Angel to Buffy: Here's a magic amulet. The writers didn't bother to come up with a backstory for it. And now that I've spoken, union rules say I have to be paid for the whole episode. (Angel Leaves.)
Buffy to Spike: Here's a magic amulet. Let's shag.
Buffy to Willow: I need a spell.
Willow: I'm scared.
Buffy: Don't worry. The writers didn't bother to look up the latin. All you have to do is sit and look constipated.
Willow: I can do that; I had bran today!
Wood to Faith: I'm better looking than you, skank.
Andrew: I'm a geek. Wheeeee!
(Inside the Hellmouth)
Kennedy: Look at all the vampires.
Buffy: Don't worry. Willow's spell made you all slayers.
Kennedy: Why didn't we do this in episode 3 this season? Then we could have had time for some good episodes.
Buffy: Shut up ho, and kill uber-vamps.
Kennedy: Hey, how come one of these uber-vamps kicked Buffy's arse six ways to sunday for two episodes, yet now we're killing thousands of them.
Faith. Shut up and kill uber-vamps.
The First: Neener neener neener
Buffy: Beat it, bitch.
Spike: Woo hoo, me necklace is killing all the uber-vamps.
Kennedy: Shame angel couldn't have brought it in episode 3, then we could have...
Spike: stuff it, wanker.
Anya: Hey, how come I have to be the only one to die?
(Above ground)
Dawn: Hey look, the whole town's gone, fallen into a pit.
Cordelia: I always said Sunnydale was a pit.
Xander: Beat it, slut, you're not in this show anymore.
Cordelia: oops.
Willow: So, what do we do now?
Buffy: fuckifiknow.
Think of the systems used by the telcos, or NASA. Are they perfect? No, but they are much, much more stable than Win32, or Mac, or Linux. The reason is simple, the owners demand them to be.
This reminds me of a story I read in the internal magazine of a telecomunications equipment supplier that I used to work for. It was about an international toll switch somewhere in the U.K. that had been up for 17 years (or something extreme like that.) Furthermore, this included having all of its hardware upgraded and replaced. Twice.
Just stop and think about that for a while in PC terms... "I replaced my motherboard with the power on without rebooting my system, while it was serving 10,000 web pages a second."
Granted, this is a higher level of hardware with full redundancy, but it still boggles my mind.
- He gives one a bomb - He gives an anvil to one falling by parachute - He hits a sumo wrestler with a mallet - He gives grenades disguised as ice cream to a bunch,
but he never shoots any.
They're not as rare as you think. Two years ago someone posted.RM's of all the "banned" bugs bunny cartoons to the net. Lots of us still have them on our hard drives...
One of the saddest days of my computing life was when I retired my last Apollo computer. I can't find a good picture of the keyboard on the 'net,
this one will have to do.
Note the extra 23 keys in the keypads to the left of the main keyboard and above the keypad. It's hard to explain what they all did if you're not familiar with the Apollo DM user interface, but basically you had keys for:
cut,copy,paste: Point mouse anywhere on screen and hit key; cut either selection or whatever was in the area of the mouse
again: point mouse at any command in a window, hit key, command is executed again (like double-click, drag, middle-click in xterm but without all the gymnastics)
arrow keys that moved the mouse so you didn't have to take your hands off the keyboard...
open shell window, open editor window, open
editor window read only,...
page up, page down (nothing unusual there,) page left, page right for when editing those huge images or documents...
window system command: think +nw+ret to change stacking order of windows where your cursor is. Anything you could do with the mouse you could do with two-letter commands and the window command key...
Of course, HP bought apollo and killed the line. And now instead of 23 keys that were actually useful, we all have 12 function keys that almost no application ever uses...
Interesting how none of the "top 20" of the power graph are any of the original online journalists that predated and led to the whole blogging phenomenon.
Guess this says something about the long-term value of "first mover advantage;" Even though you're first into a market, it doesn't guarantee that you'll stay there.
Re:The predicted chain of events according to me
on
Giant Sucking Noise
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Bzzt. You can't argue truncate a globalization argument like that...
Try
American corporations farm out more labor to other countries. That means local workers here are out of work.
