I agree with most of what you've said, but I don't think the secret shopper idea is a good one. I think something that can't be mistaken for a bomb but that's emphasised as being just as important to spot if you want to keep your job is the way to go. For example keep your eyes out for a certain rare type of boom box (stereo). Something along those lines
There are 2 advantages with this technique:
1) Secret shopper doesn't get a bullet in the head for their trouble if things go wrong. 2) Security staff still alert but not to bombs.
The only disadvantage I can think of is if it's overemphasised the real threat of a bomb might be ignored. ie. You'd have to allow the occassional missed boom box before you threatened to fire someone or they'd be so focused on finding boom boxes that they might miss the real bombs. Of course you'd also follow up with training on bomb identification as a separate excercise.
In this case no one was hurt but they do shoot suspected suicide bombers if you haven't heard.
As for analogies being awful and always being avoided that's a very extreme point of view. There are literally millions of learned men throughout the ages that would disagree with you, but since they don't count I'm not so arrogant I think my point of view will sway you. However I will point out I didn't start with the analogies and that you only attacked the analogies that didn't support your point of view.
Go tell the realtives I'm "Just getting wacky". Those were standing orders to shoot first and ask questions later, not some random "unfortunate" incident.
"Think of the children" my left nut. If you can't argue the point instead of getting personal or insulting don't post. You're just annoyed someone can have an opinion that doesn't agree with yours.
Okay if you were on a plane, and an inflight emergency was declared because an engine had died, and you later found out it was just a drill would you argue that it's okay that you thought you were going to die because most pilots and passengers will never see a real event? Now what would happen if a loved one died because a drill like this went wrong? I bet you'd sue the company black and blue
You do realise they shoot suspected terrorist bombers and ask questions later don't you?
I don't know. If a situation where you suspect someone of carrying a bomb is not life or death what is? You realise suspected terrorists have been shot dead on less don't you? It's 3am here so I can't be bothered linking.
There's another thing to be mindful of here and that is that military applications are different to civilian (or at least should be). Your average citizen should not expect to be put in a life or death situation, whereas that is what the military is paid to do - defend even at the cost of their lives.
I would argue that there are ways of increasing proficiency to the same level that don't involve the brazen risks I believe are taken here. A false positive on finding a bomb is certainly not something to brush off.
Academics often have a certain narrow point of view.
You do realise it takes both practical people and academics to make the world go round right? Just as you realise that being condescending isn't going to make you any friends? Or perhaps you fit a different stereotype...
You want an adrenaline rush to keep you alert when the real thing happens. Adrenaline isn't a bad thing as long as you know how to use it to your advantage.
Let me get this straight. You're saying people working like robots is a good thing???
Hope you're never my boss! By the way my bosses would never question a little personal web browsing so long as it doesn't interfeer with getting my work done.
*shakes head* I can't believe lots of people are saying things like this. No offence but you have no idea what you're talking about.
To use your own example you don't simulate in flight emergencies on real flights. You do it in a controlled environment usually in a simulator. If you don't have access to that or want to do more realistic simulations you're very careful about recovery conditions (eg. you simulate an engine failure by throttling back to idle, but you don't actually cut your engine).
Similarly its only in the movies that you train soldiers and police by making them think their friend's just really been shot. In the real world you do controlled excercises that are separate to normal day to day operations to avoid psychological trauma and desensitization.
In the case of these baggage handlers they should be able to identify the bomb and calmly deal with the situation but the adrenaline should be flowing nonetheless.
I do agree with you on one thing. Yes the person did the right thing given the circumstances.
No, it's you that's not making sense. You're saying that in order to train someone to react to an extreme situation you have to constantly bombard them with false examples of that situation?
It's one thing to learn to identify a bomb on an X-ray machine. It's quite another to have them randomly flash the image through when you're actually doing the work then a "just kidding" message.
Hell that's like always training with live ammo. Sure you'll get soldiers who are use to the pressure but expect to send a few home in body bags.
That's insane. Images to test their alertness sure, but images of bombs? That's just plain crazy. All you're doing is desensitising them and guaranteeing that even if they're alert they won't get the adrenaline rush they should. What brainiac thought this one up?
