counter how long they had that game on the shelf, and he had only had it for a couple of days.
When I graduated and was looking for a job, I submitted my resume to some jobs I found on Monster and a few on my local newspaper's section at, IIRC, CareerBuilder. In total, about 20 positions over the course of 2 months.
I got 0 response. Zip, zilch, nada. Except for the confirmation email telling me my resume was submitted for that particular listing, I got nothing. No calls, no emails, nothing. And I was qualified for the job.
And I got my current job by knowing somebody who worked at the company. I knew somebody at another company too, called them, they checked, but they didn't have anything open for me at the time. But the guy said to get back in touch if I hadn't found anything in a few months.
Word of mouth, networking (not that kind, the kind where you *gasp* talk to people!), and having contacts in companies seem to be the best way to go, and I didn't even need to read a study to figure that out.
Ahh yes, the old non-volatile reprogramming tool... They can do wonders for a flakey hard drive. A few good whacks and suddenly you get a warrenty replacement!
Quite right. Not only can it be dangerous to your PC or bank account (if they install a key logger too, for example), but stuff like this steals your bandwidth, which some people in this world still pay for by amount, not a flat rate.
Hopefully Microsoft, with their new stance on spam and "security" (not to be flamebait but they really haven't made me trust them yet), will get their act together and realize that there need to be substantial changes to the way they go about things in order to combat these problems.
DeBeers has announced their official entry into the X-prize competition...
How about some #include <beer.h> glasses and some really high quality beer?
...because I tried to submit a story on this:
2004-02-03 17:36:02 Happy Birthday Gaston Julia (articles,graphics) (rejected)
Too bad I can't remember what I wrote, but I can give some links to stuff about him on Wikipedia.
Quite right. As the parent pointed out, the OS isn't ready. The Itanic version didn't have DirectX or Windows Media Player. For a "consumer" OS built on x86-64, those technologies (DirectX anyways, I could care less about WMP) must be included. Couple that with 64-bit drivers that need to be developed by hardware makers, and it can explain the delays all by itself. Who'd want an OS that there are no drivers for?
I mean, come on... who woulda thought Microsoft would have kept backwards compatibility?
But on a serious note, they can't just apply their usual "They'll upgrade if we force them to" standards to video game consoles. They'll lose their shirt. Look how well the PS2 sold, probably in part because of backwards compatability. Now that Nintendo is using disc-based games, maybe their next console will be backwards compatible. If the Xbox isn't backwards compatible, it's almost like putting out an entirely new console again.
But based on hardware specs I've seen, it probably won't happen unless they already have the games seperated from the hardware layer (which from what I've read about hardware clocks and stuff they don't). Good luck Microsoft.
Similar to my situation with the Speed Network. I like rally racing, and in Orlando, I got the Speed Network with my basic cable package. Well, now that I've graduated and moved, the Speed Network is only available in this location when you have digital cable! ARGH!
:-)
Moral of the story, make sure the channels you like are available on the package you are planning to get.
And for the record, the cable is free with my apartment, and to upgrade I (supposedly) just have to pay the difference. I'm just waiting until I get my new HDTV
In the plant across the street from the one I work in, they make the main engine controller for the Space Shuttle. The Columbia tragedy had a close-to-home impact for many of the people who work in that program. They set up a small memorial over there. It's not much in the way of grandeur, but it shows they still remember those that were lost in the pursuit of man's dreams.
Campbell's Soups should produce a Souper Bowl, similar to the Bud Bowl. That would be gooooood watchin.
Players depicted in store ads, from what I've seen over the years, are always generic. That way they don't have to pay any licensing fees for logos, etc.
I bought 2 books new, but online one semester. They took 2 weeks to arrive, but I got $90 list price books for $45 each. At the end of the semester, I sold thpse 2 books back to the university book store during their Book Buyback week (don't get me started on how the buyback period ends the weekend before the last finals take place) for a total of almost $70.
It felt good to get something from them for their usual policy of paying $20 for a book and selling it as used for $60.
Evolution has provided the human body with an excellent defense against this sort of thing. It's called a bladder.
And human-kind has come up with an invention designed to foil evolution in this case. They're called diapers.
And it doesn't even solve the problem of bouncing a virus infected email back to the person who is listed in the "from" address. Because with most new viruses, that person isn't the infected one most of the time.
I think that's what the submitter is complaining about. Anti-virus solutions sending bounce messages for virus infected emails to the people in the "from".
Quite right. I bought a Logitech wireless kit (the black one with the play/stop/volume/etc buttons on it) and I still use my Intellimouse Optical rather then the optical wireless mouse that came with it (and eats batteries like ). Aside from a useless mouse sitting in my closet, no complaints from me. The on-keyboard controls work with Winamp, and that's pretty much all I ask.