Foreign worker has salary increase by a high percentage
Because fixed costs are lower in foreign country and marginal propensity to spend is approximately equal, foreign worker spends more money on goods & services than US worker would have
Many of which are provided by US corporations
Causing Net Exports to increase in USA
Causing GDP to increase in USA
Causing investment to increase in USA
Causing jobs to be created
Local worker gets new job with higher standard of living due to higher GDP above
And I'm really sure that you always pay the extra for the brand name over the generic groceries, buy the triple cost pharmaceudicals instead of the generics, pay premiums above MSRP when buying cars, washing machines & other durables instead of taking advantage of sales...
I got the feeling that part of the reason that StarCraft was so fun was because you could be creative and play strategies that the developers hadn't intended. [...] in WC3, they capped the unit limit much lower and added the annoying concept of "upkeep".
Strategies that the designers hadn't intended? You mean "Zerg Rush from the left instead of Zerg Rush from the right?" Or BattleShip Rush with 24 battleships instead of 8? Or (insert whatever here) rush?
Almost every RTS degernates into "he[1] who gathers resources best wins, regarless of everything else." I remember reading an interview when they said that they were trying to change that model for WC3, hence the upkeep and small caps.
[1] I almost said "he or she;" what was I thinking?
[The telephone..] rings a lot and half the time I don't want to answer it. But I've got to [get up to] check the Caller ID to see if I want to answer it or not. How do I ally myself with this technology?
Technology to the rescue. Get a Nortel 9516 phone. (about $100 US.) Has calling line ID and integrated voice mail, but the best feature is that it supports voice tags.
Enter a number into its directory and then speak into the phone to set the tag... Then, when (for example) Joe calls, the phone will say out loud "Joe is calling." If you don't answer it, it can go a personalized voice-greeting that you recorded specifically for Joe saying "I'm at the bar desperately trying to forget the server crash... Come help me get loaded." Anyone who you haven't set a personal voice-mail message for gets the default one.
Anti-telespam bonus: You can program "Unknown Number" to go directly to a message saying "Please add me to your do-not-call list... Please add me to your do-not-call list..." and set it so they can't leave a message.
Disclaimer: I used to work for Nortel but sold all my stock when it was still worth something, so I have no further interest in promoting their products, other than the fact that this is a cool phone and I have one myself.
Funny this should come up now... I just saw something about pay-phones in the Facts & Arguments column of friday's Globe and Mail (italics mine...)
In October, a shopping mall devoted to 1960s-and-earlier nostalgia
opened in Tokyo, The New York Times says. Ichome Shotengai (District 1
Shopping Area), which attracts the elderly, has been doing booming
business in an otherwise flat Japanese economy. "Increasingly, young
people are turning up to gawk at the artifacts of a world they never
knew -- boxy televisions that play tapes of the original
black-and-white shows, beauty salons with posters of big, beehive
hairdos and public telephone booths with rotary dial phones.
In a
country where almost everyone under 30 owns a cellphone, it is not
uncommon to see young people step into the booths unaware that the
caller has to turn the dial to operate the old phones."
This whole thing with 802.11 antennas is getting way out of hand... I mean, really, all these people investing time and (not much) money into building things with their own two hands instead of throwing money at corporations! The very idea! And recycling things like cookie or potato chip cans instead of dumping them in landfills where they belong!
Fortunatly, people are now realizing that
only terrorists use 802.11, so soon the police will start profiling people seen with cans of pringles and shipping them off to prison.
I know I'll feel much safer... But what will then these terror-hackers be doing? How long until we see a frontpage slashdot story on How I built an 802.11 network using three frozen chickens and a '57 chevy?!?
Because generally IT workers are strongly against it... Many of them fit the stereotype of "I must dominate by being thought smarter than the others" and thus resist unionization because they fear that they will be judged on something other than intellectual domination, or that they will ever have to be part of a "united front."
Why is laying off workers and re-hiring them as contractors not illegal?
Because government makes laws, businesses donate to government, and workers just whine because they have no cohesive voice (see item 1.) How many techs do you know who would be willing to participate in a general strike or walkout to protect rights of others? I think it'd be more like "If they need protection, that shows they're not elite enough and should be culled."
Why is government allowing foreign workers?