My point _WAS_ that man sucks. It's not a suitable help system for a new user. It's suitable to a computer expert with a lot of time and patience. While your post was informative you implied that man was a wonderful system and that the only problem was that people didn't use it.
What I don't like about the man pages? On each of the Linux systems I've used the man pages are written in such a way that they assume you're a well versed Unix/Linux expert. Which of course is fine if you are (hence my comment that it's fine for a research project). If Linux were a car, the man pages would be like having the service manual to the car, but not the owners manual. Lots of technical jargon and refernces which are essential if you're doing something advanced, but confusing if you're just the end user who wants to get the damn thing working. Would you supply the service manual to a driver and abuse them if they couldn't from that figure out how to work the aircon?
I've got less experience with commercial Unix varieties - most of my uni time was on Solaris - but I found these pages to be just as bad.
So here you have two commands on the same page (man and manpath) and if you were new to Linux and didn't have eperience you'd have no idea that "name" refers to the name of the command you're looking up. The brevity is ludicrous for a newbie. You don't sit the guy in front of this and expect them to work out the help system. You tell them to type man followed by the command they want to search.
Next we see there's no simple example. (There's rarely an EXAMPLES section). How does the user know what options are and aren't needed except with experience and trial and error.
All of this just to lookup how to use the damned help system. God forbid you should try to do something useful.
Try typing the more intuitive equivalent "help" at a Windows CMD prompt:
C:\>help For more information on a specific command, type HELP command-name ASSOC Displays or modifies file extension associations. AT Schedules commands and programs to run on a computer....
Well even this could be improved, but notice it's not "name" it's "command-name". that's the parameter. I'd actually include something explicit as a header for command names rather than a listing with no header, or better yet ommit the command listing and add something like "help all" to get a listing of all commands then include a comment to that effect in the brief description.
It's not rocket science. It just isn't sane to expect a non-techy to wade through computer speak just because you're well versed in it and until Linux developers grow up and realise this Linux will stay where it is. Of course/. being/. people just think I'm trolling. That's fine. Bury your head in the sand and watch Linux remain a niche OS. *shrug*
Unfortunately most people have a mythbusters attitude towards science and tech. ie.
1) Lets not use the scientific method, or anything resembling it 2) Lets make wild generalisations which go well with our overinflated egos that say we're rarely if ever wrong 3) Let's blow stuff up! Cause it's cool man! Yeah I'm mature (which is why I hide my curiousity in the first place).
Trying to work out what the new offspring of celebrities X and Y actually means does not make you intellectually curious.
If anything I've noticed the science shows on TV, science columns in the paper etc. are being dumbed down EVEN MORE than they were when I was growing up - and that's saying something!
man was a wonderful help system for a research project in the 60s and 70s. It is not a help system worth spitting on. The actual help system and symantecs is awful and the content is even worse.
In case you think I'm totally ignorant, this comes from someone who's taught Unix system programming - I know -k, apropos and man sections. By the way I hope you realise different versions of man have different switches.
Yeah! Damn straight! And while we're at it, people murder each other it's just a fact. We could hire a police force to stop such things from happening but.....oh wait.
But what I see day to day in the IRC, very few new people do these very simple things. This is why we go off on them, they dont even try to find the answer on there own.
No, you "go off on them" because you have no social skills or tact. I might be marked down because of this but it's true.
*shakes* Where to begin with the problem in your attitude.
First of all when computers aren't a hobby or a job, it doesn't take much to experience a problem that's outside of your field of experience, and then the technical documentation can become unintelligble.
Lets try a concrete (though artificial example). A printer driver you have to install from source doesn't compile quite right. You've never had to compile something from scratch, and don't even know what a compiler is. You read that you need to upgrade your version of GCC. You've never heard of GCC and don't realise what it does but you do see gcc come up on the screen when you follow the instructions and type make. So you try to upgrade and you're not quite sure if you've done that right because you're not use to apt-get or yum or whatever variant of the same damn concept your particular installer uses. If you're really smart and take a few days with it you might learn enough to struggle through, but fat lot of good that's gonna do if you need to print something for work the next day. The steps under windows for getting your printer working were simple so you didn't expect any of this. So you try and post to a message board and someone abuses you for not understanding what a compiler does...as if every user has to have done a comp. sci. or info tech degree. Is this going to encourage you to learn, or is it going to make you swear back and walk away from Linux all together?
