Honestly! It is! The media get us all so self-concious by showing us 'better' stuff all the time - wether its/.ers talking about their dual P4 3GHz machines that they are retiring, or beyonces ass, or Tigers short game. We all know that the rest of the world is just waiting to take the piss when we say 'look at my [PC / Tits / Chipping] isn't it good'.
So chicks with perfectly nice boobs get them 'done' to look like everyone else who got them done, we all buy new machines before the old one is past it because we can't stand having a smaller number, and we pay a fortune to some 'pro' to show us how to chip better.
It's a sorry state of affairs.
To try and turn this tide - I should state that I am writing this on a 1GHz Inspiron with a dead battery, knackered mousepad, and no ink left on the a,s,n,m,shift(left), ctrl(left), Page Up (but surprisingly plenty in on Page Down - do you think they put tougher ink on page down? The only game I play on this machine is TOCA 2 - which runs just fine.
My boobs aren't as nice as beyonces - but then Im a guy so I shouldn't even HAVE boobs. Oh - and golf is for bald people - so I have a while before I'll be too worried about my chipping. I'm almost certain the shirt Im wearing is too young / cool for me though.
I have to hope your right. Trade agreements between the EU and North Africa are a massive problem - the EU acting like the big protectionist bunch of ass that it is!
Having more reliable, cheaper, and quicker trade channels should open up trade with North Africa greatly. One industry that leaps to mind is call centre outsourcing. When setting up a new call centre a reasonable number of people are sent to India (or wherever) to train the new staff.
If these people could be sent over land more cheaply to a similarly cheap market it could reduce the establishment cost significantly. This could have a serious impact on the average wage relatively quickly as the infrastructure is relatively quick to deploy! Certainly quicker than a new Honda factory.
My credit card company knows that on a typical weekend I spend an hour on Saturday morning at the supermarket. They could rob my house. It'd be worth it - unless all that money I spend on saturday afternoons in electrical and department stores is on gifts.
I'm a full on 1984 paranoid myself - but suspect that of the surveillence methods available - tracking which vehicles are speeding is one of the more inert. That said, after a couple of shandies and surrounded by people who buy everything using store loyalty cards I'd be denouncing my own idea as the first step down a slippery slope.
Sometimes compromise is required for the greater good. If I could negotiate ubiquitous speed cameras and a 75% reduction in traffic police that would be a worthwhile trade. When someone says 'could the cameras also flag up where stolen vehicles are?' we need to think a bit. 'Could parents sign up to see where their kids are when they lend them the car?' we think a bit harder. "Can parents see where their kids are in the kids OWN car?" absolutely not. Although many would think this an excellent idea.
My credit card company can now know that I just spent 50 on fuel, and am hammering along the M1 away from my house on Christmas Eve! Now THERES a house worth breaking into.
But I don't drive! I cycle - so I have an inherent hatered for the motorist - so if they land up robbed or in room 101 I'm not too fussed!
But try to make me register my bike and see some trouble!
And why wont it happen - because people cant be arsed to be political any more. If everyone just refused to say who was driving the vehicle (as we are entitled to do under EU law) and wouldnt pay and signed petitions to change the law Im betting it would happen quickly enough.
This is where I start to lose the will to live. If you start with the assumption that speed limits are too low and so speeding is NOT dangerous (at least its not when I do it), and you assume catching speeders is solely a cash raising excercise automated capture seems evil.
If we have automated capture that catches and fines 100% of offenders - and that fucks up peoples lives far enough - the law will change. And then we're not all doing 85 in a 70 limit. We're doing 85 in an 85 limit.
Automated capture also costs less, on the whole, so the good policemen and women can be out hunting down murderers and the like - instead of fighting the endless war against speeding.
Personally - I find that quite attractive - assuming everyone stops being pussies and actually gives a fuck about CHANGING laws, not just BREAKING them.
SHIT - my hat!! my hat!!! WHERES MY TINFOIL HAT!!!!! that fucking cat has taken it again I bet!
Another area in which the world is poorer for the lack of a Douglas Adams wandering (or more likely flying first class) around it.