Because they're well trained, extremely happy to be making a huge wage (compared to at home) and thus work hard, don't have the whole "cowboy" attitude and work well in teams?
Why does this kind of article make me sick?
Because you're assuming that the world should work according to your way of thinking instead of the way it actually does.
I don't understand the fundamental rules of business. I don't believe that perception plays any part in a working relationship and feel that you should judge me solely on my 31337 coding skillz, even if you have no proof of them other than my word. I don't play well in teams unless everyone is exactly like me. I want to show you that I'm not dependable and have no fundamental interpersonal skills by quitting if I disagree with anything you ask of me instead of rationaly discussing the issue and seeing if we can compromise.
Is that really the impression you're trying to present? Because it's the one you are...
I hate to be pedantic, but ITYM something like "loaded labour rate."
"Gross pay" is what the employee recieves before personal taxxes are deducted, leaving "net pay." In other words, if you make 100k a year, your "gross pay" will be about 100k and your "net" somewhat less (depending on country.)
Above "gross pay" is all the invisible (to the employee, but not to the employer) costs that you mention that lead to the "loaded labour rate," or the cost to employ that person.
I knew that accounting course would come in useful someday!
One studio recently signed a deal to make Doom a motion picture.
Two hours of shaky video, all in first-person perspective, while a guy with a camera on his shoulder runs around in the sewers shooting CGI monsters...
And to think; I'd almost given up faith in hollywood to make good movies.
Ask yourself, how many dotcom tales of people agreeing to work without pay for a while; work long hours; all the rest of it, you've heard. Now, how many of those companies actually survived by doing that? Next to none?
Now ask yourself how many of those unemployed coders would be more than happy to take your job when you get fired for not putting in the overtime?
I'd say it's funny, but it's actually really depressing. During the boom, people were worked to death because of the emphisis on short-term stock gains (lower employee costs == higher profits.) After the bust, people are being worked to death to try and keep companies afloat (lower employee costs == longer run-time on fixed ammount of $$)
It's very hard to challenge what people believe to be true, be it management theories, religion, C++ vs. Java, whatever. All the statistics, reports, copies of Peopleware you wave at your managers won't make a difference if they believe "more work" is the magic bullet.
And unfortunatly, sometimes it's the only bullet available. Time Slip = Lost Chance at Revenue, Feature Slip = Lost Customer, etc.
ObRandomOnTopic: My company sent us all an email earlier this week saying the upcoming long weekend was to be treated as a "normal weekend," i.e. you are expected to be at work. Feh.
I think I used to work for one of your competitors...
One nice thing about vertical markets is they actually have a lot in common. The afforementioned company started in Dental software, then branched out into vision care software, then private medical practice software. In all, each new "market" was a change to about 4-5% of the code.
If you're going after these markets, the most important thing is to listen to the customers. And it doesn't hurt to get the chair of the regional professional board as a customer, either;)
Disclaimer: It's been a long time since I had to deal with this...
Format is:
Codeset digit (1), always constant
Manufacturer ID (5)
Product ID (5)
Checksum digit (1)
The reason they're not going to 14+ digits is they're really just becomming compatable with the rest of the world, which uses 13 digits, and hoping to steal some unallocated number ranges in there (shades of IP Addresses.) Going to 14+ would be a worldwide change, which is, obviously, somewhat harder to accomplish.
Slashdot Mirror
Buffy to Spike: Here's a magic amulet. Let's shag.
Buffy to Willow: I need a spell.
Willow: I'm scared.
Buffy: Don't worry. The writers didn't bother to look up the latin. All you have to do is sit and look constipated.
Willow: I can do that; I had bran today!
Wood to Faith: I'm better looking than you, skank.
Andrew: I'm a geek. Wheeeee!
(Inside the Hellmouth)
Kennedy: Look at all the vampires.
Buffy: Don't worry. Willow's spell made you all slayers.
Kennedy: Why didn't we do this in episode 3 this season? Then we could have had time for some good episodes.
Buffy: Shut up ho, and kill uber-vamps.
Kennedy: Hey, how come one of these uber-vamps kicked Buffy's arse six ways to sunday for two episodes, yet now we're killing thousands of them.
Faith. Shut up and kill uber-vamps.