My example brings me to my next point. Often the solution to a problem with less mature, or new software is that the fixes require other parts of the system to be fixed or patched. That makes it really hard to learn because you keep getting side-tracked on the sub fixes. Your fix is all or nothing and must include all the sub-fixes. It's often easier to learn one thing at a time and as you encounter sub-problems ask other people about them so you're not overwhelmed. There's nothing wrong with this technique. Again if you find people are being unfriendly and you have better things to do you're quire likely to just go do them and drop Linux.
Finally getting back to your attitude. If you've got nothing constructive to say why on earth would you not just ignore the question? Why hurl abuse? Are you really so socially inept you need to take revenge on every newbie that makes you take 5 minutes to read their question? There really is no excuse for abusing someone who asks for your help when you can just walk away.
Sorry I must admit I missed the part about cropping. However again it doesn't require a mega-crop to benefit from a jump in megapixels. Going from 2MP to 8MP (4 times as many pixels - twice as many pixels vertically and horizontally), say you crop half the picture out (hardly "mega" cropping. Your 8MP camera is going to do much much much better at keeping the detail than the 2MP (assuming a good lens). This may mean being able to see the detail in your friend's face, be able to make out a marking on a bird you try to photograph etc. Even the casual consumer may want to do that.
I guess the reason I raised my eyebrows at your comment is that I'd argue that there's a real tangible difference between a 3MP camera and an 8MP one, whereas I couldn't care less about the posibility of slightly crisper pictures if and when I replace my DVD players.
Common mistake. You've basically shot yourself in the foot by being too honest in the exit interview. You did more than be too honest, you sound like you've done enough to be memorable. This means that at some point in the future someone's going to remember what you said and not hire you (consultant or permanent) because no one wants to hire someone who is sour, judgemental or critical of a former employer. Basically the company paid your wages for a long while and most people consider you to owe them some courtesy. I mean basic tact is an important skill. If you're the sort of person that walks up to his boss and says "You're an idiot" you're not going to get far (whether or not the title is richly deserved).
In your position, I'd have been careful how much I gave away. No need to kiss anyone's boots. Just let them ask their inane questions, answer politely and if it's not nice don't say it.
Sorry to nit pick but your photography analogy is terrible. First of all if you're cropping you'll see a benefit in increased megapixels, it's not just for people who blow up pictures to wall size.
The difference between 3MP and 8MP is huge. Just as the difference between 2MP and 4MP is significant. However 6MP to 8MP is nothing Why? Because the megapixel count is the coverage of pixels in area, not just in one dimension. What you should be comparing is the square root of the number (eg. to compare 2MP with 4MP compare their square roots sqrt(2) vs sqrt(4)).
Put more concretely your camera will take pictures at a roughly 4:3 ratio (width:height).
2MP ~= 1600x1200
4MP ~= 2288x1712 (43% increase in height and width over 2MP - worth the upgrade)
6MP ~= 3000x2000 (66% increase in height and width over 2MP - definitely worth the upgrade, 31% increase in height and width over 4MP - less compelling but still significant)
8MP ~= 3265x2250 (104% increase in height and width over 2MP - most definitely worth the upgrade - twice as many pixels in each direction!, 43% increase in height and width over 4MP - less compelling but still significant, 9% increase - you'd be crazy to upgrade from 6MP to 8MP)
This has always been a clever marketing deception by camera companies. No one's going to buy a new camera to get an increase of 9% width and height, but it looks like a 25% increase when you quote 6MP vs 8MP.
Similar marketing deception here with HD-DVD. It's fine if you're getting a whole new setup but if you're using your old tele you're wasting your money!
What're you thinking man? No really what on earth are you thinking???
Computers are fallible and work only in the conditions they're designed to (and sometimes not even then). They do have limited sensors and aren't aware of all the conditions required to make an informed choice. They may get to the point where they can one day, but not so soon that we should be leaving them in charge all the time.