I would have LOVED to see him tackle a 'text message adventure' along the lines of the old infocom classics. He has written a number of pieces (some of which are collected in salmon of doubt) about how much he enjoyed this marrage of writing and computing. The flexibility and restrictions of the medium would have led to something pretty neat I'm guessing. Of course - then he'd have pissed another 10 years down the drain discussing making it into a movie with Disney!
Damn I want to swap to another paralel universe sometimes. One where Adams did EVERYTHING we think he'd have been good at, and where Britney Spears lives next door and cooks me pastries for breakfast on sundays!
Stupid laws that cost thousands of extra police hours not only waste tax-payers money, they take police from their real job
Couldnt agree more. But this isnt the main culprit. Globally more is spent on 'THE WAR ON DRUGS' and chasing criminals who only steal to feed their habits than on ANYTHING ELSE. Apologies for the caps - just trying to be sensationalist because Im talking about drugs - which we all know are REALLY SCARY AND BAD.
Of course - these kids coul dhave been P2Ping to support a crack habit. It all comes back to wasted money on THE WAR ON DRUGS...
I had a similar commute for a couple of years - about an hour doing between 50 and 80 MPH.
Now imagine that done at 4 times the speed - the hour becomes 15 minutes. I could get 45 minutes more sleep every morning, and 45 minutes more beer / TV / Sex / Xbox in the evenings.
Over the course of a year thats a whole lot of extra EVERYTHING. Roll on the new trains!
most of us are either too scared or lazy to do it Exactly. I've started up and it was hard and it still is but its a bucketload more fun that working for the boss! 90% of the businesspeople I meet are intellectually, socially, and every other way inferior to 90% of 'nerdyboys' Ive known. Get out there and try it chaps - its worth it!
One word of warning though
I have a good friend who is definitely more salesman than geek. I told him an idea. His response was, "I know right now who I could sell that to, if you can make it."
Thats what EVERY salesman Ive ever met says about EVERY idea Ive ever told them. Having wasted a six figure sum paying these guys to sell stuff they claimed would be 'easy - I know 100 phone numbers who will DEFENITLY buy this' - its not that easy!
Money is never the problem - its control! If theres one thing nerds like its control!
First lesson you should learn from ANY degree course is that 90% of what they teach you is bollocks.
Government grants, throughout the globe, are only given to companies who will succeed anyway - or who are working on a politically 'nice' area. I've run my own business since 93 and havent met ONE entrepreneur with a good thing to say for them.
Rich uncles are well and good - but they can be a bigger pain in the ass than the bank because they think you owe them. UNless youve always had a strong relationship with your uncle avoid avoid avoid.
Angels. Angels are only in it for the VERY short term in most cases. Drop in sub-100K and get out within a 2-3 year window with >250K. Thats your basic angel sum. You do NOT own your IP as the Angel wants to own some of the company - depending on the angel and perceived risk 50 to 90% is not uncommon.
So - some truth to what you say. But not the whole picture. It still just boils down to credit cards, mortgage extensions, and eating toast 3 times a day.
If you enjoy this stuff have a look at the master of large format photography, Andreas Gursky. Gursky, for me, adds the 'art' to the photography that Mr GigaPixel somehow misses. Im impressed as hell by the scale and detail of Gigapixels work, but theres something just... better about Gursky.
If you hear of any of his work near you go and see it - viewing on screen doesnt do it justice.
If I had any advice for MrGigaPixel (as I hope he will now be named) it would be to find the printing mix which best displays his work, and to ONLY release as exceptionally high quality art prints - not cheap posters. It might be easier to make a buck with posters, but its possible to earn a mint with print. (as my old art teacher used to say)
Everyone knows a group isn't complete until it has a gay member! Now I dont have to be ashamed of using/. - if its good enough for gay people its good enough for me!
its always the supplimentary info thats most revealing. The future was sounding great until you revealed they still have DANCING!!! Ever since that last combination of me, alcohol, 'crazy in love' and a beyonce impression I've gone dance cold turkey.
I even gave my dancemat PS2 controllers to my cousin!
The only way to compete with MS is to prevent them from growing their market share too much. And if you just concentrate on competing with other Unices, then you (and the other Unices) will lose, because behind your back MS will eat the total Un*x-likes market share.