The First: Neener neener neener
Buffy: Beat it, bitch.
Spike: Woo hoo, me necklace is killing all the uber-vamps.
Kennedy: Shame angel couldn't have brought it in episode 3, then we could have...
Spike: stuff it, wanker.
Anya: Hey, how come I have to be the only one to die?
(Above ground)
Dawn: Hey look, the whole town's gone, fallen into a pit.
Cordelia: I always said Sunnydale was a pit.
Xander: Beat it, slut, you're not in this show anymore.
Cordelia: oops.
Willow: So, what do we do now?
Buffy: fuckifiknow.
(Fade to black)
It's not like it'd be so far off where the show is now...
Wait a minute... Did I just think that, or did I post it to slashdot? D'oh!
This reminds me of a story I read in the internal magazine of a telecomunications equipment supplier that I used to work for. It was about an international toll switch somewhere in the U.K. that had been up for 17 years (or something extreme like that.) Furthermore, this included having all of its hardware upgraded and replaced. Twice.
Just stop and think about that for a while in PC terms... "I replaced my motherboard with the power on without rebooting my system, while it was serving 10,000 web pages a second."
Granted, this is a higher level of hardware with full redundancy, but it still boggles my mind.
He never shoots the japanese;
.RM's of all the "banned" bugs bunny cartoons to the net. Lots of us still have them on our hard drives...
- He gives one a bomb
- He gives an anvil to one falling by parachute
- He hits a sumo wrestler with a mallet
- He gives grenades disguised as ice cream to a bunch,
but he never shoots any.
They're not as rare as you think. Two years ago someone posted
# Real games don't need no steenking hw
# abstraction, scheduler or VM - Write to
# hardware directly, foo!
.orig=$ffffa0a4 # Main h/w boot pointer
jbsr.l GameStart;
hacf;
Does this mean we have to hate google now? I don't want to go back to Altavista...
Note the extra 23 keys in the keypads to the left of the main keyboard and above the keypad. It's hard to explain what they all did if you're not familiar with the Apollo DM user interface, but basically you had keys for:
cut,copy,paste: Point mouse anywhere on screen and hit key; cut either selection or whatever was in the area of the mouse
again: point mouse at any command in a window, hit key, command is executed again (like double-click, drag, middle-click in xterm but without all the gymnastics)
arrow keys that moved the mouse so you didn't have to take your hands off the keyboard...
open shell window, open editor window, open editor window read only, ...
page up, page down (nothing unusual there,) page left, page right for when editing those huge images or documents...
window system command: think +nw+ret to change stacking order of windows where your cursor is. Anything you could do with the mouse you could do with two-letter commands and the window command key...
Of course, HP bought apollo and killed the line. And now instead of 23 keys that were actually useful, we all have 12 function keys that almost no application ever uses...
Guess this says something about the long-term value of "first mover advantage;" Even though you're first into a market, it doesn't guarantee that you'll stay there.
And I'm really sure that you always pay the extra for the brand name over the generic groceries, buy the triple cost pharmaceudicals instead of the generics, pay premiums above MSRP when buying cars, washing machines & other durables instead of taking advantage of sales...
Strategies that the designers hadn't intended? You mean "Zerg Rush from the left instead of Zerg Rush from the right?" Or BattleShip Rush with 24 battleships instead of 8? Or (insert whatever here) rush?
Almost every RTS degernates into "he[1] who gathers resources best wins, regarless of everything else." I remember reading an interview when they said that they were trying to change that model for WC3, hence the upkeep and small caps.
[1] I almost said "he or she;" what was I thinking?
Technology to the rescue. Get a Nortel 9516 phone. (about $100 US.) Has calling line ID and integrated voice mail, but the best feature is that it supports voice tags.
Enter a number into its directory and then speak into the phone to set the tag... Then, when (for example) Joe calls, the phone will say out loud "Joe is calling." If you don't answer it, it can go a personalized voice-greeting that you recorded specifically for Joe saying "I'm at the bar desperately trying to forget the server crash... Come help me get loaded." Anyone who you haven't set a personal voice-mail message for gets the default one.
Anti-telespam bonus: You can program "Unknown Number" to go directly to a message saying "Please add me to your do-not-call list... Please add me to your do-not-call list..." and set it so they can't leave a message.