Human beings are also fallible. A drunken fool behind the wheel who thinks they have an idea how to drive will be more of a threat than the computer. Sensible people also make mistakes. However while the human being isn't aware of the speed and traction of each tire, their ability to intuitively react to a situation currently far exceeds that of any current technology. It the human being hits a child on a bicycle the human being goes to court for vehicular manslaughter (or similar crime) not the damned traction system. If the human being is in charge and wears the responsibility they need to retain control of the equipment.
Basically, I and other slashdotters don't want the automative version of clippy driving my nuts due to its limited and possibly bad programming, and putting me in danger when _I'm_ the one responsible. So you better damn well give me the "turn off traction control" feature if you want me to buy your car. If all manufacturers go this way I can't wait till the day someone sues when the traction control kills or mames someone.
I couldn't give a damn about jackass enthusiasts who want to do wild burnouts. They can go buy specialised cars (and already do so). They can pay higher premiums to drive those cars, and keep to confined locations. I truly have no problem with that even though the argument that some of the skills learnt doing these things do transfer into life saving skills under normal situations aren't totally off base.
Its not some giant conspiracy here./.'s karma and scores are a popularity system. As long as you're saying something popular you'll be modded up. If you're saying something unpopular you'll be modded troll and flamebait. It really has nothing to do with how good or valid or correct the argument is.
Surely you realise how fortunate you are to have a job you find fun and exciting. The majority of jobs out there aren't like that. Some that start out that way end up being canned just as they're bearing fruit or being changed into something more akin to what the grandparent describes.
When you need to earn a crust it can be very easy to fall into work that at first is bearable then becomes a death march. When most of the jobs out there are like that it's harder than you think to get out of that situation. Intelligent people aren't usually self destructive on purpose. (There is always mental illness and instability but they're not the rule).
Slashdot Mirror
Great idea! Just what the world needs! More jobs where people die needlessly, but hey that's okay because they pay well. Disgusting attitude.
I agree with most of what you've said, but I don't think the secret shopper idea is a good one. I think something that can't be mistaken for a bomb but that's emphasised as being just as important to spot if you want to keep your job is the way to go. For example keep your eyes out for a certain rare type of boom box (stereo). Something along those lines
There are 2 advantages with this technique:
1) Secret shopper doesn't get a bullet in the head for their trouble if things go wrong.
2) Security staff still alert but not to bombs.
The only disadvantage I can think of is if it's overemphasised the real threat of a bomb might be ignored. ie. You'd have to allow the occassional missed boom box before you threatened to fire someone or they'd be so focused on finding boom boxes that they might miss the real bombs. Of course you'd also follow up with training on bomb identification as a separate excercise.
In this case no one was hurt but they do shoot suspected suicide bombers if you haven't heard.
As for analogies being awful and always being avoided that's a very extreme point of view. There are literally millions of learned men throughout the ages that would disagree with you, but since they don't count I'm not so arrogant I think my point of view will sway you. However I will point out I didn't start with the analogies and that you only attacked the analogies that didn't support your point of view.
Go tell the realtives I'm "Just getting wacky". Those were standing orders to shoot first and ask questions later, not some random "unfortunate" incident.
"Think of the children" my left nut. If you can't argue the point instead of getting personal or insulting don't post. You're just annoyed someone can have an opinion that doesn't agree with yours.
Okay if you were on a plane, and an inflight emergency was declared because an engine had died, and you later found out it was just a drill would you argue that it's okay that you thought you were going to die because most pilots and passengers will never see a real event? Now what would happen if a loved one died because a drill like this went wrong? I bet you'd sue the company black and blue
You do realise they shoot suspected terrorist bombers and ask questions later don't you?
Come on. There's a flaw in your thinking here!
I don't know. If a situation where you suspect someone of carrying a bomb is not life or death what is? You realise suspected terrorists have been shot dead on less don't you? It's 3am here so I can't be bothered linking.
There's another thing to be mindful of here and that is that military applications are different to civilian (or at least should be). Your average citizen should not expect to be put in a life or death situation, whereas that is what the military is paid to do - defend even at the cost of their lives.
I would argue that there are ways of increasing proficiency to the same level that don't involve the brazen risks I believe are taken here. A false positive on finding a bomb is certainly not something to brush off.
Academics often have a certain narrow point of view.