I just dont buy that assertion. A few years ago in the UK if you wanted a non-shit / non-luxury car and you werent a freak you bought a Ford. SImple as that. Some people had vauxhalls and VWs but the vast majority drove a ford.
Had all the other companies grouped together to make a 'better than ford' or with the objective of 'limiting Fords market share' I doubt they'd have made a decent car among them. Just look at the british car industry of the 70s 80s (all german owned now).
No. All the individual companies trotted off to make the best car with no regard to specific competition. We got the german, spanish, japanese and a host of eastern block imports which, bit by bit, proved to fill niche after niche better than the 3 Fords which were available.
Want a 'hot hatch' - VW, got a big family, get a Renault, etc...
Same principle with nixes! Make me the perfect nix for running my home entertainment, for running my mailserver, for running my reception desktops and I'll convert. One size NEVER fits all.
PHB doesnt base decisions on numbers like you suggest! he just doesnt. He wants it reliable, cheap, and NOW!
When using a phrase like 'MS Sucks' on/. it is pretty obvious to the majority of the readership that this is shorthand for all the ills of the current MS monopoly on the business desktop (certainly in the context of this story).
If everyone had to go into detail at every use of such shorthand/. would be even more verbose and unbearable than it currently is. But thanks for keeping me on my toes!
So Linux/Un*x vendors should unite, and not compete (too much).
I couldn't disagree with this less. The whole reason MS sucks is that there is no genuine competition driving quality and innovation. And nothing driving them to satisfy the customer in a real sense.
By having strong competition between the n*xes we see a diverse marketplace, with a breadth of solutions offering something new, old, original, well tested and everything else thats out there.
Focusing on MS as 'the enemy' sets everything off on the wrong foot. And predjudices the objectives for everyone concerned. Surely becoming the best n*x is WAY harder and more fun than 'being better than MS'.
'Unite behind the dream' sounds a bit too much like communism for my liking - nice idea, never works!
pulsing boogers sound cool - kinda like the logical end result of clubbers waving those stupid glowing wiggly sticks around back in the days of acid and alcohol before this E stuff came along. I assume in 2053 your onto G or H?
As a result, five-year earnings growth for TV station groups could fall from as much as 10 percent to as low as 4 percent.'
We're not predicting a loss making situation here, or even a 'borderline breakeven', we're just predicting a slowing in the rate of growth of the companies.
Were TiVos slashing the profitability of the companies to the point where they lost money on the next 'last season' of Friends this would be a different story. As it stands they are 'not getting rich quite so quickly'. Awwww - poor babies!
I agree wholeheartedly. Perusing this mod I scrolled down to find the logo. Surely something original here, I thought, not just a big X. He added a 2 - but the quality of the logo is poor - both aesthetically and technically.
The 'most ultimate' Mod on any hardware should combine technical and design excellence to produce something genuinely entertaining (even if the entertainment only lasts 10 seconds).
Personally I'd rather see a plain vanilla Dell Dimension box with a plexiglass DVD tray than this hideous monster. Subtle.
Any humour starting with the phrase 'As a woman' will be piss poor - guaranteed! Anything floowing this phrase can be replaced with ' I think all men are dicks' without losing any data. As this is a 100% accurate rule, the whole "As a woman I think all men are dicks" can be shortened to "F" - as all women really think all men are dicks.
Correct. Listen guys! Just because a chick shows a bit of midriff doesn't mean she's hot. Admittedly the young lady 'isn't bad' - but I feel I should point out that 'HOT' and 'HOTTER THAN ANYTHING I'LL EVER GET WITHIN A COUNTRY MILE OF' are two different things.
Maybe its time/. lowered the tone and opened a new catergory - BRAINS AND HOT OR BRAINS AND NOT
Slashdot Mirror
Honestly! It is! The media get us all so self-concious by showing us 'better' stuff all the time - wether its /.ers talking about their dual P4 3GHz machines that they are retiring, or beyonces ass, or Tigers short game. We all know that the rest of the world is just waiting to take the piss when we say 'look at my [PC / Tits / Chipping] isn't it good'.