Disclaimer: I used to work for Nortel but sold all my stock when it was still worth something, so I have no further interest in promoting their products, other than the fact that this is a cool phone and I have one myself.
Fortunatly, people are now realizing that only terrorists use 802.11, so soon the police will start profiling people seen with cans of pringles and shipping them off to prison.
I know I'll feel much safer... But what will then these terror-hackers be doing? How long until we see a frontpage slashdot story on How I built an 802.11 network using three frozen chickens and a '57 chevy?!?
Why is there no Union for IT workers?
Because generally IT workers are strongly against it... Many of them fit the stereotype of "I must dominate by being thought smarter than the others" and thus resist unionization because they fear that they will be judged on something other than intellectual domination, or that they will ever have to be part of a "united front."
Why is laying off workers and re-hiring them as contractors not illegal?
Because government makes laws, businesses donate to government, and workers just whine because they have no cohesive voice (see item 1.) How many techs do you know who would be willing to participate in a general strike or walkout to protect rights of others? I think it'd be more like "If they need protection, that shows they're not elite enough and should be culled."
Why is government allowing foreign workers?
Because they're well trained, extremely happy to be making a huge wage (compared to at home) and thus work hard, don't have the whole "cowboy" attitude and work well in teams?
Why does this kind of article make me sick?
Because you're assuming that the world should work according to your way of thinking instead of the way it actually does.
Is that really the impression you're trying to present? Because it's the one you are...
If this doesn't sound like the real world, then you obviously don't live in Silicon Valley. Example: Note the lovely boards over all the windows and the rotting walls on this 900 square foot home! only $489,000!
Any semi-localized windfall, legitimate or otherwise, even if it only affects a small percentage of the population, is going to drive up prices.
As someone who's spent some time trying to get work overseas, I feel I must say Source, please.
Most companies in Europe seem to be not hiring, and almost all make it hard to get visas (unless, of course, you plan to do low-paid manual labour.)
"Gross pay" is what the employee recieves before personal taxxes are deducted, leaving "net pay." In other words, if you make 100k a year, your "gross pay" will be about 100k and your "net" somewhat less (depending on country.)
Above "gross pay" is all the invisible (to the employee, but not to the employer) costs that you mention that lead to the "loaded labour rate," or the cost to employ that person.
I knew that accounting course would come in useful someday!
Have one of these hit the ol' chevy on blocks and hey, ice for your beer.
Two hours of shaky video, all in first-person perspective, while a guy with a camera on his shoulder runs around in the sewers shooting CGI monsters...
And to think; I'd almost given up faith in hollywood to make good movies.
Now ask yourself how many of those unemployed coders would be more than happy to take your job when you get fired for not putting in the overtime?
I'd say it's funny, but it's actually really depressing. During the boom, people were worked to death because of the emphisis on short-term stock gains (lower employee costs == higher profits.) After the bust, people are being worked to death to try and keep companies afloat (lower employee costs == longer run-time on fixed ammount of $$)
It's very hard to challenge what people believe to be true, be it management theories, religion, C++ vs. Java, whatever. All the statistics, reports, copies of Peopleware you wave at your managers won't make a difference if they believe "more work" is the magic bullet.
And unfortunatly, sometimes it's the only bullet available. Time Slip = Lost Chance at Revenue, Feature Slip = Lost Customer, etc.
ObRandomOnTopic: My company sent us all an email earlier this week saying the upcoming long weekend was to be treated as a "normal weekend," i.e. you are expected to be at work. Feh.
One nice thing about vertical markets is they actually have a lot in common. The afforementioned company started in Dental software, then branched out into vision care software, then private medical practice software. In all, each new "market" was a change to about 4-5% of the code.
If you're going after these markets, the most important thing is to listen to the customers. And it doesn't hurt to get the chair of the regional professional board as a customer, either ;)
But I can't decide what my reaction should be:
Format is:
The reason they're not going to 14+ digits is they're really just becomming compatable with the rest of the world, which uses 13 digits, and hoping to steal some unallocated number ranges in there (shades of IP Addresses.) Going to 14+ would be a worldwide change, which is, obviously, somewhat harder to accomplish.