You do realise it takes both practical people and academics to make the world go round right? Just as you realise that being condescending isn't going to make you any friends? Or perhaps you fit a different stereotype...
I should've guessed it was an academic!
You want an adrenaline rush to keep you alert when the real thing happens. Adrenaline isn't a bad thing as long as you know how to use it to your advantage.
Let me get this straight. You're saying people working like robots is a good thing???
Hope you're never my boss! By the way my bosses would never question a little personal web browsing so long as it doesn't interfeer with getting my work done.
*shakes head* I can't believe lots of people are saying things like this. No offence but you have no idea what you're talking about.
To use your own example you don't simulate in flight emergencies on real flights. You do it in a controlled environment usually in a simulator. If you don't have access to that or want to do more realistic simulations you're very careful about recovery conditions (eg. you simulate an engine failure by throttling back to idle, but you don't actually cut your engine).
Similarly its only in the movies that you train soldiers and police by making them think their friend's just really been shot. In the real world you do controlled excercises that are separate to normal day to day operations to avoid psychological trauma and desensitization.
In the case of these baggage handlers they should be able to identify the bomb and calmly deal with the situation but the adrenaline should be flowing nonetheless.
I do agree with you on one thing. Yes the person did the right thing given the circumstances.
No, it's you that's not making sense. You're saying that in order to train someone to react to an extreme situation you have to constantly bombard them with false examples of that situation?
It's one thing to learn to identify a bomb on an X-ray machine. It's quite another to have them randomly flash the image through when you're actually doing the work then a "just kidding" message.
Hell that's like always training with live ammo. Sure you'll get soldiers who are use to the pressure but expect to send a few home in body bags.
That's insane. Images to test their alertness sure, but images of bombs? That's just plain crazy. All you're doing is desensitising them and guaranteeing that even if they're alert they won't get the adrenaline rush they should. What brainiac thought this one up?
My point _WAS_ that man sucks. It's not a suitable help system for a new user. It's suitable to a computer expert with a lot of time and patience. While your post was informative you implied that man was a wonderful system and that the only problem was that people didn't use it.
& section=0&type=2
...
...
/. being /. people just think I'm trolling. That's fine. Bury your head in the sand and watch Linux remain a niche OS. *shrug*
What I don't like about the man pages? On each of the Linux systems I've used the man pages are written in such a way that they assume you're a well versed Unix/Linux expert. Which of course is fine if you are (hence my comment that it's fine for a research project). If Linux were a car, the man pages would be like having the service manual to the car, but not the owners manual. Lots of technical jargon and refernces which are essential if you're doing something advanced, but confusing if you're just the end user who wants to get the damn thing working. Would you supply the service manual to a driver and abuse them if they couldn't from that figure out how to work the aircon?
I've got less experience with commercial Unix varieties - most of my uni time was on Solaris - but I found these pages to be just as bad.
Check the man page on man out here:
http://man.linuxquestions.org/index.php?query=man
NAME
man - format and display the on-line manual pages
manpath - determine user's search path for man pages
SYNOPSIS
man [-acdfFhkKtwW] [--path] [-m system] [-p string] [-C config_file]
[-M pathlist] [-P pager] [-S section_list] [section] name
So here you have two commands on the same page (man and manpath) and if you were new to Linux and didn't have eperience you'd have no idea that "name" refers to the name of the command you're looking up. The brevity is ludicrous for a newbie. You don't sit the guy in front of this and expect them to work out the help system. You tell them to type man followed by the command they want to search.
Next we see there's no simple example. (There's rarely an EXAMPLES section). How does the user know what options are and aren't needed except with experience and trial and error.
All of this just to lookup how to use the damned help system. God forbid you should try to do something useful.
Try typing the more intuitive equivalent "help" at a Windows CMD prompt:
C:\>help
For more information on a specific command, type HELP command-name
ASSOC Displays or modifies file extension associations.
AT Schedules commands and programs to run on a computer.
Well even this could be improved, but notice it's not "name" it's "command-name". that's the parameter. I'd actually include something explicit as a header for command names rather than a listing with no header, or better yet ommit the command listing and add something like "help all" to get a listing of all commands then include a comment to that effect in the brief description.