So chicks with perfectly nice boobs get them 'done' to look like everyone else who got them done, we all buy new machines before the old one is past it because we can't stand having a smaller number, and we pay a fortune to some 'pro' to show us how to chip better.
It's a sorry state of affairs.
To try and turn this tide - I should state that I am writing this on a 1GHz Inspiron with a dead battery, knackered mousepad, and no ink left on the a,s,n,m,shift(left), ctrl(left), Page Up (but surprisingly plenty in on Page Down - do you think they put tougher ink on page down? The only game I play on this machine is TOCA 2 - which runs just fine.
My boobs aren't as nice as beyonces - but then Im a guy so I shouldn't even HAVE boobs. Oh - and golf is for bald people - so I have a while before I'll be too worried about my chipping. I'm almost certain the shirt Im wearing is too young / cool for me though.
I think you'll find that the US has more Muslim fanatics than Morocco.
If you'd replaced the phrase 'muslim fanatics' with 'black guys' or 'foreigners' you wouldn't be modded 'Interesting' - thats for sure.
Burn my Karma people!
I have to hope your right. Trade agreements between the EU and North Africa are a massive problem - the EU acting like the big protectionist bunch of ass that it is!
Having more reliable, cheaper, and quicker trade channels should open up trade with North Africa greatly. One industry that leaps to mind is call centre outsourcing. When setting up a new call centre a reasonable number of people are sent to India (or wherever) to train the new staff.
If these people could be sent over land more cheaply to a similarly cheap market it could reduce the establishment cost significantly. This could have a serious impact on the average wage relatively quickly as the infrastructure is relatively quick to deploy! Certainly quicker than a new Honda factory.
My credit card company knows that on a typical weekend I spend an hour on Saturday morning at the supermarket. They could rob my house. It'd be worth it - unless all that money I spend on saturday afternoons in electrical and department stores is on gifts.
I'm a full on 1984 paranoid myself - but suspect that of the surveillence methods available - tracking which vehicles are speeding is one of the more inert. That said, after a couple of shandies and surrounded by people who buy everything using store loyalty cards I'd be denouncing my own idea as the first step down a slippery slope.
Sometimes compromise is required for the greater good. If I could negotiate ubiquitous speed cameras and a 75% reduction in traffic police that would be a worthwhile trade. When someone says 'could the cameras also flag up where stolen vehicles are?' we need to think a bit. 'Could parents sign up to see where their kids are when they lend them the car?' we think a bit harder. "Can parents see where their kids are in the kids OWN car?" absolutely not. Although many would think this an excellent idea.
My credit card company can now know that I just spent 50 on fuel, and am hammering along the M1 away from my house on Christmas Eve! Now THERES a house worth breaking into.
But I don't drive! I cycle - so I have an inherent hatered for the motorist - so if they land up robbed or in room 101 I'm not too fussed!
But try to make me register my bike and see some trouble!
this argument is bullshit
And why wont it happen - because people cant be arsed to be political any more. If everyone just refused to say who was driving the vehicle (as we are entitled to do under EU law) and wouldnt pay and signed petitions to change the law Im betting it would happen quickly enough.
Bullshit my ass!
This is where I start to lose the will to live. If you start with the assumption that speed limits are too low and so speeding is NOT dangerous (at least its not when I do it), and you assume catching speeders is solely a cash raising excercise automated capture seems evil.
If we have automated capture that catches and fines 100% of offenders - and that fucks up peoples lives far enough - the law will change. And then we're not all doing 85 in a 70 limit. We're doing 85 in an 85 limit.
Automated capture also costs less, on the whole, so the good policemen and women can be out hunting down murderers and the like - instead of fighting the endless war against speeding.
Personally - I find that quite attractive - assuming everyone stops being pussies and actually gives a fuck about CHANGING laws, not just BREAKING them.
SHIT - my hat!! my hat!!! WHERES MY TINFOIL HAT!!!!! that fucking cat has taken it again I bet!
Ive played starship titanic - excellent piece of kit! I meant 'text message adventure' as in text message to your mobile phone!
Another area in which the world is poorer for the lack of a Douglas Adams wandering (or more likely flying first class) around it.
I would have LOVED to see him tackle a 'text message adventure' along the lines of the old infocom classics. He has written a number of pieces (some of which are collected in salmon of doubt) about how much he enjoyed this marrage of writing and computing. The flexibility and restrictions of the medium would have led to something pretty neat I'm guessing. Of course - then he'd have pissed another 10 years down the drain discussing making it into a movie with Disney!
Damn I want to swap to another paralel universe sometimes. One where Adams did EVERYTHING we think he'd have been good at, and where Britney Spears lives next door and cooks me pastries for breakfast on sundays!
Stupid laws that cost thousands of extra police hours not only waste tax-payers money, they take police from their real job
Couldnt agree more. But this isnt the main culprit. Globally more is spent on 'THE WAR ON DRUGS' and chasing criminals who only steal to feed their habits than on ANYTHING ELSE. Apologies for the caps - just trying to be sensationalist because Im talking about drugs - which we all know are REALLY SCARY AND BAD.
Of course - these kids coul dhave been P2Ping to support a crack habit. It all comes back to wasted money on THE WAR ON DRUGS...
I had a similar commute for a couple of years - about an hour doing between 50 and 80 MPH.
Now imagine that done at 4 times the speed - the hour becomes 15 minutes. I could get 45 minutes more sleep every morning, and 45 minutes more beer / TV / Sex / Xbox in the evenings.
Over the course of a year thats a whole lot of extra EVERYTHING. Roll on the new trains!
most of us are either too scared or lazy to do it
Exactly. I've started up and it was hard and it still is but its a bucketload more fun that working for the boss! 90% of the businesspeople I meet are intellectually, socially, and every other way inferior to 90% of 'nerdyboys' Ive known. Get out there and try it chaps - its worth it!
One word of warning though
I have a good friend who is definitely more salesman than geek. I told him an idea. His response was, "I know right now who I could sell that to, if you can make it."
Thats what EVERY salesman Ive ever met says about EVERY idea Ive ever told them. Having wasted a six figure sum paying these guys to sell stuff they claimed would be 'easy - I know 100 phone numbers who will DEFENITLY buy this' - its not that easy!
Money is never the problem - its control! If theres one thing nerds like its control!
First lesson you should learn from ANY degree course is that 90% of what they teach you is bollocks.
Government grants, throughout the globe, are only given to companies who will succeed anyway - or who are working on a politically 'nice' area. I've run my own business since 93 and havent met ONE entrepreneur with a good thing to say for them.
Rich uncles are well and good - but they can be a bigger pain in the ass than the bank because they think you owe them. UNless youve always had a strong relationship with your uncle avoid avoid avoid.
Angels. Angels are only in it for the VERY short term in most cases. Drop in sub-100K and get out within a 2-3 year window with >250K. Thats your basic angel sum. You do NOT own your IP as the Angel wants to own some of the company - depending on the angel and perceived risk 50 to 90% is not uncommon.
So - some truth to what you say. But not the whole picture. It still just boils down to credit cards, mortgage extensions, and eating toast 3 times a day.
If you enjoy this stuff have a look at the master of large format photography, Andreas Gursky. Gursky, for me, adds the 'art' to the photography that Mr GigaPixel somehow misses. Im impressed as hell by the scale and detail of Gigapixels work, but theres something just ... better about Gursky.
If you hear of any of his work near you go and see it - viewing on screen doesnt do it justice.
If I had any advice for MrGigaPixel (as I hope he will now be named) it would be to find the printing mix which best displays his work, and to ONLY release as exceptionally high quality art prints - not cheap posters. It might be easier to make a buck with posters, but its possible to earn a mint with print. (as my old art teacher used to say)
Hurrah - I KNEW there were some gay people on /.
/. - if its good enough for gay people its good enough for me!
Everyone knows a group isn't complete until it has a gay member! Now I dont have to be ashamed of using
its always the supplimentary info thats most revealing. The future was sounding great until you revealed they still have DANCING!!! Ever since that last combination of me, alcohol, 'crazy in love' and a beyonce impression I've gone dance cold turkey.
I even gave my dancemat PS2 controllers to my cousin!
The only way to compete with MS is to prevent them from growing their market share too much. And if you just concentrate on competing with other Unices, then you (and the other Unices) will lose, because behind your back MS will eat the total Un*x-likes market share.