It's not rocket science. It just isn't sane to expect a non-techy to wade through computer speak just because you're well versed in it and until Linux developers grow up and realise this Linux will stay where it is. Of course
Unfortunately most people have a mythbusters attitude towards science and tech. ie.
1) Lets not use the scientific method, or anything resembling it
2) Lets make wild generalisations which go well with our overinflated egos that say we're rarely if ever wrong
3) Let's blow stuff up! Cause it's cool man! Yeah I'm mature (which is why I hide my curiousity in the first place).
Trying to work out what the new offspring of celebrities X and Y actually means does not make you intellectually curious.
If anything I've noticed the science shows on TV, science columns in the paper etc. are being dumbed down EVEN MORE than they were when I was growing up - and that's saying something!
man was a wonderful help system for a research project in the 60s and 70s. It is not a help system worth spitting on. The actual help system and symantecs is awful and the content is even worse.
In case you think I'm totally ignorant, this comes from someone who's taught Unix system programming - I know -k, apropos and man sections. By the way I hope you realise different versions of man have different switches.
Yeah! Damn straight! And while we're at it, people murder each other it's just a fact. We could hire a police force to stop such things from happening but.....oh wait.
But what I see day to day in the IRC, very few new people do these very simple things.
This is why we go off on them, they dont even try to find the answer on there own.
No, you "go off on them" because you have no social skills or tact. I might be marked down because of this but it's true.
*shakes* Where to begin with the problem in your attitude.
First of all when computers aren't a hobby or a job, it doesn't take much to experience a problem that's outside of your field of experience, and then the technical documentation can become unintelligble.
Lets try a concrete (though artificial example). A printer driver you have to install from source doesn't compile quite right. You've never had to compile something from scratch, and don't even know what a compiler is. You read that you need to upgrade your version of GCC. You've never heard of GCC and don't realise what it does but you do see gcc come up on the screen when you follow the instructions and type make. So you try to upgrade and you're not quite sure if you've done that right because you're not use to apt-get or yum or whatever variant of the same damn concept your particular installer uses. If you're really smart and take a few days with it you might learn enough to struggle through, but fat lot of good that's gonna do if you need to print something for work the next day. The steps under windows for getting your printer working were simple so you didn't expect any of this. So you try and post to a message board and someone abuses you for not understanding what a compiler does...as if every user has to have done a comp. sci. or info tech degree. Is this going to encourage you to learn, or is it going to make you swear back and walk away from Linux all together?
My example brings me to my next point. Often the solution to a problem with less mature, or new software is that the fixes require other parts of the system to be fixed or patched. That makes it really hard to learn because you keep getting side-tracked on the sub fixes. Your fix is all or nothing and must include all the sub-fixes. It's often easier to learn one thing at a time and as you encounter sub-problems ask other people about them so you're not overwhelmed. There's nothing wrong with this technique. Again if you find people are being unfriendly and you have better things to do you're quire likely to just go do them and drop Linux.
Finally getting back to your attitude. If you've got nothing constructive to say why on earth would you not just ignore the question? Why hurl abuse? Are you really so socially inept you need to take revenge on every newbie that makes you take 5 minutes to read their question? There really is no excuse for abusing someone who asks for your help when you can just walk away.
This article seems as much flamebait as anything.
Next time you go to the beach take a large bucket. You'll find it more convenient to bury your head in the sand if you have some handy.
Thanks for your reply.
Sorry I must admit I missed the part about cropping. However again it doesn't require a mega-crop to benefit from a jump in megapixels. Going from 2MP to 8MP (4 times as many pixels - twice as many pixels vertically and horizontally), say you crop half the picture out (hardly "mega" cropping. Your 8MP camera is going to do much much much better at keeping the detail than the 2MP (assuming a good lens). This may mean being able to see the detail in your friend's face, be able to make out a marking on a bird you try to photograph etc. Even the casual consumer may want to do that.
I guess the reason I raised my eyebrows at your comment is that I'd argue that there's a real tangible difference between a 3MP camera and an 8MP one, whereas I couldn't care less about the posibility of slightly crisper pictures if and when I replace my DVD players.
Common mistake. You've basically shot yourself in the foot by being too honest in the exit interview. You did more than be too honest, you sound like you've done enough to be memorable. This means that at some point in the future someone's going to remember what you said and not hire you (consultant or permanent) because no one wants to hire someone who is sour, judgemental or critical of a former employer. Basically the company paid your wages for a long while and most people consider you to owe them some courtesy. I mean basic tact is an important skill. If you're the sort of person that walks up to his boss and says "You're an idiot" you're not going to get far (whether or not the title is richly deserved).
In your position, I'd have been careful how much I gave away. No need to kiss anyone's boots. Just let them ask their inane questions, answer politely and if it's not nice don't say it.
Sorry to nit pick but your photography analogy is terrible. First of all if you're cropping you'll see a benefit in increased megapixels, it's not just for people who blow up pictures to wall size.
The difference between 3MP and 8MP is huge. Just as the difference between 2MP and 4MP is significant. However 6MP to 8MP is nothing Why? Because the megapixel count is the coverage of pixels in area, not just in one dimension. What you should be comparing is the square root of the number (eg. to compare 2MP with 4MP compare their square roots sqrt(2) vs sqrt(4)).
Put more concretely your camera will take pictures at a roughly 4:3 ratio (width:height).
2MP ~= 1600x1200
4MP ~= 2288x1712
(43% increase in height and width over 2MP - worth the upgrade)
6MP ~= 3000x2000
(66% increase in height and width over 2MP - definitely worth the upgrade, 31% increase in height and width over 4MP - less compelling but still significant)
8MP ~= 3265x2250
(104% increase in height and width over 2MP - most definitely worth the upgrade - twice as many pixels in each direction!, 43% increase in height and width over 4MP - less compelling but still significant, 9% increase - you'd be crazy to upgrade from 6MP to 8MP)
This has always been a clever marketing deception by camera companies. No one's going to buy a new camera to get an increase of 9% width and height, but it looks like a 25% increase when you quote 6MP vs 8MP.
Similar marketing deception here with HD-DVD. It's fine if you're getting a whole new setup but if you're using your old tele you're wasting your money!
What're you thinking man? No really what on earth are you thinking???
Computers are fallible and work only in the conditions they're designed to (and sometimes not even then). They do have limited sensors and aren't aware of all the conditions required to make an informed choice. They may get to the point where they can one day, but not so soon that we should be leaving them in charge all the time.
Human beings are also fallible. A drunken fool behind the wheel who thinks they have an idea how to drive will be more of a threat than the computer. Sensible people also make mistakes. However while the human being isn't aware of the speed and traction of each tire, their ability to intuitively react to a situation currently far exceeds that of any current technology. It the human being hits a child on a bicycle the human being goes to court for vehicular manslaughter (or similar crime) not the damned traction system. If the human being is in charge and wears the responsibility they need to retain control of the equipment.
Basically, I and other slashdotters don't want the automative version of clippy driving my nuts due to its limited and possibly bad programming, and putting me in danger when _I'm_ the one responsible. So you better damn well give me the "turn off traction control" feature if you want me to buy your car. If all manufacturers go this way I can't wait till the day someone sues when the traction control kills or mames someone.
I couldn't give a damn about jackass enthusiasts who want to do wild burnouts. They can go buy specialised cars (and already do so). They can pay higher premiums to drive those cars, and keep to confined locations. I truly have no problem with that even though the argument that some of the skills learnt doing these things do transfer into life saving skills under normal situations aren't totally off base.
Blind faith in technology is irrational.
Its not some giant conspiracy here. /.'s karma and scores are a popularity system. As long as you're saying something popular you'll be modded up. If you're saying something unpopular you'll be modded troll and flamebait. It really has nothing to do with how good or valid or correct the argument is.
Surely you realise how fortunate you are to have a job you find fun and exciting. The majority of jobs out there aren't like that. Some that start out that way end up being canned just as they're bearing fruit or being changed into something more akin to what the grandparent describes.
When you need to earn a crust it can be very easy to fall into work that at first is bearable then becomes a death march. When most of the jobs out there are like that it's harder than you think to get out of that situation. Intelligent people aren't usually self destructive on purpose. (There is always mental illness and instability but they're not the rule).
We'll have to agree to disagree I'm afraid.