I just dont buy that assertion. A few years ago in the UK if you wanted a non-shit / non-luxury car and you werent a freak you bought a Ford. SImple as that. Some people had vauxhalls and VWs but the vast majority drove a ford.
Had all the other companies grouped together to make a 'better than ford' or with the objective of 'limiting Fords market share' I doubt they'd have made a decent car among them. Just look at the british car industry of the 70s 80s (all german owned now).
No. All the individual companies trotted off to make the best car with no regard to specific competition. We got the german, spanish, japanese and a host of eastern block imports which, bit by bit, proved to fill niche after niche better than the 3 Fords which were available.
Want a 'hot hatch' - VW, got a big family, get a Renault, etc...
Same principle with nixes! Make me the perfect nix for running my home entertainment, for running my mailserver, for running my reception desktops and I'll convert. One size NEVER fits all.
PHB doesnt base decisions on numbers like you suggest! he just doesnt. He wants it reliable, cheap, and NOW!
When using a phrase like 'MS Sucks' on /. it is pretty obvious to the majority of the readership that this is shorthand for all the ills of the current MS monopoly on the business desktop (certainly in the context of this story).
/. would be even more verbose and unbearable than it currently is. But thanks for keeping me on my toes!
If everyone had to go into detail at every use of such shorthand
So Linux/Un*x vendors should unite, and not compete (too much).
I couldn't disagree with this less. The whole reason MS sucks is that there is no genuine competition driving quality and innovation. And nothing driving them to satisfy the customer in a real sense.
By having strong competition between the n*xes we see a diverse marketplace, with a breadth of solutions offering something new, old, original, well tested and everything else thats out there.
Focusing on MS as 'the enemy' sets everything off on the wrong foot. And predjudices the objectives for everyone concerned. Surely becoming the best n*x is WAY harder and more fun than 'being better than MS'.
'Unite behind the dream' sounds a bit too much like communism for my liking - nice idea, never works!
As off topic as it gets - but WTF does New Zealand need an army for? I know Aussies are a pain in the ass, but surely they are too lazy to invade!
Everyone else would get bored just trying to get close to the place!
pulsing boogers sound cool - kinda like the logical end result of clubbers waving those stupid glowing wiggly sticks around back in the days of acid and alcohol before this E stuff came along. I assume in 2053 your onto G or H?
I'd be kinda scared of getting ANY computing power embedded in my sinusses - that could really fucking hurt if a blob of solder went the wrong way!
As a result, five-year earnings growth for TV station groups could fall from as much as 10 percent to as low as 4 percent.'
We're not predicting a loss making situation here, or even a 'borderline breakeven', we're just predicting a slowing in the rate of growth of the companies.
Were TiVos slashing the profitability of the companies to the point where they lost money on the next 'last season' of Friends this would be a different story. As it stands they are 'not getting rich quite so quickly'. Awwww - poor babies!
I agree wholeheartedly. Perusing this mod I scrolled down to find the logo. Surely something original here, I thought, not just a big X. He added a 2 - but the quality of the logo is poor - both aesthetically and technically.
The 'most ultimate' Mod on any hardware should combine technical and design excellence to produce something genuinely entertaining (even if the entertainment only lasts 10 seconds).
Personally I'd rather see a plain vanilla Dell Dimension box with a plexiglass DVD tray than this hideous monster. Subtle.
Female Humour
Any humour starting with the phrase 'As a woman' will be piss poor - guaranteed! Anything floowing this phrase can be replaced with ' I think all men are dicks' without losing any data. As this is a 100% accurate rule, the whole "As a woman I think all men are dicks" can be shortened to "F" - as all women really think all men are dicks.
Next week - Seinfeld Explained
Correct. Listen guys! Just because a chick shows a bit of midriff doesn't mean she's hot. Admittedly the young lady 'isn't bad' - but I feel I should point out that 'HOT' and 'HOTTER THAN ANYTHING I'LL EVER GET WITHIN A COUNTRY MILE OF' are two different things.
/. lowered the tone and opened a new catergory - BRAINS AND HOT OR BRAINS AND NOT
Maybe its time